Do you qualify for bariatric surgery?

Not all obese patients are selected for bariatric surgery. Only those with BMI of >40 or >35 with co morbidities such as Hypertension or Diabetes Mellitus are eligible. There is an argument for obese individuals with lower BMI too but evidence for the same is awaited.

Recently hypogonadism and sub fertility in men was added to the list of co morbidities, which are likely to benefit from bariatric surgery. However controlled clinical trials are awaited(1)

P.S. know your BMI by using the blog's tool on the right side of the page.

Ref-

1. M. Lucchese, 

M. Maggi 

Hypogonadism as a New Comorbidity in Male Patient's Selection for Bariatric Surgery: Towards an Extended Concept of Metabolic Surgery?
Obesity Surgery December 2013, Volume 23, Issue 12, pp 2018-2019

Modern day epidemic

We often tend to believe that obesity is a problem of the west. Even as doctors, we tend to ignore the risk we face today. We are often too overwhelmed solving today's problems to be concerned with what the future may have in store for us. Especially at tertiary centre like ours, where residents put in over 100 hours a week routinely and consultants are on call 24 x 7, an obese adult who is otherwise healthy tends to be passed off as a healthy adult.

While it may be true that the extent of the epidemic is not as immense as faced by the developed world, it is by no means a trivial issue. We are yet to overcome the challenges posed by infectious diseases. As a developing country, we have limitations and our set up is just not ready to face the plethora of non communicable diseases, which will present soon if we do not act against obesity now.

Often in our surgical OPD we see patients, who do not present to us due to their obesity. There is often a waiting period of a few months for benign diseases like GSD. Some patients may actually present due to their weight. In both such cases, the following protocol is followed-

 BMI calculator is on the
 right side of the screen.