Bariatric surgery

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Bariatric surgery kills 5 percent of patients: Weight loss surgery takes deadly toll Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

If you do that, you don't need bariatric surgery. You'll lose weight as a side effect of making healthy food choices. Now, a few people will say, "I don't want to give up my nacho chips; they have MSG, but I don' t want to give those up. I don't want to give up eating my canned soup." It's always a choice for each and every person. If you choose that route, and you get super obese, you may end up needing bariatric surgery, because nothing else is going to lose weight for you, and guess what?

The madness of bariatric surgery and other "modern" surgical procedures Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

REPPED: It has now been widely reported that bariatric surgery (an aggressive form of weight loss surgery where patients' digestive organs are lobotomized) has an unintended side effect: low blood sugar. According to reports in USA Today, the New York Times, and dozens of other papers, some bariatric surgery patients are suffering from medically-dangerous low blood sugar brought on by this surgical procedure. The "solution" to this problem, as offered by U.S. surgeons, is to surgically remove part of the patient's pancreas.

With the aid of their scalpels, they are unleashing health horrors like bariatric surgery -- a procedure no more credible than the now-discredited frontal lobotomy which was once thought to cure insanity. The real insanity, it seems, is in the heads of the surgeons. Perhaps they should operate on each other... It's astounding to me that health insurance won't cover energy healing, acupuncture or chiropractic care (things that actually work to help patients heal), but it will gladly cover barbaric, costly procedures like bariatric surgery that maim patients for life.

According to reports in USA Today, the New York Times, and dozens of other papers, some bariatric surgery patients are suffering from medically-dangerous low blood sugar brought on by this surgical procedure. The "solution" to this problem, as offered by U.S. surgeons, is to surgically remove part of the patient's pancreas. Since the pancreas is the organ that produces insulin, cutting away part of this vital organ would, of course, result is lower production of insulin, halting the symptom of low blood sugar. Does this solution strike anyone else as medical madness?

It's astounding to me that health insurance won't cover energy healing, acupuncture or chiropractic care (things that actually work to help patients heal), but it will gladly cover barbaric, costly procedures like bariatric surgery that maim patients for life. All this quite readily reveals who has the biggest lobby in Washington, doesn't it? Now, are there surgeons doing good work out there? Yes, indeed. In the cases of trauma, accidents or other physical injury, U.S. surgeons are the best in the world, and I've always stood behind that statement.

We see it today in bariatric surgery (weight loss surgery) and countless other surgical procedures. The common failing of all surgeons, historical or modern, is that they continue to see the body and its diseases as nothing more than a collection of physical parts. To view mental illness as having a physical origin is a classic misconception still held by these people. All disease is treatable is they could just find the physical culprits and remove them from the body, they mistakenly believe. Of course, it's all a monumental, tragic error.

Bariatric surgery kills 5 percent of patients: Weight loss surgery takes deadly toll Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

That's almost one out of 20 people who die within a year following the surgery. That's a huge number, and it indicates the level of risk associated with bariatric surgery. With the number of bariatric surgeries performed each year in this country approaching 50,000, we're talking about several thousand people dying each year from this procedure.

This is now recognized as a common side effect of bariatric surgery or gastric bypass surgery. When this happens to you, you're put in a very difficult spot as the patient because the thing that's typically suggested to you to solve this problem of your pancreas producing "too much insulin" is to surgically remove part of your pancreas. How's that for brilliant? The surgeons harm your body with the first surgery, and then they create a condition where they get repeat business because they have to remove part of your pancreas to balance your blood sugar.

I honestly believe that most people are only making that choice because they have never been given access to true information about foods, healing, weight loss and nutrition, which could save them from obesity, bariatric surgery, and a painful death. Avoid dangerous surgeries to obtain ideal health People are intentionally misinformed about health by the medical industry, drug companies and the FDA, all of which want to limit the treatment of disease to drugs, surgery, chemotherapy and other conventional therapies.

What If Medicine Disappeared? Gerald E. Markle and Frances B. McCrea See book keywords and concepts

These data make us uneasy. bariatric surgery might be medically indicated in selected patients. Yet we are troubled by a radical surgical solution to what in most cases is a behavioral problem. Better solutions to obesity are surely available. Nor is gastric bypass without risks. bariatric surgery is not a regulated or credentialed surgical subspecialty. About 8% of all procedures resulted in complications requiring further surgery. Thirty-day mortality ranges between .5% and 2%. One-year mortality among medicare beneficiaries has been reported as high as 4.6%.

Bottom Line's Health Breakthroughs 2007 Bottom Line Health See book keywords and concepts

These studies are really a very small piece of the overall picture for bariatric surgery," says Dr. Edward Livingston, chairman of gastrointestinal and endocrine surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern School of Medicine and chairman of the bariatric surgery work group for the Department of Veterans Affairs' national health care system. "Bariatric surgeries result in weight loss, but they can [also] result in complications and death. They can improve the complications of obesity and the quality of life, and they may increase longevity," says Livingston.

