Obese dying awaiting operations
Posted by Colin Rose on June 3, 2009
Dr Nicholas Christou, a bariatric surgeon, claims that obese people are dying for lack of bariatric surgery. Do you ask a barber if you need a haircut? There is not a single randomized, sham-operated, controlled trial proving that gastric bypass or banding has saved even one life. Morbidly obese people are not dying from lack of bariatric surgery but from junk food addiction . Before the discovery of drugs for reducing stomach acid, many thousands of gastric bypasses were done to treat peptic ulcer disease but they were never associated with major weight loss. But now stomach surgery is touted to be the cure for obesity. If “diet and exercise” don’t work then why do patients after bariatric surgery still have to “stay on their diets”? Quite likely, bariatric surgery “works” only because patients are convinced that they must control their addiction or suffer abdominal pain. Eventually they discover they can eat as before and, if they haven’t mastered their addiction, regain the weight. Before we spend many billions of dollars on this unproven “treatment” a controlled trial is essential.
SHARON KIRKEY CANWEST NEWS SERVICE
The Gazette
03 Jun 2009
Patients in Canada are dying while waiting their turn for obesity surgery, according to new research that says wait times for bariatric surgery are the longest of any surgically treated condition in the country. In 2007, 6,783 patients were waiting…read more…
Canadians wait more than five years for obesity surgery
Canadians wait more than five years for obesity surgery
