Weight Loss Information

Cheap lap band surgery is the answer to the prayers of many patients suffering from morbid obesity and related disorders, such as hypertension and heart disease. In laparoscopic banding surgery, an adjustable band is placed around the upper region of the stomach to restrict food intake and help patients feel full sooner. As a result, patients experience a dramatic reduction in weight within a period of six months to two years. The results of the lap band surgery are permanent as long as one band is being used with the recommended diet & lifestyle habits. However, the cost of lap band surgery is quite prohibitive in the USA leading patients to look for cheaper alternatives elsewhere. But is cheap lapband surgery really possible? Does quality suffer if you opt for cheap lap band surgery? Not necessarily.

In USA, the cost of laparoscopic band surgery ranges from $20,000 to $30,000. Moreover, health plans, such as Medicare and Medicaid, cover the cost of the weight loss surgery only if you can prove dire medical necessity. This means your BMI has to be higher than 40, and you should be able to demonstrate a history of previous attempts at weight loss. Any patient who does not meet these requirements does not qualify for health plan coverage for the surgery. This effectively puts lapband surgery out of reach for many patients in the USA. An alternative they have is to go to places such as Mexico, Costa Rica, and India for cheap lap band surgery. Some people believe that the low price is a trade off for quality in these places. Let's examine some of the reasons why quality does not need to suffer if you go overseas for cheap lap band surgery.

The main reason that countries like Mexico, Costa Rica, and India are able to provide cheap bariatric surgery is that the general cost of living there is lower than in USA. This means the cost of almost everything such as hospital prices, surgeon's fee, food, and boarding is generally lower in these countries than in USA. What this does NOT mean is that the quality of the hospital or its services are in any way lower than that available in the USA.

In addition, the bands used in Mexico, Costa Rica or India are the same as the ones used in USA. So you need not fear that an inferior quality band is being used in cheap lap band surgery. If in any doubt, you can crosscheck with your surgeon about the band being used. The FDA approved bands are INAMED and Realize. The INAMED band is produced by INAMED Health, which is now owned by Allergan. For a long time, INAMED was the only FDA approved band. The Realize adjustable band is produced by Johnson & Johnson's (J&J) Ethicon Endo-Surgery (EES) subsidiary. FDA approved the Realize band in September 2007

Another good reason for traveling overseas for cheap lab band surgery is that the surgeons in these locations are in many cases more experienced than surgeons in USA. This is because FDA approved the adjustable laparoscopic band in USA only in 2001. However, in Mexico for instance, lap band procedure has been successfully performed since 1996 This means surgeons there have more than 10 years experience in this surgery as compared to 5 to 6 years experience of US lap band surgeons.

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This posting is a comparative look at some of the most popular weight loss plans, and how they measure up to the "new kid on the block" in the diet plan world...

Low Calorie Diet

This diet basically involves lowering the quantity of food you eat in order to lose weight. Although it does work to reduce some fat, the drawbacks are well known - malnutrition, low energy levels, depression...

Low Fat Diet

At first look this diet seems like it could work. However, it has one vital flaw - the fat of your body is not caused by the fat in your diet. Most fat on the body is caused by carbohydrates. Which leads to the next diet plan...

Low Carb Diet

A step in the right direction, this diet can produce very good fat loss results if done for a duration of a few months. Unfortunately, the low carb diet is much like a low calorie diet in terms of the amount of calories most people can eat whilst on it - due to meal restrictions. As such it can cause low energy levels and depression.

A New Diet Plan...

For many years scientists have been looking for new diet plans that are more effective and more PRACTICAL for the dieter than the usual plans (as outlined above.) And one such diet plan has been discovered. It's called the CALORIE SHIFTING DIET...

www.acomplia.p5.org.uk

Hi friends, Anti obesity drug provide only modest weight loss according to new result shows. Most severely overweight patients taking anti-obesity drugs will realize only modest weight loss, especially if they fail to augment the medications with regular exercise and a healthy diet, say Canadian researchers after reviewing numerous studies on the agents' effectiveness.

Despite being touted in the marketplace as miracle pills that can melt away pounds, doctors say that in reality the medications are no panacea to society's growing obesity epidemic and should only be taken by certain people.

"I think the most important thing that people need to understand is these are definitely not magic pills," said Dr. Raj Padwal, an assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Alberta and principal author of the review.

Padwal and his colleagues looked at the results of 30 clinical trials of three drugs recommended for obese patients for long-term use - orlistat, sibutramine and rimonabant - and found that they helped people shed on average less than 11 pounds.

"We found that the amount of weight loss on average with these medications ranges between three and five kilograms," Padwal, who specializes in treating hypertension and obesity, said from Edmonton.

Orlistat (Xenical) reduced patients' weight by 6.4 pounds, sibutramine (Meridia) by about nine pounds and rimonabant (Acomplia) by just over 10 pounds in the studies, which each lasted at least a year. Participants had a mean weight of 220 pounds, with a body mass index (BMI) of 35. A BMI of 25 is considered normal.

