Howard's Way endorses Daily Mail's concerns about bariatric surgery
According to an article in the Daily Mail, the true costs of gastric bands (fitted to help people lose weight) include brittle bones, depression and suicide.

ST ALBANS, ENGLAND, July 10, 2010 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Celebrities such as Vanessa Feltz and Fern Britton are among many people who have publicly admitted to having gastric bands fitted to help them lose - and stop putting on - weight. However, according to an article in the Daily Mail, the true costs of gastric bands include brittle bones, depression and suicide.

While the number of weight loss operations (known as bariatric surgery) has reached record numbers, the Daily Mail article reveals that, despite these operations' apparent convenience, serious concerns are emerging about their overuse, their soaring failure rate and the deaths and lifelong complications that can result.

Penelope Howard, obesity specialist and the founder of the Howard's Way very low calorie diet (VLCD), commented: "The Daily Mail article confirms Howard's Way's view that having bariatric surgery is a bad move.

"I've known of cases where the patients who, having undergone bariatric surgery have had to exist on pureed food (food replacement) and take their nutrients in additive form for the rest of their life. By contrast, Howard's Way patients receive all their nutrients in the Howard's Way food replacement formula throughout their weight loss period and then re-enter the real world and live on 'regular' food the rest of their life!

"We have actually had patients who, having had bariatric surgery, ask if they can come on our diet," she added.

According to Penelope, the Howard's Way VLCD:
• helps patients lose all the weight they want to lose
• keeps them fit and healthy while they do so
• re-educates them on the properties; values and dangers of foods for their future weight management
• offers free support and guidance for life

"We aim to teach our patients about nutritional values of food; how to see past misleading advertising on food; how their bodies use different foods, and which foods - such as white sugar - are likely to have an addictive quality about them," Penelope explained. "Secondly, we want to keep them nutritionally supported and healthy while they shed their excess weight at the rate of 14 to 21 pounds every four weeks while they are on the programme."

An alternative approach to weight loss, bariatric surgery - introduced in the 1990s - involves having a silicone band fitted around the stomach; staples inserted to make the stomach smaller, or having the gut 're-plumbed' to make the stomach smaller and the digestive tract shorter. All forms of bariatric surgery aim to make patients want much less at meal times.

Last year, the NHS bill for bariatric surgery amounted to some GBP20m. In all, some 4,300 operations were carried out by the NHS in 2009 - a 55 per cent rise over the previous year - and there were another 5,000 operations performed privately.
However, research is now showing that a significant number of these operations are ineffective.

According to researchers from the University of California, San Diego, some 20 per cent of gastric bypass patients regain much of their weight within a few years of surgery. And a study by Dutch doctors has found the success rate for gastric banding might be so low it calls into question whether the operation is worth doing.

Five years after surgery, a third failed to lose significant weight. After ten years, two-thirds were around their original size. As a result of complications, a third of patients needed the operation re-done after five years; while half needed this after ten years.

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota report that people who undergo bariatric surgery have twice the average risk of breaking bones later. One theory is that the patients' reduced ability to absorb nutrients leads to bone-thinning. Iron absorption is also affected, leaving patients at much higher risk of anemia.

Other new research suggests that bariatric surgery can contribute to patients developing kidney stones and psychological problems, including committing suicide.

The Daily Mail article quoted John Morgan, a consultant psychiatrist at the Yorkshire Centre for Eating Disorders as saying: "If you're eating because of a need in your brain rather than a need for stomach satiety signals, then having your stomach reduced is not going to solve that."

It went on to state that psychologists have discovered that while many surgery patients cut their eating, they transfer their addiction - becoming alcoholics, binge-shoppers or sex addicts.

While the effectiveness of bariatric surgery is being questioned, there is a still need to reduce the number of people in Britain who qualify for this type of surgery. It is estimated that there are 1m Britons who have a BMI of 40 or more (or 35 to 40 if the patient has type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure). Under current NHS rules, this qualifies them fro bariatric surgery but the article quotes Professor Tony Leeds, a bariatric physician at the Whittington Hospital in North London, as saying that the cost of this would be GBP9.1bn.

"Howard's Way, with its VLCD, is making a dent in the nation's obesity figures," said Penelope. "We're a viable alternative to bariatric surgery, and we save the NHS money by reducing the demand for obesity-related medication or surgery."

For further details about Howard's Way, visit http://www.howardsway.co.uk

The Daily Mail story, written by John Naish, is available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1292350/From-brittle-bones- ... z0svL5exWo

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About Howard's Way VLCD

Penelope Howard had been researching into very low calorie diets (VLCDs) and weight loss since 1992 and worked with obese patients and a VLCD for some five years before she founded Howard's Way in 1998.

Those enrolling on the Howard's Way VLCD initially agree to an 18 week programme involving regular meetings twice weekly for the first four weeks, then once a week from there on. For the 'Distance Dieter' these meetings are replaced with one-to-one 'support calls' every week. In addition, Howard's Way staff try to speak to those beginning the diet for at least five minutes a day to provide vital 'moral' support.

Howard's Way recognises that the hardest struggle is maintaining lost weight. So, while dieting, all patients are talked through weekly handouts to gain knowledge and understanding on the workings of their body and the effects of eating certain foodstuffs. Additionally, Howard's Way Maintenance support is 'free of charge for life' for all our dieters.

Typically, most patients lose at least three stones (20 kilos) in weight, men often much more, in the first 12 weeks of the diet. Those who choose to carry on with the diet continue to lose about a stone (6.5 kilos) every four weeks.

The Howard's Way VLCD comprises specially formulated foods, in the form of: milk shakes; soups; and fruit bars; containing the full complement of vitamins, minerals, protein and essential fatty acids that an adult requires but restricting the calorific intake, to induce a state of 'mild dietary ketosis' after day three of the diet.

Further information from:
Penelope Howard: + 44 (0)1923 773851 / penny@croxley.demon.co.uk
Bob Little, Bob Little Press & PR: +44 (0)1727 860405 / bob.little@boblittlepr.com

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