I read the news today, oh boy! Just when it seems science has developed a relatively "doable" alternative to lifelong obesity, other scientists come along and find something wrong with it.
Now we learn, courtesy of a new federal survey, four in every 10 patients who undergo bariatric or weight-loss surgery develop complications within six months. What's a member of Gen XXL to do?
One-third of American adults are obese. Obesity is growing among kids. Diabetes (one form of which almost always accompanies severe overweight) is responsible for 25 percent of all health-care costs — this in a society that's trying to trim, not increase, health-care expenses. If we could just conquer the obesity epidemic, and the diabetes it creates, we could slash health care significantly.
I remember the first time someone I knew underwent bariatric surgery. She was a lovely woman, quite physically active in her teens, who seemed imprisoned in her overweight. She'd gained 100 pounds with her first pregnancy, only to have it mushroom to 175 after her second. Years of dieting did nothing to return her to her pre-pregnancy weight.
Then I ran into her after not having seen her for about two years. I remember thinking, "Is that Joan?" (not her real name). That tall, thin woman vaguely resembled the woman I'd known for years, but that couldn't be she, I thought. And yet she was walking right toward me, smiling, arms open, acting as if she'd known me for years. It was Joan, 175 pounds lighter and much, much happier.
Bariatric surgery was just the beginning for her. She described to me the half-dozen or so subsequent surgeries she was in the midst of undergoing to tighten up the loose, hanging flesh her quick weight loss left behind. Still, she said, it was more than worth it. She could play baseball with her young son. She could ride horseback again. She was no longer a prisoner in her own body.
Before the release of the latest federal study, doctors reported between 10 percent and 20 percent of patients faced complications from bariatric surgery while still in the hospital. The new federal data show 39.6 percent of patients faced complications within 180 days of surgery.
The New York Times reports, the "most common complications included vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal hernias, infections, pneumonia and respiratory failure, as well as the leaking of gastric juices caused by imperfect surgical connections between the stomach and the intestines."
My sampling is anecdotal, not statistically based. The two other people I've known who had the surgery had complications — one minor, one more severe. Neither would have forgone the surgery.
One male friend (the husband of a close friend) has lost 85 pounds since having an inflatable silicone ring implanted around his stomach. He went in for traditional bariatric surgery (in which doctors reduce the stomach to the size of a walnut), but doctors decided there were too many layers of fat surrounding his colon to perform that procedure safely.
Aside from two weeks of bed rest and some nausea, he's been fine. He's exercising, reducing his intake and working on the next 70 pounds he wants to lose.
A distant cousin was a single young woman who needed to lose more than 100 pounds. She had the surgery and almost died when the stitches reopened. She went back into the hospital, had her stomach stitched back together, and lost the weight. She found and married a wonderful young man and says she would not have life any other way.
Obviously there are cases, perhaps many, where the outcome is too dangerous for the surgery to be worth it. But I've been hoping, instead, science would devise a modified, less-intrusive alternative for those of us who need to lose 20-30 pounds (I'm told only those needing to lose 100 pounds or more qualify for bariatric surgery).
Bariatric surgery is in its nascent phase. Let's hope we get the obesity epidemic under control so morbid overweight disappears like a storm cloud in the night. If not, this type of surgery is something to which Americans are going to need access for a long time to come.
Bonnie Erbe is a TV host and writes this column for Scripps Howard News Service. E-mail: bonnieerbe@CompuServe.com.