RAY FARRUGIA used to be a very big bloke. Before his weight-loss surgery, the 49-year-old Melbourne IT professional weighed 120 kilograms, had type 2 diabetes and could barely run 50 metres.
After an adjustable silicon band was put around the top of his stomach to reduce the amount of food he could eat, he lost almost 40 kilograms, his diabetes went into remission and he can now run five kilometres.
It's a medical trifecta.
A lot of people take heartburn medications for acid reflux disease. There are drugs like Prevasid, Prilosec or Zantac.
The medications are necessary for millions of people, but a new study confirms that they do put patients at higher risk for fractures of the hip.
Patients in Canada are dying while waiting their turn for obesity surgery, according to new research that says wait times for bariatric surgery are the longest of any surgically treated condition in the country.
No too-heavy Ohio troopers or sergeants have been fired in recent years, but at least 11 have received verbal or written reprimands since January for weighing too much, Department of Public Safety records show. One trooper was 48 pounds over his allowable weight, while another was 40 pounds beyond the maximum.
In an incredible weight loss story Mr. and Mrs. Glencross from Lincolnshire can claim to have lost almost fifteen stone between them over the last year. Roy and Kate Glencross who have ten grandchildren were warned by doctors that they were facing a whole list of obesity related illnesses which could kill them.
My reporting for Monday's Los Angeles Times (here and here) includes the statistic, derived from one study, that a solid majority of healthy people over age 60 have scoliosis of the spine. In the patient population I commonly see in St. Louis, at the university where Larry Lenke and Keith Bridwell work, most of the patient's who've gone on to have surgery for their scoliosis are in their 60's to 80's.
