bariatric surgery

CDC Reports the U.S. is Supersized

Robert Cucin MD JD MBA bariatric surgery, Diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obesity, technology , , ,

A black and white picture of the airbrush logo.The CDC reports that 7 out of 10 Americans are overweight or obese and almost 4 out of 10 Americans are obese.

There is an underlying pattern of racial and ethnic disparity.  Almost half of Hispanics and blacks are obese with obesity rates for 2015-2016 of 47% and 46.8% for adult Latinos and non-Hispanic blacks respectively.

Obesity is most readily defined by Body Mass Index (“BMI”) which takes a person’s weight in kilograms and divides it by their height in meters squared.  For adults, those with a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 are considered to have a normal weight. A BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight and anything above 30 is deemed obese.  The NIH provides a calculator for you to determine your own BMI.

It is apparent to anyone following these statistics or even just walking down the street that current efforts to control the obesity problem have failed to reduce obesity rates.

We have learned that visceral fat or “belly” fat within the abdomen hijacks the metabolism by secreting the cytokine resistin.  This cellular hormone antagonizes insulin, blocking sugar from entering cells or reaching the brain.  It saps energy, shuts down the metabolism, causes brain fog, and hunger. Cellular hormones are secreted directly into the portal circulation and the body’s protein factory, the liver, is commandeered to produce bad lipids which cause strokes and heart attacks. Mesenteric fat thickness is closely correlated with carotid intimal narrowing.  Belly fat doesn’t just shorten your life, it reduces its quality with sleep apnea, gastric reflux, type 2 Diabetes mellitus, heart attacks, strokes, autoimmune diseases, and cancers.

New technology facilitates a new approach to the problem. Rather than just starving this belly fat and letting it remain in place as do current bariatric surgical alternatives, removing it this visceral fat in aminimally invasive procedure may prove to be a simpler, more direct and permanent, safer and highly effective alternative.  Endoscopic visceral lipectomy could just be what the doctor ordered.  Â It is clearly time to seek new approaches and fresh solutions as obesity rates continue to rise.

McKinsey’s Obesity Prevalence Projections May be LOW!

Robert Cucin MD JD MBA bariatric surgery, Diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obesity , ,

A black and white picture of the airbrush logo.McKinsey Global Institute has projected that by 2030, 50% of the world’s population will be obese and the annual cost of Obesity-related disease expenditures will have risen to $17,000,000,000,000.

An article in the Arab News reported that 70% of the Saudi’s are obese. With Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes galloping along in developed nations, the terrifying fact is that McKinsey’s projections may underestimate the problem!

Let us hope that, by allowing us to directly and safely remove the visceral fat that is the origin of the problem, Endoscopic Visceral Lipectomy (“EVL”) can avoid the progression of Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes and reverse it and give us a weapon to slow the rising prevalence of this disease.  I entreat all reading this post to help make BioSculpture Technology’s DPO a success so we may be able to offer EVL to the 2.1 Billion people about the globe who may benefit from it.  Your investment may be both impactful and profitable.

Uncoiling the Tightening Obesity Spiral

Robert Cucin MD JD MBA bariatric surgery, Diabetes, obesity , ,

ABSTRACT

While an underweight prevalence was once more than double that of obesity, now more people are obese than underweight. Â Obesity is one of the leading causes of preventable death in the world. There are an estimated 2,100,000,000 obese people worldwide and that number is forecast to grow to 51% of the world’s population by 2030. Escalating obesity-related disease costs threaten to bankrupt the world’s healthcare systems.

The author reviews some of the causes for the increasing prevalence of this disease, identifies opportunities to intervene to prevent its progression, and discusses possible methods that may avert further increase in the overall prevalence of obesity in the general population.

VIEWPOINT

2,100,000,000 people or nearly 30% of all people about the globe are obese with the U.S. population being the most obese. Not one country has achieved success in reducing obesity rates.1 Although some models suggest leveling off may limit the prevalence to a more modest 42%, linear trends forecast 51% of the world’s population is forecast to be obese by 20302. Obesity related diseases include gastric reflux, sleep apnea, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, autoimmune diseases and cancer, heart disease, strokes, and most significantly type 2 diabetes mellitus. In a report published November 20, 2014, McKinsey Global Institute estimated worldwide annual Obesity related disease costs reached $2,000,000,000 and are forecast to grow by 9.6% annually to $17,000,000,000 in 2030, threatening to bankrupt national healthcare systems.

In the vast majority of circumstances, diet and counseling are less successful than weight loss surgery as long-term solutions3,4 and successful treatment requires a multidisciplinary approach.5 However, in spite of the increasing obesity problem, the number of bariatric surgeries performed annually remains limited to a very small portion of the afflicted population.

Established surgical options are either restrictive or bypass in nature.  These surgeries involve cutting into the bowel, rearranging the body’s alimentary plumbing or leaving behind a foreign body to force the patient to eat less or make food wind up in the toilet incompletely digested, with potential of creating nutritional cripples. The number of bariatric surgeries has plateaued with annual costs exceeding $1,500,000,0006 and was estimated at approximately 196,000 by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery for 2015 with Roux-en-Y and gastric banding losing popularity in favor of gastric sleeves.  They reported revisions have more than doubled between 2011 and 2015 and comprise almost 14% of all such surgeries. The low plateau evidences patient and physician dissatisfaction with the costs, risks and long-term sequelae of current surgical options. Read more