Weight Loss News

In the first operations of their kind in Northeastern USA, a bariatric surgery team at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre, New York has performed a unique non-invasive weight loss procedure that uses a new device that reduces the size of a patient’s stomach without the need for any incisions.

Shawn Garber, MD, Chief of Bariatric Surgery at Mercy, is one of the first five surgeons in the United States to learn the StomaphyX(tm) procedure for endoluminal gastric pouch reduction in patients with previous gastric bypass surgery.

The procedure was performed on July 18 on five patients who underwent laparoscopic gastric bypass in 2003 and had been gaining back some weight because of gradual expansion of their gastric pouches. All had their pouches successfully reduced using the new StomaphyX procedure.

“This is an important new option for the 15 to 20 percent of patients who gain weight a few years after undergoing bariatric surgery,” explained Dr. Garber, who heads the New York Bariatric Group. “Because it involves neither abdominal nor internal incisions, this technique is the least invasive, has the lowest risk, and allows patients to recover more quickly and return to their normal activities.”

Dr. Garber and his colleague, Spencer Holover, MD, have performed more than 2,000 weight loss surgeries with the specially-trained team at Mercy, which has been designated as a Bariatric Surgery Center of Excellence by the American Society For Bariatric Surgery.

“This dramatic advance is the future of bariatric surgery,” said Dr. Garber. “The endoluminal technique introduces the instrument that reduces the size of the stomach through the mouth, reducing the risk of infection from surgical incisions, preserving future treatment options, nearly eliminating pain for the patient, and requiring less recovery time than open or even minimally-invasive laparoscopic procedures.”

Acomplia for weight loss

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Acomplia, the new weight-loss pill from Sanofi-Aventis, has not yet been approved in the United States because of questions about its safety. But some Americans have decided not to wait.

Many are traveling to Europe, where the drug has been approved, or buying the medicine through foreign Web sites, while the U.S. Food and Drug Administration continues its evaluations of the treatment. On Monday, a panel of advisers to the agency said that the pill might raise the risk of suicide and suicidal thoughts.

"I don't have very many years to go, and I don't want to spend that time over 200 pounds," said Yvette Cardozo, a 62-year-old American photographer who bought six months' worth of Acomplia during a trip to London. "This is the only thing that's ever worked for me."

Twenty milligrams of Acomplia, the highest dose, resulted in statistically and clinically significant weight loss, the Food and Drug Administration's staff said in documents posted Monday on the agency's Web site. The agency advisory panel will meet Wednesday to discuss whether the medicine's benefits of reducing weight, cholesterol and blood sugar outweigh its risks.

Since clinical tests have shown that the drug can cause anxiety and depression, analysts said the panel might be cautious about approving it without seeing more studies.

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Obese, postmenopausal age women who decide to trim down don't need to worry that they will put themselves in danger of disability by doing so, even if they don't exercise as recommended, a new study shows.

After losing a substantial amount of weight through diet, but without exercising, 23 obese women in their 50s showed no reduction in muscle strength or fitness, even though they had lost muscle mass, Dr. Jamehl Demons of the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

"There was a trend actually toward increasing physical fitness," Demons told Reuters Health. "Our supposition is really that that was due to the weight loss itself."

People lose muscle mass as they age, and some experts have been concerned that weight loss late in life may accelerate muscle loss and increase the risk of disability.

To investigate, Demons and her team had 23 obese women eat 400 calories less per day for five months. They lost an average of 11.6 kilograms (about 26 pounds), 35 percent of which was lean mass or muscle. After the weight loss, the women showed no change in their walking speed or muscle strength. Their aerobic fitness and speed in rising from a chair had improved, although the change wasn't statistically significant.

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Participating in some moderate to vigorous physical activity and limiting TV were key to successful weight loss in teens, according to a U.S. study.

A University of Minnesota Medical School study, published in Obesity, identified common factors among the 16-to-18-year-olds who lost weight including:

-- Females who lost weight averaged 7.6 hours of physical activity a week, and males 11.7 a week.

-- Females were more likely to participate in weight training and strengthening exercises.

-- Teens who lost weight spent significantly less time in front of the television compared to those who gained weight.

Kerri Boutelle, lead author and assistant professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota Medical School, says it is clear that exercising, staying active and limiting sedentary activity is essential to teens losing weight.