Bariatric surgery kills 5 percent of patients: Weight loss surgery takes deadly toll Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

So, if having your nacho chips, canned soup and MSG-tainted salad dressing is really that important to you, it's your choice. MSG is present in most processed meats, including bacon, breakfast sausage, beef jerky and pepperoni. Almost all of these contain MSG, but you can read food labels to find out which ones do and which ones don't. Some people are so unwilling to change their diet that they simply refuse to stop eating these dangerous foods. In fact, they opt to undergo surgery instead. That's a choice I do not understand.

Bottom Line's Health Breakthroughs 2007 Bottom Line Health See book keywords and concepts

Hidden Dangers of Gastric Bypass Surgery Edward Livingston, MD, Hudson-Penn Chair in Surgery, professor and chairman of gastrointestinal and endocrine surgery, University of Texas Southwestern School of Medicine, Dallas, and chairman of the bariatric surgery work group, Department of Veterans Affairs' national health care system. David Zingmond, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine, Center for Surgical Outcomes and Quality, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles. The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Medicare benefits was 4.6%. This study also found that when the surgery was performed by a surgeon who had not done many of these procedures the death rate was 1.6 times higher than when the procedure was done by a more experienced surgeon. REACTION "I was not surprised by these findings. These studies are really a very small piece of the overall picture for bariatric surgery," says Dr.

Edward Livingston, chairman of gastrointestinal and endocrine surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern School of Medicine and chairman of the bariatric surgery work group for the Department of Veterans Affairs' national health care system. "Bariatric surgeries result in weight loss, but they can [also] result in complications and death. They can improve the complications of obesity and the quality of life, and they may increase longevity," says Livingston.

The most commonly performed inpatient bariatric surgery is called the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. In this procedure, the stomach is made smaller and a part of the small intestine is bypassed so that fewer calories and nutrients are absorbed, according to the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). Among the risks from this procedure are infection, hernia and long-term nutritional deficiencies.

Generally, people who are considered candidates for bariatric surgery have a body mass index (BMI) higher than 40, which means they are approximately 100 pounds overweight if they are male and 80 pounds overweight if they are female, according to the NIDDK. People who have lower BMIs may also be considered candidates for the surgery if they have obesity-related health problems, such as type 2 diabetes, severe sleep apnea or heart disease. A majority of the procedures are done on women (84%) and those who have private insurance (83%), according to the study.

Nutrition in the Prevention and Treatment of Disease Ann M. Coulston and Carol J. Boushey See book keywords and concepts

Preoperative assessment and perioperative care of patients undergoing bariatric surgery. Med. Clin. N. Am 91, 339-351. 120. Santry, H. P., Gillen, D. L., and Lauderdale, D. S. (2005). 135. Trends in bariatric surgical procedures. JAMA 294, 1909-1917. 121. Buchwald, H., Avidor, Y., Braunwald, E., Jensen, M. D., Pories, W., Fahrbach, K., and Schoelles, K. (2004). Bariatric 136. surgery: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA 292, 1724-1737. Poiries, W. J., Swanson, M. S., MacDonald, K. G., Long, S. B., Morris, P. G., Brown, B. M., Barakat, H. A., de Ramon, R. A., Israel, G., Dolezal, J.

Bariatric surgery utili-zatation and outcomes in 1998 and 2004. Statistical brief#23. 131. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb23.pdf. 132. 116. Greenway, F. L. (1996). Surgery for obesity. Endocrinol. Metab. Clin. N. Am. 25(4), 1005-1027. 117. National Institutes of Health, Consensus Development Conference. (1992). Gastrointestinal surgery for severe obesity. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 55, 487S-619S. 133. 118. Krai, J. (1998). Surgical treatment of obesity. In "Handbook of Obesity" (G. A. Bray, C. Bouchard, and W. P. James, Eds.

Unfortunately, individuals with aggressive food-seeking behavior, as frequently seen in monogenic obesities, are poor candidates for bariatric surgery. The effect of obesity gene variants on treatment (diet, drug, or surgery) outcomes is an important area for future research. References 1. Bouchard, C, Perusse, L., Rice, T., and Rao, D. C. (2004). Genetics of human obesity. In "Handbook of Obesity" (G. A. Bray and C. Bouchard, Eds.), pp. 157-200. Marcel Dekker, New York. 2. O'Rahilly, S., and Farooqi, S. (2006). Genetics of obesity. In Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B. 1-11. 3. Faith, M. S.

What If Medicine Disappeared? Gerald E. Markle and Frances B. McCrea See book keywords and concepts

Nor is gastric bypass without risks. bariatric surgery is not a regulated or credentialed surgical subspecialty. About 8% of all procedures resulted in complications requiring further surgery. Thirty-day mortality ranges between .5% and 2%. One-year mortality among medicare beneficiaries has been reported as high as 4.6%.24 Cigarette smoking and obesity are generally conceptualized as a personal behavioral problems. In a limited sense, this is obviously true. Changing personal behavior can and does benefit one's health. Such change should be encouraged in myriad ways.

