5 percent, lapband investigations and fail.

As I've mentioned many times before, dieting and other weight loss methods don't work for most people in the long run. Some of them are downright dangerous for health and self-esteem.

Case in point: investigations on Allergan's lapband surgery are moving forward. This time it's federal rather than just in California.  

In January, House Democratic lawmakers called for hearings on medical devices including Lap-Band, following a study in the medical journal Archives of Surgery, that found almost half of patients with a gastric band had no weight loss or needed the device removed after six years. More than 40 percent had long- term complications.

While Lapband is being investigated, a few people at the FDA finally got their bribes-- I mean incentatives-- because the panel approved the diet drug Lorcaserin despite previously rejecting it.

The drug works to control the appetite through receptors in the brain, and a study showed it helped nearly half of participants lose up to five percent of their body weight 

So the FDA wants to put people at risk for heart valve and psychological problems so that 38% rather than 16% could lose 5% of their body weight over a year (most people could lose that during a bad stomach flu.)

Concerns about heart valve problems helped spur the advisory panel to vote 9-5 against recommending approval of lorcaserin in September 2010. Committee members' other safety concerns included psychiatric problems such as psychosis and breast and brain tumors seen in rats given the drug. Meanwhile, patients who took lorcaserin lost only a bit more weight than those given a placebo.

So let's repeat the mantra, no diet drug has ever worked in the long run and some of them are dangerous. 

Meanwhile in Australia Doctors are shocked when fat teenage girls pressured to diet, exercise and lose weight don't retain healthy habits or weight loss after a year. One reason it failed was because the girls didn't care.

Participation in some of those activities was less than ideal. For example, the girls went to only one-quarter of optional lunchtime exercise sessions, and less than one in ten completed at-home physical activity or nutrition challenges, the researchers reported in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

The researchers thought they would try again with something more fun probably not realizing that 13 year old girls are vulnerable to weight loss peer pressure, and it is the age of being self-conscious. They will have it bad enough from their peers, they don't need it from adults, too. Here's an easy solution. Make sure there is enough funding for fun gym classes, after school sports, and healthy lunches, then let kid's weights fall into whatever range is normal for them. 

 

Comments

[Paul Ernsberger]

Reuters article from 11 years ago:

FDA OK of stomach band premature, researchers say

July 09, 2001 NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - An adjustable stomach band used for treating severe obesity was cleared prematurely by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and may not be as safe as previously thought, according to researchers who conducted a four-year study of the product.
The inflatable banding system, called the Lap-Band, received the go-ahead from the FDA in early June and is marketed by Inamed unit BioEnterics. It is placed around the upper stomach to limit food consumption. Dr. Eric J. DeMaria and colleagues, from the Medical College of Virginia at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, studied the effects of the procedure in 36 of the first patients treated with the Lap-Band.
The researchers said their findings raise "major concerns" about the long-term effectiveness of the procedure in terms of weight loss and highlight the presence of new, previously unidentified complications.
During the four-year period, only four of the 36 patients achieved satisfactory weight loss, defined as a body mass index of 35 or less or a 50% weight reduction. Moreover, 41% of patients required surgical removal of the gastric band within 10 days to 42 months of the procedure, and many have requested removal since then, the researchers said.
The primary reasons for removing the gastric bands included infection, leakage and band slippage. Other complications included expansion of the esophagus, the tube leading from the mouth to the stomach, according to the report, which appears in the June issue of Annals of Surgery.
"Obviously we believe that FDA approval was premature," DeMaria told Reuters Health. "Although the primary procedure was essentially 'low-risk,' we do not believe the secondary removal/revision procedures are so. Furthermore, the need for additional surgical treatment to accomplish the desired weight loss result is a significant 'safety' issue in our minds.
"This procedure will become available potentially to millions of Americans who are desperate for treatment for severe obesity," DeMaria continued.
This "is a population that has been repeatedly victimized by unsuccessful weight loss schemes with great economic and health costs in the past," he said, predicting that the Lap-Band "will provide another chapter in this sad tale."
The FDA's clearance of the Lap-Band advised its use only in patients who are at least 100 pounds overweight or are at twice their ideal body weight and who have failed to lose weight through other methods, such as diet and exercise.
The agency made clear in its announcement of the approval that nearly 90% of patients in a premarketing study had experienced at least one side effect, including nausea, vomiting, heartburn, abdominal pain and band slippage. About 25% of the subjects decided to have the band removed, the FDA said. Most of the decisions were based on the side effects, but some were based on inadequate weight loss, according to the agency.
That study, which was sponsored by BioEnterics and enrolled 299 subjects, found that patients lost an average of 36% of their excess weight over three years.
The FDA, which makes its decisions on product approvals by weighing risk against benefit, noted that severely obese people "usually have serious health problems such as hypertension, gall bladder disease, and diabetes, resulting from their excess weight."
While it is not yet clear whether others will take up the banner of DeMaria and his colleagues regarding the FDA's decision on the Lap-Band, the researchers' objections come at a time when the agency's review processes are already under scrutiny from some quarters. The Washington, DC-based consumer group Public Citizen has been a particularly vocal critic, speaking out against the agency's approvals of drugs including Johnson & Johnson's Propulsid and Glaxo Wellcome's Lotronex.
A spokesperson for Public Citizen said that the group "has not yet done any work" on the Lap-Band.
Through a spokesperson, Inamed said that "there have been over 300 published studies on the Lap-Band and over eight years of experience with it. The vast majority have shown very positive results.
"The FDA considered all of the data available, including the significant benefits of having this less-invasive option available for severely obese Americans," the spokesperson said.

