Madrid, 1st February 2008.- After the last incidents reported by the media about the death of 3 obese patients, the Spanish Society of Obesity Surgery wants to clarify that:

1. Severe or morbid clinical obesity is a disease characterized by the excess of body fat reservoir. It affects those patients with a Body Mass Index (BMI –weight / squared height in metres-) of 40 or higher or a BMI of 35 or higher and other associated comorbidities such as: hypertension, diabetes, high level of cholesterol, hearth and coronary diseases, sleep apnoea.

2. It is a very important health problem that puts at risk the life of the patients that suffer it.

3. It isn’t an aesthetic problem that can be solved with plastic or aesthetic surgery.

4. The only long term curative solution for the patients with severe or morbid obesity is the obesity surgery, the bariatric surgery. It is estimated that the patients with morbid obesity that have an operation, live an average of twelve years more than those patients with morbid obesity that haven’t operated. Furthermore, surgery not only prevents a premature death cased by obesity, but also treats related complications (comorbidities): hypertension, diabetes, high level of cholesterol, hearth and coronary disease, sleep apnoea.

5. The bariatric surgery consists of reducing, to a greater or lesser degree, the stomach size, following, in most of the patients, a procedure that prevents fat absorption. After being operated, food habits radically change. In this way, the consumption of calories decrease and it is secured a weight loss that controls the disease.

6. Patients with severe or morbid obesity are risk population and, therefore, when they are surgically operated, their operation entails the same risks that in other risk patients (such as elderly, diabetic, hypertensive or malnourished people) that are operated to treat any other pathology.

7. The bariatric surgery is a major surgery to treat a very serious health problem. It is necessary to operate in order to prevent the deaths that obesity causes. Obesity surgery is considered a major surgery and this means that it isn’t saved from potential serious complications. Nevertheless it is a very reliable procedure that, if it is performed by surgeons specializing in the obesity treatment, it entails a mortality rate less than 2 per cent.

8. There are several surgical alternatives. Nowadays almost all of them are performed by laparoscopy, what means that the operation is less serious for the patient, in the obesity units, after exhaustively studying each patient, it is recommended the most appropriate procedure for each case.

9. The spreading of some information causes in patients with morbid obesity an unjustified fear which can seriously damage their health, inducing them to opt for other “therapeutic alternatives that are useless to treat their disease.

10. Spanish Society of Obesity Surgery recommends obese patients to consult properly reputable surgeons and obesity units. They will provide you with correct and reliable information. Furthermore, they assess your case in an individual way explaining you the most proper treatment to your problem.

To ask for more information:
Spanish Society of Obesity Surgery (SECO)
Press: Silvia Muñoz / Pilar Berengena
Telephone numbers: +34 91 787 03 00 / +34 687 72 02 81 / +34 687 72 02 87