Many of us have been on some type of diet in our lives. Some of us have spent our entire lives trying the latest fad diet, each time ending up right back where we started. And 90 percent of diets fail in the long run.
More than 72 million Americans are obese or severely overweight. Each year, obesity causes at least 112,000 deaths in the United States, and it’s associated with numerous health problems: Type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension, gallstones, liver disease, sleep apnea, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), heart failure, degenerative joint disease, birth defects, miscarriages, asthma, and cancer.
If you’re more than 50 pounds over your ideal weight, you may benefit from weight-loss surgery. Weight-loss surgery – also known as bariatric surgery – once thought of as primarily a cosmetic procedure, can offer lifesaving health benefits. It’s estimated that in 2008, approximately 220,000 people in the U.S. had weight-loss surgery.
A 2004 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that bariatric surgery patients lost between 62 and 75 percent of their excess body weight. Beyond simple weight loss, there were significant improvements to chronic health conditions: 76.8 percent of bariatric surgery patients experienced remission of Type 2 diabetes; hypertension was eliminated in more than 61 percent of patients and significantly lowered in 78 percent; more than 70 percent experienced a drop in cholesterol levels; and sleep apnea was eliminated in more than 85 percent of patients.
