Stamford Hospital has taken a stand and developed a center specific to the country”™s cumbersome issue ”“ life threatening obesity, a burden felt by loved ones, children and even an employer”™s pockets.
The Stamford Hospital Center for Surgical Weight Loss under the guidance of Daniel Davis, chief of bariatric surgery at Stamford Hospital, has developed a team of weight management specialists to assist patients through a safe and seamless weight loss journey, whether it is surgical or non-surgical.
“It”™s no news to anybody that the prevalence of obesity in the United States is rising to epidemic proportions,” Davis said. “Everything has more than doubled in the last 10 years; the prevalence as well as the medical expenditures related to obesity, which are over $150 billion per year. That”™s quite a price tag.”
Though that number does not include what obesity costs American employers. According to a 2010 study by the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine the cost of obesity to United States fulltime employers is estimated to be over $73 billion; a figure equivalent to employing an additional 1.8 million fulltime people across the country.
“Absenteeism is interesting, but what”™s called present-teeism, or obese employees who go to work, also cost employers tremendously,” said Davis. “There really is an incentive for employers to have some sort of obesity treatment coverage for their employees; though a lot of employer”™s plans continue not to cover dietary counseling or bariatric surgery.”
Davis said obesity is the second leading cause of preventable death. Smoking still ranks No. 1 but Davis said with education, smoking looks to become second to obesity in the next few years. Today more than 72 million Americans are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It”™s important that every community have a program in place to really fight this disease, just like they do with diabetes and heart disease,” said Davis.
The new center is based at the Stamford Hospital, which is in the midst of a multi-million dollar, multi-year expansion plan. The center also does work out of The Tully Health Center in Stamford, which has exercise and holistic medical programs.
“We utilize the entire health services available to use,” said Davis. “We have four doctors working directly on the team but we utilize specialties from pulmonary to sleep medicine, because these things relate to every system in your body. There is no other field in medicine where we cure multiple ailments that they could be suffering from by doing one procedure.”
Stamford Hospital”™s program currently offers four types of weight loss surgery including laparoscopic gastric bypass, laparoscopic gastric banding, laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy, laparoscopic duodenal switch.
“You need to have non-surgical options as well as surgical,” said Davis. “You need to offer comprehensive options.
A mix of coordinated programs
Davis said the center utilizes comprehensive medical management programs with physicians, holistic medicine through the center for integrative medicine, dietitians, philologists and physiatrists, nutritionists, as well as full weight-management programs. For those patients who fail to maintain their weight loss, they now have a surgical option.
“Once you”™re Body Mass Index gets above 35 you increase your chance of premature death dramatically increases,” said Davis. “That”™s when surgery becomes the option. After surgery it”™s important the physiological support continues. It”™s very central to the issue; unfortunately eating is a comfort measure that patients use in a time of stress. It”™s really important that we educate patients preoperatively.”
Davis said diets don”™t work in 95 percent of patients with body mass indexes of greater than 30 past two years because of lack of maintenance.
“Surgery has been shown to be the only affective option,” said Davis.
Weight-loss industry offers magic bullet
Davis said the industry built around weight loss is based on short-term expectations and unrealistic goals.
“Patients actually often do great with diets, in the short term,” said Davis. “Though they”™ll gain all that weight back and then some; these industries are feeding on that yearning to find the quick fix, the magic bullet.”
Davis said the weight loss, weight management and the meal replacement products are a multi-billion dollar industry. The pharmaceutical industry is also trying hard to find a way to control weight gain, but the FDA has found that the majority of products to have extreme side effects.
As part of the new initiative Stamford Hospital also has a childhood obesity program in place. According to Davis the problems of obesity are often genetic as well as learned at an early age.
“Over 25 percent of our pediatric population is obese, that”™s more than doubled over the last 10 years,” said Davis. “Over 75 percent of obese children become morbidly obese adults.”
Davis said the issue with childhood obesity is multi-factorial with learned behavior, lack of exercise, school lunches, increased computer culture, a decline in home cooking, and accesses to processed and fast-food all contributing.
