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The Role of Weight Loss Surgery

Summary & Participants

For obese people who meet specific qualifications, surgery can provide a solution to weight loss troubles. Learn what role these procedures can play in improving health and in helping achieve successful weight loss.

Medically Reviewed On: July 23, 2008

Webcast Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Obesity is one of the biggest health crises today, with nearly two-thirds of the American population now classified as overweight or obese. Obesity is recognized as a leading health problem and a major cause of death in the United States.

DR. FELIX SPIEGEL: Obesity is a major medical problem because it causes life-threatening illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attacks, and it shortens people’s lives by up to 20 years.

ANNOUNCER: Additionally, obesity can impact a person both psychologically and socially, with depression being the most common symptom. But, obesity can also take an economic toll.

DR. JAIME PONCE: There’s studies that have shown that these people spend almost twice as much as a person that is not obese. Why is that? Because they have to pay the copay of their medicines, the visits to the doctors. And just simplistically, the clothing, the difficulty of doing some of the traveling arrangements, many other things will increase their spending.

ANNOUNCER: Although there are non-surgical weight loss methods such as diet and exercise programs, as well as medical treatments, they typically result in minor weight loss and are highly unsuccessful at maintaining any weight loss long term.

DR. JAIME PONCE: On average, you can lose about five to ten percent of your excess weight. The majority of the patients in studies show they can lose about 20 pounds. The problem with those programs is that they have a high failure rate in the long term. What happens is, 95% of the patients, if you follow them for three and four years, will regain that weight that they lost, and they gain a little bit more.

ANNOUNCER: By contrast, surgical weight loss has a much higher success rate both in terms of amount of weight lost and long-term durability.

DR. FELIX SPIEGEL: Weight loss surgery is done for permanent weight loss, and good weight loss surgery has at least ten year success rates of losing more than 50%, more than 60% of a person’s excess weight and maintaining it.

DR. GEORGE WOODMAN: The fact is, for 98% of individuals out there who are morbidly obese, they will never lose any significant weight and never keep that weight off without surgery. And that's a fact that's been proven over and over.

ANNOUNCER: Although weight loss surgery is not for everyone, it can play a vital role in losing weight and preventing many of the medical problems associated with obesity.

DR. GEORGE WOODMAN: The best way to treat obesity and the complications that come along with it is to prevent them from occurring. Patients that we see in the office suffer from every type of medical problem that you can imagine. What we need to be doing is trying to get to these patients and target these individuals before those problems occur. It only increases the risk of complications to wait for them to get sicker and sicker.

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