Dear friends, colleagues, and readers of Bariatric Times:
As I opened Google news this morning, I found an article in the healthcare news section entitled “Worldwide Obesity Doubled Over Past Three Decades.”[1] What a great start for my monthly editorial. The article comes to the conclusion that changes in both dietary habits and physical activity are partly to blame for the rise in the worldwide obesity rate. Publicized in February 2011 issue of The Lancet, the article states that in 1980, 4.8 percent of men and 7.9 percent of women were obese. Those percentages jumped to 9.8 percent of men and 13.8 percent of women in 2008. In addition, their results show that overweight and obesity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol are no longer Western problems or problems of wealthy nations. Majid Ezzati, the study’s lead author from the School of Public Health at Imperial College, London, United Kindgom, concluded that these problems have shifted toward low- and middle-income countries, making them global problems. As I mentioned in previous editorials, the obesity epidemic is not only the result of evolution of human kind and our predisposition to gain weight in order to fight starvation, which is mainly controlled by our genotype. Our lifestyle, or phenotype, is another major factor, and it is the only one we can control. Modifying our diet and degree of physical activity are the only ways we can fight our genes. Read the rest of this article »

Popularity: 3% [?]

Dear Bariatric Times Editor:
I read the November 2011 installment of the column “Nutritional Considerations for the Bariatric Patient,” entitled “Pica: An Ancient Disorder with Modern Casualties,” by Liz Goldenberg, MPH, RD, CDN. I was pleased to see the author present such an excellent overview of the management of iron deficiency in bariatric surgery, which is an issue that goes unrecognized in many practices. However, I disagree with some of the recommendations. In my experience, the degree of gastrointestinal (GI) intolerance is independent of a form of inorganic iron you use: sulfate, gluconate, or fumarate. Rather, the degree of GI intolerance is more dependent on the total dose of elemental iron; the higher the dose of elemental iron, the greater the GI side effects. Read the rest of this article »

Popularity: 3% [?]

by Koji Park, MD; John Afthinos, MD; James McGinty, MD;
Ninan Koshy, MD; and Julio Teixeira, MD

Financial Disclosure: Dr. Teixeira is a consultant for Allergan, Inc. and Covidien.

Author Affiliation: Dr. Teixeira is from St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York. Read the rest of this article »

Popularity: 9% [?]

by Alexis M. Peraino, MD

Financial Disclosure: Dr. Peraino reports no conflicts of interest relevant to the content of this article.

Dr. Peraino is a physician at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in the Department of Medicine and Center for Weight Loss and Assistant Clinical Professor Step I, David Geffen School of Medicine University of California, Los Angeles, California. Read the rest of this article »

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by David B. Sarwer, PhD, and Rebecca J. Dilks, RD

Dr. Sarwer and Ms. Dilks are from the Center for Weight and Eating Disorders, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Read the rest of this article »

Popularity: 4% [?]

ASMBS President testifies at the Institute of Medicine on behalf of the ASMBS, the Obesity Society, and the Obesity Action Coalition
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has been tasked by the Secretary of Health and Human Services to define the criteria and methods for establishing essential benefits and updating them in the state insurance exchanges. American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) President Dr. Bruce Wolfe was an invited speaker at a public forum sponsored by the IOM on this issue. He urged the IOM to focus on the following key considerations: 1) Obesity is a life-threatening disease associated with multiple comorbidities; 2) Behavioral, medical and surgical treatments are effective for obesity, resulting in prevention of obesity-related events including death, cardiovascular disease, and cancer; and 3) Access to prevention and treatment is severely limited. For full details and a copy of Dr. Wolfe’s slide presentation, please visit http://asmbs.org/html/pdf/IOM.pdf Read the rest of this article »

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by Terive Duperier, MD, FACS

Dr. Duperier is a bariatric surgeon and co-founder of the Bariatric Medical Institute of Texas in San Antonio, Texas. Read the rest of this article »

Popularity: 3% [?]