Contents
The story is often similar. A young man is gaining weight uncontrollably. The more he eats, the worse he looks, the more guilty he feels, the less friends he has. Because for many, dealing with a fat man is embarrassing. There is no girlfriend, he feels unattractive. He rarely leaves because he has no one. He does not play sports, because every effort is difficult. He is not valued at work, because in common opinion: how fat is lazy.
He becomes depressed and hides in the four walls looking for consolation. He finds them in food. And the circle is complete. In the end, desperate, often at the urging of his family, he reports to the family doctor. There, he hears most often in order to limit his food and change his lifestyle. So he tries miracle diets, herbal teas, drugs to reduce appetite, pills that limit fat absorption. All for nothing.
There are more and more such situations, because obesity is becoming more and more frequent. At the end of 2009, over 61 percent. of men had an abnormal body weight (45% were overweight, 17% were obese). It doesn’t get any better with women. 45 percent ladies women weigh too much. 30 percent is overweight, and 15 percent. suffering from obesity. And as specialists are alarming, it is getting worse every year. The problem more and more often concerns children and adolescents who are overweight. Yet obese children become obese adults. Today it is estimated that every second Pole has an incorrect body weight.
Ineffective weight loss
There is no shortage of ideas on how to get rid of burdensome kilos – from drastic diets and sometimes fasting for several days, wonderful drugs to classic pharmacotherapy. The effect is usually similar: a temporary loss of weight and then its rebound after a short time.
Doctors agree that pharmacotherapy is helpless in the fight against overweight and obesity. Initially, in the treatment of obesity, drugs were used to stimulate the body to use energy faster. Currently, all such drugs are withdrawn from treatment and those that are available for sale only lose money, not kilograms. What to do when all methods have already failed?
This is when bariatric surgery comes to the rescue, because despite the availability of numerous weight loss methods, pharmacology has nothing to offer to obese patients. It is estimated that the number of patients in our country with indications for the surgical treatment of obesity is as high as 1,5 million, of which 300 require immediate surgeon assistance. Bariatric surgeries are not experimental methods. The first surgical procedures were carried out in the 50s, and in Poland in 1977. It is estimated that approximately 1500 procedures are performed annually throughout the country.
Last chance treatment
Today there is no doubt that bariatric surgery is the only effective form of treating morbid obesity. Who can benefit from therapy? The treatment is recommended for people with BMI ≥ 35 (Body Mass Index), which is calculated by dividing the body weight given in kilograms by the height in meters squared in meters.
Bariatric surgery is especially recommended for those who, apart from abnormal body weight, have comorbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, joint degeneration and other changes.
Surgical treatment is also recommended for patients with BMI ≥ 40, also when obesity is not associated with other diseases. The prerequisite, however, are previous, unsuccessful attempts to reduce body weight.
Experts emphasize that losing excess body weight is not only a matter of aesthetics, and they argue that bariatrics also save lives, because obese people have a five times greater risk of death compared to people with normal body weight. In addition, bariatric surgery inhibits the development of type 2 diabetes or even cures it, and an increasing number of long-standing type 2 diabetics treated with oral antidiabetic drugs or insulin recovered a few months after bariatric surgery.
When should I have an operation?
The decision to have an operation is not easy. But when we have followed successive unsuccessful attempts to lose weight and all miracle diets have failed, it is worth choosing a method with the help of a doctor that will permanently free us from unwanted kilograms.
How to proceed after bariatric surgery?
After a restrictive operation, such as an adjustable bandage operation, we must be aware that we will only be able to eat very small amounts of food for the rest of our lives.
This is not the case with exclusion procedures. It is true that you still have to be careful about the abundance of meals, but to a much lesser extent. For some procedures, such as biliary and pancreatic exclusion, the diet must be rich in proteins, as their absorption is limited. You also need to take mineral and vitamin supplements throughout your life. All those who undergo this procedure must remember that the treatment of obesity does not end with surgery. You have to modify your current eating habits and live a healthy life. This is the key to the success of therapy and a healthy body weight.
Tekst: Lidia Banach