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This week on Health Watch, we’re talking about managing your weight in the food-filled holiday season. For some people, weight management may require bigger steps than eating fewer Christmas cookies. Weight loss surgery can be a big help to morbidly obese people, but which kind of surgery is most effective?
Surgeons at UT Southwestern Medical Center recently compared outcomes of gastric bypass surgery to gastric banding in more than 1,500 patients over the course of two years after the surgery. Dr. Nancy Puzziferri, a UT Southwestern bariatric surgeon, said the study found that gastric bypass surgery patients lost more weight faster and more consistently than those who received gastric bands. However, more than 90 percent of the patients who had either kind of surgery who initially lost more than 40 percent of their weight kept off that weight two years after the surgery.
Visit http://www.utsouthwestern.org/nutrition to learn more about UT Southwestern’s clinical services in nutrition.
November 2008
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