The dark history of modern medicine: U.S. surgeons routinely operated on babies without anesthesia Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

Besides, we have new surgical fads now like bariatric surgery -- a lobotomy of the stomach -- where surgeons maim patients for life and then send a bill to the ones who don't die on the operating table. Actually, they get billed, too. Surgery ain't free, you know, even if you're dead. Nearly five percent of such patients are, in fact, dead in the first year following the bariatric surgery, studies now show. And many more who survive the ordeal find that they overproduce insulin after ingesting food -- a condition known as hyperinsulinemia.

What If Medicine Disappeared? Gerald E. Markle and Frances B. McCrea See book keywords and concepts

One thing the physician can do to combat obesity is bariatric surgery, in which a gastric bypass (about 20% of these procedures restrict the gastric opening) results in significant long-term weight loss. In 1998, surgeons performed 13,365 of these surgeries. By 2002 the number was 72,177; in 2003 it was 102,794, almost an eightfold increase in five years! About 84% of bariatric surgeries were performed on women, a disproportionate amount given that two-thirds of all morbidly obese Americans are female.22 What might we expect in the future?

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto Michael Pollan See book keywords and concepts

Much more so than the human body, capitalism is marvelously adaptive, able to turn the problems it creates into new business opportunities: diet pills, heart bypass operations, insulin pumps, bariatric surgery. But though fast food may be good business for the health care industry, the cost to society—an estimated $250 billion a year in diet-related health care costs and rising rapidly—cannot be sustained indefinitely. An American born in 2000 has a 1 in 3 chance of developing diabetes in his lifetime; the risk is even greater for a Hispanic American or African American.

Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer Shannon Brownlee See book keywords and concepts

A hospital's "refuges of profit," as departments that make money are sometimes called, can include cardiology; neurosurgery; orthopedics; high-end imaging, like CT scans and MRIs; and most recently, bariatric surgery, a technique for reducing the size of the stomach to help morbidly obese patients lose weight. Obstetrics departments, which earn razor-thin margins, can be winners in some hospitals and losers in others, depending on whether the hospital delivers enough insured babies in a year to cover such fixed costs as staffing and maintaining birthing rooms and malpractice insurance.

Nutrition in the Prevention and Treatment of Disease Ann M. Coulston and Carol J. Boushey See book keywords and concepts

Lifestyle, diabetes, and cardiovascular risk factors 10 years after bariatric surgery. N. Engl. J. Med. 351, 2683-2693. Tucker, O. N., Szomstein, S., and Rosenthal, R. J. (2007). Nutritional consequences of weight-loss surgery. Med. Clin. N. Am. 91, 499-514. Prevalence of overweight among children and adolescents: United States 2003-2004. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity web site. Available at www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/ hestats/obese03_04/overwght_child_03.htm.

As well, vitamin D deficiency can be precipitated by gastrointestinal surgeries such as bariatric surgery (intestinal bypass) or small-bowel resection (short gut syndrome). In renal failure, several pathologies are related to vitamin D metabolism. The concentration of 1,25-dihydroxy vitamin D falls in chronic renal failure because of a reduced number of junctional nephrons providing 1-hydroxylase for the endocrine pathway.

The dark history of modern medicine: U.S. surgeons routinely operated on babies without anesthesia Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

Nearly five percent of such patients are, in fact, dead in the first year following the bariatric surgery, studies now show. And many more who survive the ordeal find that they overproduce insulin after ingesting food -- a condition known as hyperinsulinemia. It's sometimes also called "islet cell hyperfunction," and it means the pancreas is producing too much insulin in response to food intake. You know what the surgeon's modern solution to this problem is? They open up the patient and slice off part of the pancreas! Amazing, huh? That way, it won't produce so much insulin.

The Honest Food Guide empowers consumers with independent information about foods and health Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

You know, it's funny; people out there are getting gastric bypass surgery, or bariatric surgery as it's sometimes called, in huge numbers. This is a procedure that can cost anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000. I call it a lobotomy of your digestive tract because they literally rip out a portion of your stomach and sort of rework your plumbing down there.

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ABOUT THE CREATOR OF NATURALPEDIA: Mike Adams, the creator of this NaturalNews Naturalpedia, is the editor of NaturalNews.com, the internet's top natural health news site, creator of the Honest Food Guide (www.HonestFoodGuide.org), a free downloadable consumer food guide based on natural health principles, author of Grocery Warning, The 7 Laws of Nutrition, Natural Health Solutions, and many other books available at www.TruthPublishing.com, creator of the earth-friendly EcoLEDs company (www.EcoLEDs.com) that manufactures energy-efficient LED lighting products, founder of Arial Software (www.ArialSoftware.com), a permission e-mail technology company, creator of the CounterThink Cartoon series (www.NaturalNews.com/index-cartoons.html) and author of over 1,500 articles, interviews, special reports and reference guides available at www.NaturalNews.com. Adams' personal philosophy and health statistics are available at www.HealthRanger.org.