In another connection, I've been reading up on copper deficiency and was perusing various articles cited on pubmed.

I was shocked by how many I saw about how bariatric surgery can produce - up to twenty years later - such severe copper deficiency (and other nutrient deficiencies) that the patients in question ended up in wheelchairs and in a lot of pain. Their symptoms were helped somewhat by copper supplementation, but not entirely. It seems that some of the damage done was irreversible.

If anybody knows anyone who is considering having this kind of surgery done, please warn them that there could be nasty complications further down the road.

One of the full texts about this problem can be found here as a pdf:

http://ukpmc.ac.uk/articlerender.cg...bmedid=19148115

Scary stuff.

amanda

Yeah, this is one of the things that has always worried me about gastic bypass. What *other* things are being bypassed in addition to just the purely caloric?

People often forget that one of the reason why this surgery works is because it induces malabsorption. It's even called a "malabsorptive bariatric surgical procedure". If someone was suffering from malabsorption from other causes (such as celiac), doctors would be alarmed and would consider it a serious condition. Yet they deliberately induce this through an irreversible surgical procedure. One has to wonder at the wisdom of this. It's not really surprising that this kind of thing is cropping up years later.

I wonder at the long term survival prospects of people who had this surgery. They are basically all guinea pigs. It's going to take many many years to see what their long-term prospects are.

I know it's only anecdotal, but the one woman I know who had this surgery is suffering from serious medical problems. She wishes she was still fat and healthy instead of thin and miserable.

Angeline, I think you're spot-on with the guinea pig statement. That's all these people are. I mean, what if you get this surgery at 20? Are you going to have a long, healthy live and die at 90? I somehow doubt it.

What sickens me the most is that every single last one of these people was told to lose weight following a low-fat diet or restricting calories. And of course they failed.

When I first heard of this many years ago, it was because my family was suggesting it to me. I read some literature my dad got about it. I said dad... this actually removes part of your body that absorbs the nutrients from food! WHY on EARTH would anybody want to do this? My god, what would be the result of that?? He says well, I guess because it forces you to eat less. I said, so the whole idea is just that people cannot keep from eating like cows so they look like one? In that case, why don't they just wire people's jaws shut, at least you could un-do that in the future and that certainly does limit what you can eat (a liquid diet). I really just could not get my head around the idea that they would stick a knife in someone and tie off or remove a critical part of the body, and that anybody thought this was a GOOD idea. I mean if this were to happen in a car accident it would be considered a mutilating injury.

Over the years my family has known several people who've had this surgery. On the bright side, none died on the operating table or within a few months of complications which is not uncommon from what I understand. On the down side, most did not lose 'all' their weight and were still fat if not morbidly obese when the rapid weight loss stopped; and they lost apparently a lot of actual LBM along with it; and most gained at least half if not all of the weight back before very long; and they all looked like death warmed over after a couple years in the face no matter the result in the body; and over time it's been one after the other I've heard of with really serious health issues and diseases. I do have one coworker who had this done, who is still chubby but she was under 300# when she had it done, like 280 I think. She and her ex-husband both had it done a few years ago. He died of potentially-related health complications last year. I'm sure there are good, 20-year-long-term stories of people who are healthy as a horse and lean and all is good, I just have yet to see even one of them.

PJ

I know of people who have had it done who were totally out of control and would have had weight related health problems if they hadn,t had it done. I agree there has to be a better way though. I don,t understand why insurance won,t cover things like wiring the jaw shut or pay for fat camp. They do pay for other addition in house treatment like drugs so why not for in house morbidly obese treatment.

Well, DUH! Everybody knows that the worst thing anyone can be is obese! (Snarking at bariatric surgeons, not you Angeline.)

So people avoid higher-weight-related problems. But they get a whole host of problems that are not just difficult to address (as is weight) but actually impossible. And on top of that, a really big % of them eventually are in the situation of the weight related problems they were to begin with.

Honestly I think of bariatric surgery on a par with drilling a hole in your head to get the demons out, allegedly a 15th century practice. I think leeches and Eye of Newt probably had more to recommend them, so I won't even put them in the same category.

PJ

"I'm sure there are good, 20-year-long-term stories of people who are healthy as a horse and lean and all is good, I just have yet to see even one of them."

That's my issue, too. I try to be nonjudgmental, and I understand the deseration people feel, but I don't know anyone who got this surgery who is a. thin or b. healthy. On the other hand, I have met tons of very large very healthy people (my ALL measures).

Kinda puts the lie to "First, do no harm" doesn't it!

Trepanning! Fascinating topic. There's actually some medical uses for that. I think I remember reading that in brain injuries where the brain swells it can reduce the pressure and it might have actually been used for that.


The medical profession has a long, long history of doing harmful things due to ignorance, from misusing radiation to not washing their hands because "Gentlemen don't have germs on their hands".

I'd love to write a book on the topic.

Hippocrates' Shadow: Secrets from the House of Medicine is not exactly that book, but a fascinating read about the state of medicine in 21st century US at any rate.

As the editorial review says:

What really bothers me about this surgery is that they perform it on people who are "only" 100 pounds overweight. Yeah, being 100 pounds overweight might cause some health problems, but it is not significant enough to warrant a surgery with so many awful side effects.

That's not even the case. I know a woman who got it who lost 30 pounds - she could not have been more than 180 before she got it. I think they can waive those requirements if there are other conditions at play, like Type II diabetes or high blood pressure.

Or if someone has decided this will fix all their problems, they can just go from doctor to doctor until they find someone who will do it for them, like that poor woman who died after cosmetic surgery for which she should NEVER have been accepted.