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Can Obesity Surgery Done Without Cutting? Overweight and obesity have gradually emerged as a tricky issue for many countries around the world. This is because overweight and obesity will bring along many health complications like diabetes, high blood pressure (hypertension), heart disease and even cancer. The health cost needed to tackle these chronic health hazards is huge. When one becomes overweight or obese, doctor would normally recommend lifestyle change including diet and exercises, and followed by medications if the former has no effect. If all means have failed, the last-resort to treat obesity will be through surgery. More than 15 million Americans are obese. This year (2009), according to the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery, more than 200,000 Americans are expected to have conventional forms of obesity surgery. Doctors have tested a new type of obesity surgery without cutting the abdomen. What the surgeon does is to insert a tube, as thick as a garden hose, down the patient’s throat to snap staples into the stomach. The aim is to create a narrow passage slowing the food as it moves from the upper stomach into the lower stomach to help patients feel full more quickly and eat less. The new procedure reduces the size of the stomach with staples but does not reroute the digestive system, while the traditional method involves gastric bypass and increases the chances for malnutrition because it repositions how the stomach attaches to the intestines to restrict calorie absorption.
Aiming to perform surgery through body openings like the nose and mouth instead of cutting the body, the new method could reduce chances of infection and pain, and speed recovery, too. Meanwhile, it has cosmetic advantages because there is no scar. Reported at a Chicago conference held in early June 2009 for digestive disease specialists, doctors from Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles said preliminary results from studies of about 200 patients in United States and 100 in Europe look promising. Despite only brief details were being released for the 2 studies, results so far were slightly better than those from conventional stomach stapling. Nevertheless, there was some risks, including perforating the esophagus, which happened to a patient but otherwise, there have not been any major complication. Interestingly, some study patients have lost weight after unknowingly undergoing fake procedures which involved sedation and inserting the tube, but no actual stapling. Results comparing them with the real thing were not yet available. At the end of about 18 months, obese European patients have lost an average of about 45 percent of their body weight. On the other hand, the study conducted in United States will take place at 10 centers. Patients will be followed for at least a year, with final results expected to be released in 2010. They are randomly selected to undergo either the operation or a sham procedure. In the first United States study conducted last summer (2008), about 30 patients underwent the treatment. Minimal side effects, including sore throats, nausea and some abdominal pain lasting less than a week, were noted. Some health experts called the oral procedure exciting and innovative, but felt that it is too early to call this a breakthrough. In fact, many obesity surgeons in United States prefer the rerouting surgery or flexible bands. It remains to be seen whether the new oral method has the similar drawbacks as the traditional stapling procedures.
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