July 24, 2007 WISTV
NATIONAL - Flat abs are often considered a sign of youth, and last year, almost two hundred thousand people had tummy tucks in the United States alone.

But it might not be too late to bring back a more youthful tummy without major surgery.

Nancy Bunt is a vivacious 40-something who wishes her abs matched her youthful outlook.

“To wear something more fitted, I just wasn’t, I wasn’t comfortable. So I decided to do something about it,” said Bunt.

She’s enlisted reconstructive surgeon Gerald H. Pitman to revive her abs using a procedure called lower abdominoplasty, or a mini tummy tuck.

Whether a person loses weight through diet and exercise or through bariatric surgery, there are a few problems that arise as a result of the weight loss. One that will be most noticeable is the loose skin that remains after the weight is gone. When someone is overweight, the skin stretches to accommodate the increased volume of weight. After weight loss, the skin often fails to tighten, and so it sags. In many cases, it hangs (especially in the arms, stomach, thighs, breasts, and buttocks). It acts as a constant reminder of the weight you once carried around. Exercise WILL NOT tighten skin (exercise never tightens skin - only muscles). The only way to tighten loose skin is through cosmetic plastic surgery.

You and your doctor have agreed: surgery could be the answer to your weight-loss problems.

But what are the disadvantages – and the possible risks – of bariatric surgery? And how will this operation change your life?

Risks of bariatric surgery
Any operation that requires an anaesthetic, which takes between 1 and 3,5 hours to complete, is potentially dangerous.

If one also keeps in mind that patients who undergo these operations are morbidly obese and often suffer from a variety of associated complications such as respiratory disorders, diabetes and heart disease, the risks may be even more.

According to scientific literature, the following risks are associated with bariatric surgery:

by CLAIRE COLEMAN - The DAILY MAIL
Practitioners with no medical training,drugs bought over the internet and disfiguring results. Worse still, it’s all legal. When Bonnie Kaplan wanted to hide a few wrinkles, she thought nothing of visiting a private clinic for a couple of shots of Botox.                                                          “I’m 53, I’ve got wrinkles. I wanted to get rid of them,” she says. “All my friends were doing it.”                                                                                    She had no idea that the doctor treating her would be an osteopath who had been struck off, nor that rather than using Botox, he would inject her with a diluted form of botulinum toxin, the highly poisonous substance from which Botox is derived, that was intended for lab research rather than use on humans.

by Tony Chen 
July 26, 2007 

The politics and science around obesity continues to become more complicated and more urgent. Just about everyone sees it as a problem, but no one seems to be addressing it in a meaningful way. Maybe it’s because obesity has emotional, social, psychological, physiological, socioeconomic, racial/cultural, and genetic dynamics all entangled together. As an example, just take a look at the obesity-related news from the last few week:

- HealthAffairs: This is why a fat tax doesn’t make sense - if done the wrong way, it could actually increase the cardiovascular-related death rate. If fatty foods are too expensive, people will just end up buying and eating more salty foods.

       Written by Amy Nutt    
Thursday, 19 July 2007 
Cosmetic surgery has changed a great deal since doctors began using such procedures to repair birth defects and repair facial wounds caused by war or service. The procedures that were once a necessity became popular among rich people striving for perfection and eventually became an accessible option for anyone wanting to reshape part of their face or body.

Moulding the Body

The idea of reshaping or molding the body is not a new practice. Cosmetic surgeries have been done for roughly 4,000 years. It wasn’t until the 18th century, however, that surgeons began using anesthesia during this reconstruction. Furthermore, it wasn’t done in America until 1891 when John Roe reduced the risks associated with it.

Extract from: Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery. 118(1):207-212, July 2006.
Stevens, W Grant M.D.; Cohen, Robert M.D.; Vath, Steven D. M.D.; Stoker, David A. M.D.; Hirsch, Elliot M. B.A.
Abstract:
Background: This study was designed to evaluate and compare the complication rates of patients having abdominoplasty without breast surgery with the rates of those having abdominoplasty with various types of elective breast surgery, including breast augmentation, breast reduction, mastopexy, and mastopexy combined with simultaneous augmentation.
…………
Conclusion: The results of this retrospective review indicate that combining elective breast surgery with abdominoplasty does not appear to significantly increase the number of major or minor complications.
Full abstract can be read at
http://www.plasreconsurg.com/pt/re/prs/abstract.00006534-200607000-00035.htm;jsessionid=GqDBSB9hyv5rqnddYNLVw2y78BT0H61GBrZ6yd5RTjcmp2zFpnJz!1683421839!181195628!8091!-1
 

By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor Daily Telegraph
Around 60,000 people in Britain could be infected this year with the most widespread hospital superbug despite campaigns to tackle the problem, new figures out today show.

In the first three months of this year 15,592 people over the age of 65 were infected with Clostridium difficile, a two per cent rise on the same period last year. The bug takes hold in the guts of patients who have been given antibiotics and causes thousands of deaths. There were a total of 55,634 cases of C.Diff in 2006. The new figures from the Health Protection Agency show rates of the other major health care associated infection, MRSA, are dropping. There was a 6.4 per cent fall in the three months up to March 2007, with a total of 1,444 bloodstream infections reported in England compared with 1,542 in the last quarter. The full-year data shows there has been a 10 per cent drop in the number of MRSA cases.

Article in Australian News
June 03, 2007 12:00pm
OVERWEIGHT or single parents are more likely to breed chubby children, new research has found, debunking the idea that parenting style is linked to obesity.
A study published in the Medical Journal of Australia shows a parent’s weight and marital status have more influence on childhood obesity than their parenting style.
The study found that family conflict, negative life events, and maternal depression were not likely to affect a child’s tendency to become overweight or obese.
“We found that parenting style was not associated with childhood obesity,” said lead author Dr Lisa Gibson, a psychologist with the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Perth.
“Previous indications of a link between poor family functioning and childhood obesity were based on studies without population-based data and without observations across a range of theoretically important factors.”
But parenting practices regarding eating and exercise may play a role in childhood weight problems, Dr Gibson said.
“Children from single-parent families, particularly when there is a family history of obesity, may struggle to maintain a healthy weight in an obesogenic environment with restricted access to nutritious foods and adequate facilities for recreational exercise,” she said.
“The association between children’s weight, maternal BMI (body mass index) and family structure confirms the need to find ways of targeting prevention and intervention efforts for childhood obesity at families with overweight parents, particularly under-resourced single-parent families.”
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21841181-2,00.html

May 31, 2007 7:52 a.m. EST
Nidhi Sharma - AHN Staff Writer
Brussels, Belgium (AHN) - Obesity is the major problem facing more than half of adults in European Union nations and a staggering amount of young people in the region, as well, according to the EU’s top public health official.
EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou says that people are developing unhealthy food habits with diets mostly consisting of fatty and sweet ingredients combined. The unhealthy diet, coupled with lack of physical activity account for six of the seven top factors leading to poor health.
Recalling the fact that the EU Commission has constantly warned governments to act, but no action was taken, the minister added, “Everybody has to be blamed - including the authorities, including the industry, including the consumers,” Kyprianou said.
Expressing his concern over the ever-expanding waist size of children, Kyprianou stressed on the need to act urgently as “today’s overweight children will be tomorrow’s heart attack victims.”
According to statistics provided by the EU, over 21 million children are overweight and the rate of increase of that number is more than 400,000 children a year.
The overall consumption of fruit and vegetables is lower than medical recommendations. Additionally, the intake of fat and saturated fats is high throughout the continent, while the consumption of cereals has fallen by a quarter since the 1960s in Europe.
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