Daily Mail – 11 November 2014 – How Diane’s £5,000 weight loss op is saving the NHS £6,000 a year
Indeed, a study from the National Bariatric Surgery Registry published yesterday stated that obesity, and the conditions it is associated with, ‘threatens to bankrupt the NHS’.
It also found weight-loss surgery can drastically reduce overall costs to the NHS and help people with long-term health issues.
As with any surgery, it carries risks such as blood clots and internal bleeding. It also does not always lead to long-term weight loss.
A study in 2011 of 82 gastric-band patients found that 40 per cent had ‘serious complications’ and 60 per cent needed further surgery.
And a major study published last year in the Journal of Internal Medicine found that 5 per cent of patients had regained the weight 20 years after surgery.
It’s also not a magic cure — patients need to eat less and exercise, which some don’t manage.
‘Obesity is more than the consumption of excess calories — there is a psychological component to it,’ says Dr Bijal Chheda-Varma, a psychologist at London’s Nightingale Hospital.
‘Obese people often have an emotional attachment to food: it feels like an addiction to them.
The the full article online here.