[Paul Ernsberger]

(Reprinted) JAMA, August 1, 2001—Vol 286, No. 5 page 527
New Weight-Reduction System
The FDA has approved the Lap-Band Adjustable Gastric Banding System (Bio- Enterics Corp, Carpinteria, Calif) for use in weight reduction for severely obese patients. The approved indication is limited to patients with a body mass index (BMI) of at least 40 kg/m2; with a BMI of at least 35 kg/m2 with one or more severe conditions, such as hypertension or gallstone disease; or who weigh at least 100 lb more than their estimated ideal weight according to the 1983 Metropolitan Life Insurance Tables. The system is indicated for use only in adult patients in whom more conservative weight-reduction alternatives have failed and who make a commitment to accept significant changes in their life-style, such as reduced food consumption and daily exercise.
The main component of the system, a 13-mm-wide plastic band, is laparoscopically placed around the stomach, allowing the formation of a small gastric pouch and stoma. Inflated through an access port with sterile saline, the band limits food consumption.
The FDA approval was based on the results of a nonrandomized, single-arm US study with 299 patients at eight participating sites. At entry, the patients’ mean weight was 293 lb, the mean excess weight was 156 lb, and the meanBMI was 47.4 kg/m2. The primary effectiveness measure, the percentage ofexcess weight loss, was 34.5% at year 1, 37.8% at year 2, and 36.2% at year 3 following the procedure. During this period, the patients’ mean weight decreased to 241 lb, the mean excess weight to 98.2 lb, and the mean BMI to 38.7 kg/m2. There were significant (P .001) improvements in the patients’ quality of life.
The most frequent adverse events were nausea and vomiting (in 51% of patients), gastroesophageal reflux (34%), abdominal pain (27%), bandslippage/pouch dilatation (24%), stoma obstruction (14%), and constipation, difficulty in swallowing, and port site pain (9% each). Seventy-five patients had the entire system explanted; 51 explantations (68%) were countermeasures to adverse events.
—Bernard A. Schwetz, DVM,PhD
Acting Principal Deputy Commissioner
Food and Drug Administration
- Commissioner of Food and Drugs, HF-1, Room 14-71, 5600 Fishers Ln, Rockville, MD 20857.

[Mikee]

I'm wondering if I could do it but each time I saw success stories in losing weight I became more determined to do it it's only that I don't know how to start.I have heard something about a formula that will give you a gastric bypass effect but no surgery by Roca Labs, is it true?