New Study...FYI...

After reading the following, I feel much better about 2 things - 1. The surgeon (has done over 700 surgeries) 2. The benefits vs. the risks Thought I'd pass it along... ========================= From WebMD... Researchers found the short-term risk of death following gastric bypass surgery was much higher than previously thought, specifically: 1.9% of gastric bypass surgery patients died within 30 days after the procedure, which is four times higher than the rate of about 0.5% suggested by smaller previous studies. Nearly half of all early deaths occurred after the patient came home from the hospital. The risk of death within 30 days after gastric bypass surgery was nearly five times higher if the surgeon had performed less than 20 of the procedures than if the surgeon had more experience. Of the cases in which the patient died within 30 days after gastric bypass surgery, 81% were among the surgeons first 19 gastric bypass surgeries. Long-Term Benefits of Gastric Bypass Surgery Pay Off However, the study also showed that obese people who had gastric bypass surgery had a much lower risk of death over the long-term. After 15 years of follow up, 16% of obese people who did not have gastric bypass surgery died compared with 12% of those who did. The long-term benefits of gastric bypass surgery in reducing the risk of death were greatest among young patients who were under 40 and the morbidly obese. After more than 13 years of follow up, only 3% of those who had the procedure died compared with 14% of morbidly obese people who did not have the procedure. "The bottom line is that bariatric surgery, specifically gastric bypass, is a complicated operation in a complicated group of people," Flum tells WebMD. "When it's effective, it's very effective, but it has some real risks." The second study, which appears in the September issue of the Annals of Surgery, also showed that gastric bypass surgery significantly reduced the risk of death over the long-term among morbidly obese people. Canadian researchers followed more than 5,000 morbidly obese people who did not have surgery and compared them with nearly 1,000 morbidly obese people who had a gastric bypass between 1996 and 2002. After five years of follow up, the study showed that 0.68% of those who had gastric bypass surgery died compared with 6% of the others, which translates to an 89% reduction in the risk of death. The study also showed that people who had gastric bypass surgery had lower risks of developing heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and mental disorders compared with those who didn't. ============================ I can't put the full link in, but my.webmd.com/content/article/95/103161.htm with http:// in front should get you there.