LAP band surgery has been declared the only effective treatment for obesity by some of Australia's top medical scientists.
About one in two adults are thought to be overweight, and
researchers at Monash University have called for a drastic increase in
the number of taxpayer-funded lap band procedures.
They told a
parliamentary inquiry into the nation's obesity crisis that dieting and
other treatments had had only limited success in the battle of the
bulge.
The average dieter lost 10-15kg, but put it back on over
the next 2-3 years and often ended up heavier than before, the
university's Centre for Obesity Research and Education said.
But analysis showed lap band surgery resulted in the sustained loss of 50-60 per cent of excess weight.
Of
about 8000 procedures in Australia each year, only 5 per cent were in
public hospitals, the centre said in a submission to the inquiry.
Its call for greater funding of the surgery came as the Australian
Medical Association asked the State Government to fund 3000 anti-obesity
procedures over the next three years at five public hospitals.
Writing
in the latest Medical Journal of Australia, AMA Victoria president Doug
Travis said the surgery was useful for those who had failed at other
treatments.
But he said surgery should be just a small part of a comprehensive national obesity strategy.
Others in the field believe surgery is not the answer to the obesity crisis.
John
Hawley, a professor of exercise metabolism at RMIT University, and
David Dunstan, from the International Diabetes Institute, said
Australians had to wake up to what they were doing to their bodies.
"We
need to attack the environmental roots of obesity, namely our sedentary
lifestyles and calorie excess," the specialists wrote in the Medical
Journal of Australia.
Anything else was "too little, too late," they said.
"Australians are fatter than they have ever been before," the pair wrote, quoting
new figures showing 60 per cent of the population is now either
overweight or obese.
A recent study of 30 obese diabetics in
Melbourne showed that gastric banding drastically reduced weight and put
the disease in remission within two years for 70 per cent of patients.
Prof
Paul O'Brien, who led that study at Monash University, said the
procedure could effectively cure both conditions for the "bargain" price
of $17,000.
Despite this, the surgery is still not widely
available and can only be done privately for about $9000. But interest
in it is increasing.
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