Lap-Band Surgery to Improve Your Health
The Lap-Band can also help significantly resolve or improve certain health conditions including diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer, hypertension and other serious health conditions that are influenced by obesity.
Obesity-related Conditions
If you are overweight, you are more likely to develop or aggravate a broad range of health conditions. And the opposite is true - losing weight and keeping it off can produce a significant drop in the risk of developing many conditions including:
Type 2 Diabetes: Almost 90% of patients with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese. Obesity also complicates the management of diabetes by increasing insulin resistance.
Gallbladder disease: Obesity is a significant risk factor for gallstones. Most gallstones are made up of excess cholesterol, which supersaturates the bile.
Sleep apnea: Between 60% and 70% of patients with sleep apnea are obese. Sleep apnea can cause a person to snore heavily and stop breathing for short periods during sleep, leaving them at risk for cardiac arrhythmias, heart attacks and strokes.
Osteoarthritis: Obesity is associated with osteoarthritis of the hip and knee, the most common diagnosis in joint replacement surgery. In 2004-2005, nine out of 10 knee replacement patients and nearly eight out of 10 hip replacement patients in Canada were either overweight or obese.
Reproduction: Obesity can disrupt the menstrual cycle, diminish success rates with assisted reproduction, and increase risk of ectopic pregnancy, preeclampsia, stillbirth, complications during delivery and neonatal death.
Cancer: Postmenopausal breast cancer risk increases by about 18% with each one-point increase in BMI. The average concentration of estrogens in obese post-menopausal women is between 50% and 219% higher than in normal weight women.
Colorectal cancer: occurs more frequently in men (and perhaps women, though the evidence is not as consistent) who are obese than in those of a healthy weight.
Esophageal adenocarcinoma: is twice as common in overweight and obese individuals as in healthy-weight people.
Endometrial cancer: Obesity has been estimated to account for about 40% of cases in affluent societies.
Losing weight can result in:
- 93% resolution/improvement in Asthma
- 79% resolution/improvement of hypertension
- 90% resolution/improvement in type 2 diabetes
- 93% resolution/improvement of obstructive sleep apnea
- 90% resolution of GERD (reflux)
(Dixon et al. Obes Surg. 1999; Dixon et al. Diabetes Care. 2002.; Dixon et al. Arch Intern Med. 2001.; Dixon et al. Obes Surg. 1999.)
A recent article (April 10, 2007) in the Canadian Medical Association Journal recommends bariatric or weight loss surgery as an acceptable option for people for whom all other conventional weight loss methods have failed.
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