Global hospital to undertake 'morbid obesity surgery'

Hyderabad, Dec 28 (UNI) Global Hospitals, a leading private hospital in Andhra Pradesh has constituted an expert team consisting of a bariatric surgeon and physician, a nutritionist and psychologist to undertake 'morbid obesity surgery' regularly.

Global Hospital Managing Director Dr K Ravindranath and Laparoscopic Bariatric Surgeon Dr K S Lakshmi told newspersons that they decided to conduct morbid obesity surgeries in the hospital regularly after they successfully conducted a similar surgery on a 47-year-old local trader.

They said the businessman, Sheik Khader Basha who weighed 138 kg shed 42 kg after he underwent what the doctors describe as 'bariatric surgery' a year ago.

They said Mr Basha was today free of hypertension, osteo arthritis in both the knees and asthama, which had severely affected his quality of life.

They said an obese person was one whose Body Mass Index (BMI) exceeds 30. The person is called 'morbidly obese' when the BMI is 40 and above. A morbidly obese man was vulnerable to a host of disorders ranging from diabetes and high blood-pressure to arthritis and cardiac arrests.

They said obesity surgery helps one to lose weight by changing the way the body digests and absorbs food. Obesity surgery involved making changes to the stomach or small intestine to restrict food intake or food absorption.

They said the Global Hosptials reduced Mr Bhasha's stomach size with the help of surgery. A section of the stomach was removed or closed which limits the amount of food it could hold and causes the patient to feel full.

They said the procedure was called laparoscopic gastric banding since a band was used to create a small pouch--of the size of a 30 ml cup-around the upper part of the stomach. Since the newly created stomach pouch would be small in size, even a little intake of food gives one the feeling of satiety. As the calorie intake goes down, the person loses weight.

Since there was no cutting or stapling involved in the procedure, the gastric banding was considered least traumatic of all weight loss surgeries.

Mr Basha, who was present said he was very comfortable now and was able to take food normally and having knee pains and other problems.

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