In their analysis published in Friday's issue of the British Medical Journal, the researchers showed that those given one of the drugs were significantly more likely to achieve the minimum weight loss target of five to 10 per cent than those given a dummy pill.

But although the drugs overall can be beneficial in reducing risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes, they have differing side-effects that in some cases can be detrimental, Padwal pointed out.

For some people, sibutramine can significantly boost blood pressure; rimonabant - which is commonly prescribed in the U.K. and some European countries but not approved in Canada or the United States - can elevate the risk of mood disorders such as depression.

In fact, a review of studies published Friday in The Lancet shows that obese patients taking rimonabant have a 40 per cent increased risk of developing severe depression and anxiety compared to those taking a placebo. Participants were up to three times more likely to stop taking the drug because of those mood disorders.

Padwal said getting patients to stick with any of the three weight-loss drugs long-term is a challenge.

"There's a large disconnect between what patients want in terms of weight loss and what practitioners desire," he said. "So patients will often want to lose . . . about 30 to 40 per cent of their initial weight. They want to get down to the weight they were in high school, two to three decades earlier."

"And they're disappointed when they're told that's going to be difficult to achieve."

Cost is also a major factor: orlistat and sibutramine (the only ones approved in Canada) will set back patients $80 to $130 per month, he said, noting that the drugs along with rimonabant represent more than $1 billion in worldwide sales for their makers each year.

Obesity weight-loss surgery, or bariatric surgery, has become a household word. But surgery to make the stomach smaller and force weight loss is not new and has been available for decades. With the rapidly growing numbers of people with serious medical diseases and disabilities (such as type 2 diabetes) as a result of obesity, a similar, rapid growth in surgical weight-loss programs for adults has occurred.

Likewise, the rapid rise in severe child and adolescent obesity has raised the issue of surgical weight-loss procedures for those younger than 18. In the past decade, children's bariatric surgery programs have been set up in major medical research hospitals across the country. The primary purpose of these programs has been to learn whether this drastic step in the management of morbid obesity is safe and effective in young people.

First, let me define where the lower limits of this procedure now rest. No bariatric surgery programs exist for pre-adolescent children, those younger than 12. The current lower age limit for this procedure is around 14 and older.

For a teenager to be eligible for such a drastic procedure, not only does he or she need to be sufficiently obese and medically at risk, but the teen needs to have passed through the majority of puberty to be considered a potential candidate. But in some ways age is the easiest of the criteria to define. The exact type of weight-loss surgery to perform has been a point of debate and research.

One of the most common procedures for bariatric surgery restricts intake by making the stomach a much smaller pouch, bypassing part of the intestine to keep nutrients from being absorbed. A less radical approach, now favored by many children's bariatric surgeons, involves the placement of an adjustable circular band around the stomach. The result of this banding procedure is a much smaller stomach capacity.

This involves no cutting of the intestinal tract or bypassing of the stomach. Furthermore, this procedure can be performed less invasively using modern laparoscopic methods resulting in shorter hospital stays after the operation. The technique is better known as the lap band. While not as severe a procedure as the traditional, more permanent procedure called the Roux-en-Y operation, lap banding has the advantage of being reversible.

But now, just because we can doesn't mean we should. Much has been learned about the psychological aspects of this procedure on recipients. We now know that any candidate for surgical weight loss must be considered from a psychological standpoint.

Not only is careful pre-surgical screening essential to successful weight loss results, but follow-up is needed, too. The surgical procedure forces a change in the psychological relationship between the patient and food. Some patients later may regret their choice. Some people may regain weight by stretching their small pouch because of frequent overeating. Overeating can cause the person to feel nauseated and vomit.

This consequence is a significant deterrent to this practice, but not everyone may be that easily deterred. The desire to overeat can be a powerful force to overcome, even with the help of the surgeon's scalpel. Also, depending on the type of surgery performed, some people may need special vitamin supplements and careful medical attention the rest of their lives. In all cases, eating behaviors and attitudes are changed.

If results are ideal, weight loss can be 30 percent or more. This can result in a reversal of serious weight-related medical conditions, even what some would describe as a cure for problems such as type 2 diabetes. The benefits of weight-loss surgery can be remarkable, but the cost (not just financial) may be considerable to the patient and family. We still are learning just how serious that cost may be when it comes to young people.

Most, if not all, health insurers remain cautious about paying for this dramatic procedure. Therefore, don't be looking for surgical weight-loss programs for young people anytime soon. Only specialized teams should perform this procedure with careful medical and psychological screening of potential candidates and their families. Surgery is not the only solution to the problem of obesity but a tool available to help.

Resources:  http://www.caller.com/news/2007/oct/29/consider-all-costs-of-weight-loss-surgery/

Resources::: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/a-tragic-risk-of-weight-loss-surgery/
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