As a surgeon who specializes in weight loss surgery, I’ve seen first-hand the frustration that weight management issues can have in a person. I’ve seen patients, who struggle with obesity, go on medically supervised diets and do everything in their power to lose weight. And I’ve seen some of these same patients break down in tears because, despite their best efforts, despite their dedication and focus on losing weight, the results just do not come. Or, the results do come, but frustratingly, they just do not last, and within time, the patient is once more struggling with their weight.
As a doctor and as a man who has deep pride in his field and being called Dr Abdulrahim Alawashez, it hurts me to see the frustration and hopelessness many people feel when it comes to their weight condition. At the same time, as a surgeon, it gives me great joy to be able to offer a potential solution to many patients who struggle with obesity.
Dr Abdulrahim Alawashez and weight loss surgery.
For those people struggling with losing weight and keeping it off, and for those people who are considered morbidly obese, weight loss surgery may be the most effective and most viable solution to treating obesity. And although some may consider surgery to be an overly aggressive or overblown solution for obesity, a detailed review of just how detrimental obesity can be to a person’s health should help communicate the seriousness of the issue.
The negative health affects that can come as a direct result of obesity are many, and as a doctor, it’s something I particularly want to stress.
Consider, first and foremost, how much obesity, and especially morbid obesity, can affect a person’s quality and enjoyment life. Movement, exercise and the ability to maintain an active lifestyle – these are all things that are imperative to enjoying a healthy life, all of which can be threatened and potentially severely limited by obesity.
Moving on from this, we encounter other potential health complications caused by obesity, all of which are extremely serious, if not potentially life threatening. Heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and hypertension, obstructive sleep apnea, stroke, heartburn or reflux disease, and last but not least, cancer – these are all incredibly serious diseases that obesity is proven to be a risk factor for.
It’s no wonder then that studies have demonstrated that a person who is 40 percent overweight, and who has been 40 percent overweight for 10 to 30 years, is twice as likely to die prematurely than a person who is of average weight. Unfortunately, the health complications potentially caused as a result of obesity or morbid obesity do not end there. Other serious health issues, such as gout, gallbladder disease, high-risk pregnancy, infertility and breathing disorders, are more likely to occur in a person who is obese than in an average-weight person.
It’s for these reasons why weight loss surgery should be considered as a treatment option for some individuals, particularly for those individuals who have demonstrated little improvement in weight management after a medically supervised diet change. Indeed, it’s been shown that weight loss surgery does what it’s intended to do, i.e. achieve quick and, more importantly, sustained weight loss in a patient. This, in turn, means that the risk of death from the serious conditions just mentioned, i.e. diabetes, stroke, cancer, etc., returns to normal once the weight loss is achieved through surgery.
Although surgery should not be an option for everyone who is struggling with weight management issues, my goal is to communicate just how serious obesity is, both in and of itself, as well as a causal factor for other serious diseases.
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