Laproscopic surgery best to treat morbid obesity: Expert

Bangalore, July 5 (UNI) Increasing prosperity among the middle class of the country may have improved their living standards, but it is also causing troubles like high incidences of obesity.

According to a recent study, 25 per cent of the 200 million middle class population in India were suffering from obesity. Cases of Morbid Obesity, high in countries like the USA, were on the rise in India and laproscopic surgery was the best solution to fight it.

Morbid obesity was a condition wherein the Body Mass Index was 40 or more.

Dr Rajsekhar Nayak, a well known gastroenterologist, told newspersons here today that people with morbid obesity were prone to double the risk of death when the body weight became twice the ideal weight. A person was morbidly obese when he or she was so heavy that the fat tissue load damaged the health. Surgery in this instance was considered appropriate if the risk of excess weight was greater than the risk of surgery.

''These are people weighing upwards of 140 kg. They are low in self esteem and this leads to heavy intake of food. You generally can't see these people in the open. They first restrict themselves to their homes, then to their bedroom and then just to their bed.

They usually suffer from type-2 or higher diabetes, blood pressure, sleeplessness and high cholesterol. Laproscopic or key hole surgery is not to achieve ideal body weight, but to reduce the risk of dying from obesity or its associated diseases,'' he said.

Dr Nayak said key hole surgery involved two main types of surgical intervention, namely Malabsorptive an Restrictive. In the first case, the gastrointestinal tract was bypassed so that absorption of food became limited. In restrictive surgery, the size of stomach was reduced, using gastroplasty or gastric banding, so that the person experienced the feeling of fullness with less food.

Laparoscopic surgery was the best method compared to traditional open approach, which called for a long incision that opened the abdomen to provide access to the surgeon. Laparoscopic surgery had several advantages like less post-operative pain, fewer wound infections, fewer incisional hernias, faster recovery and return to pre-surgical level of activity. The patient could be discharged within two days of the surgery, he said.

Dr Nayak announced that Nayak Institute of Gastroenterology, an unit of Gunasheela Hospital, would soon introduce laparoscopic surgery for the first time in Karnataka. Such surgeries, costing over Rs two lakh, were now performed only in Delhi, Mumbai and Pune.

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