Middle East Surgeons Share Their Experiences in Treating Obesity

Dear Friends, Colleagues, and Readers of Bariatric Times:
I just returned from Kuwait where I attended an excellent conference on bariatric surgery with Drs. Scott Shikora, Alfons Pomp, Mitch Roslin, and many other prestigious regional bariatric surgeons. I was pleasantly surprised to learn the Middle East countries have made much progress in understanding of the obesity disease and bariatric surgery. I had a long conversation with Drs. Salman AlSabah (Kuwait) and Abdelrahman Nimeri (Abu Dabi), who agreed to contribute a “Symposium Synopsis” for BT on the First Annual Gulf Obesity and Metabolic Surgery Society (GOSS) meeting. I congratulate Dr. Moussa Khoursheed, the meeting’s program director, for a fantastic scientific program and meeting organization.

This month, we present a wonderful contribution by Drs. Michelle May and Lisbeth B. Ornstein, and Ms. Margaret M. Furtado, titled “The Mindful Eating Cycle: Preventing and Resolving Maladaptive Eating after Bariatric Surgery.” I could not put this article down. The accompanying reader handout is a one that every patient should have before and after bariatric surgery. In fact, many of us (myself included) might benefit from these questions that are supposed to be asked when eating a meal. We thank the authors for this article and handout.

In this month’s “ASMBS Foundation News and Update,” Joe Nadglowski and Connie Stillwell provide a summary of the Foundation’s activities during 2013. Congratulations to Dr. David Provost, ASMBS Foundation Past President, for leading this important group to such a wonderful performance. As the incoming president of the Foundation, I am determined to continue David’s work and hopefully call your attention to make a donation to what is a vital partner of ASMBS.

In this month’s “Checklists in Bariatric Surgery,” we review the indications, preoperative work-up, intraoperative nodal points, and postoperative follow up for patients undergoing reoperative surgery for gastric bypass. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to differentiate the indications, such as complications versus failures, since the outcomes are significantly different when it comes to postoperative complications. Similarly, we need to clearly differentiate a revision from a reversal or conversion.

Heidi Gordon, director of marketing and communication for the American Society of Obesity Physicians (ASBP), gives us a nice preview of what promises to be an exciting spring conference, emphasizing the recent recognition by AMA of obesity as a disease. We wish for them a successful meeting.

In a debut of our “International Bariatric Center Spotlight,” Dr. Abdelrahman Nimeri highlights his fantastic Bariatric and Metabolic Institute in Abu Dabi (BMI Abu Dhabi). Dr. Nimeri is an esteemed colleague and member of our international committee. I am certain we will hear wonderful things from his institute in years to come.

Lastly, I was intrigued to learn from an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine that obesity gets established early in life and tracks through adolescence to adulthood. The researchers attribute this to genetic predisposition and phenotype. The clinical implications of this study will help us justify intervening early for those children that are more susceptible to the obesity disease.
I hope you will enjoy this issue of BT.

Sincerely,

Raul J. Rosenthal, MD, FACS
Editor, Bariatric Times

References
1.    Cunningham SA, Kramer MR, and Narayan KM. Incidence of childhood obesity in the United States. N Engl J Med. 2014;370:403–411.

Tags: Dr. Raul Rosenthal

Category: Editorial Message, Past Articles