If you read enough blogs, you will find there are people who are very anti-WLS. Some of these people haven’t had surgery. Some have never been overweight. Some are people who are trying to sell you some other weight loss solution. Some of these anti-WLS opinions come from medical professionals. The fact that someone is in the field of medicine does not mean they are an expert on weight loss surgery, nutrition or even obesity.

There’s an anti-WLS blog I would like to respond to at http://suethsayings.blogspot.com/2007/06/tv-show-big-surgery-is-big-informercial.html . Here’s what’s wrong with what she’s saying:

1. The name of the show is Big Medicine, not Big Surgery. Pay attention much, Sue?

2.  She criticises studies Dr. Davis quotes that indicate WLS extends lives, then goes on to spout BS such as 40% of WLS patients need iron infusions for the rest of their lives. Oh really? And what study does that come from?

3.  Everyone’s experience with vomiting is different. Contrary to what Sue implies, there are people who have had no vomiting after WLS. I personally only had vomiting when I first started eating solids.
Now that I have learned my lesson about chewing food carefully,
I have had no vomiting.

4. She refers to a study from 1992 regarding regain after WLS.
Um, that’s like 15 years old, dude. If I were reading about weight loss surgery from 15 years ago, I would be against it, too. It wasn’t the same surgery! The old fashioned stomach stapling did have a very high failure and regain rate. That is why over the past 15 years weight loss surgery has been improved. Very little in the field of medicine
stays the same over the course of 15 years.

Likewise, roux-en-y gastric bypass is not the best surgery for everyone.
Some people would be better off with the duodenal switch or even the vertical sleeve gastrectomy. These days you have multiple choices when it comes to weight loss surgery.

5. She contradicts herself in the same paragraph. She says none of the
bariatric surgeries are reversible but then mentions takedowns
(which are a reversal of bariatric surgery). Huh?

6. She keeps mentioning “so many” deaths from surgery and mentions 2-4% risk of death. There is a risk of death from all surgery. As death rates go, 2-4% doesn’t sound very high to me. For one thing, people who are having surgery are at increased risk of mortality simply because of obesity, which causes high blood pressure, heart disease, high cholesterol, diabetes, sleep apnea, all life-threatening illnesses which can kill you. Any one of these co-morbidities alone can kill you. What’s worse is that obese people frequently have multiple of these diseases at the same time.

According to this article from 2004
( http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/291/10/1238 ) , obesity is the 2nd leading cause of death,
after tobacco and will eventually overtake tobacco. This article talks about studies from 2002, but we all know obesity has worsened in the U.S. since then.

When you talk about death from weight loss surgery, if you don’t talk about death rates from obesity, you are full of crap! Obesity kills. Morbid obesity kills even faster!

7. In http://suethsayings.blogspot.com/2007/12/big-medicine-revisited.html ,
she talks about how loose skin after weight loss gives you a funny shape.
Okay, and I had a normal shape at 285 lbs.? Not!
At 285 lbs., you would never see me in a bathing suit.
So what difference does it make if at a normal weight I still couldn’t wear
a bathing suit? She completely misses the point that the reason to have weight loss surgery is not to look like a model but to regain your health and save your life.

8. She mentions that Dr. Mason stopped recommending malabsorptive
procedures and started performing the vertical banded gastroplasty in 1980s. There was an old procedure called the JIB which caused horrible nutritional deficiencies and liver failure, and that is why JIB is no longer performed. Vertical banded gastroplasty (the old fashioned stomach stapling) likewise has such a high failure rate that many who had it ended up getting revised to roux-en-y gastric bypass. Vertical banded gastroplasty is another old outdated procedure. Boy, she sure loves quoting the old stuff!

9. She says fitness not fatness determines life span. This is partially true. There are studies that show that increasing exercise increases
lifespan. However, therein lies the contradiction.
Obesity and fatness are caused by lack of fitness.
Therefore, in most cases fatness does equal a shorter lifespan.

Likewise, the reason the minimal criteria for weight loss surgery is a BMI of 40, which is morbid obesity, is because that is the BMI at which rate of disease and mortality increases more dramatically.

I do agree with one thing she says though. I am all for surgeons being honest about complications related to weight loss surgery. My surgeon made me initial every complication on the list. They should not be glossed over. Surprisingly, most people who have had horrible complications after surgery say they would do it all over again. How’s that for a testimonial!

If you can be 100+ lbs. overweight and healthy, I’m happy for you, but that is simply not the case for many of us. If you have tried to lose weight the old fashioned way by dieting and exercise, only to regain it back over and over again, then weight loss surgery might be a solution for you. In any case, do your research before you decide, since weight loss surgery is not a cure for obesity. It is simply a medical procedure that will help you lose weight and improve your health, when other methods have failed.