PAST PICKS OCTOBER 2009

Did you know that bariatric surgery doubles the risk of bone fracture?  The Mayo Clinic released the findings of a study showing that of the many potentially serious consequences of bariatric surgery one is the rapid and sustained bone turnover that occurs a couple years following obesity procedures.  This is attributed to a substantially altered nutrient intake after bariatric surgeries.  Even with aggressive calcium and vitamin D supplementation after bariatric procedures, the study found it was insufficent to prevent the increased risk of fracture--with hands and feet bearing the brunt of the highest fracture risks.  Losing weight should mean gaining health.  Losing bone is NOT healthy.

Compared with women of normal weight at the beginning stages of pregnancy, overweight women have an 18% increased risk of giving birth to a child with heart defects; the severely obese have a 30% increased risk.  If these women develop gestational diabetes, they are at an even higher increased risk to give birth to a child with heart defects.  The head of the CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities stated so aptly, "This doesn't mean that women should start dieting during pregnancy; these defects occur very early in pregnancy. Therefore, they should be at a healthy weight before that."  Exactly!

Temple University in Philadelphia initiated a study with 264 obese patients, average age 61 years old, all with a ‘moderate’ apnea index—meaning they experience 15 to 29 apnea events per hour. Those who had no weight loss over a year had a significant average increase of four apnea events per hour, moving them into a ‘severe’ apnea index). It confirms that obese apnea patients have a rapid progression of episodes as they age, and this progression leads to hypertension, stroke and oftentimes death from cardiovascular causes—risks that are already elevated because of their obesity.