Frightening Facts on FallaciousFat-fighting

"Stapling" raises the Stakes

If you'll remember, at the tail end of last year (Daily Dose, 12/22/2006), I reported on a distressing development in the "war on fat" - one that goes one step closer to making people's waistlines the province and responsibility of government.

To recap, I told you about a pilot program in certain Texas counties and municipalities that will offer the increasingly popular bariatric "stomach stapling" surgery as a taxpayer-funded weight-loss procedure for chronically obese government employees. As you'll recall, the concerns I have with the plan - aside from removing personal accountability for weight maintenance - revolve around the notion that borderline cases might actually try to FATTEN UP to qualify for the surgery instead of dieting to lose weight, like they should…

I was also worried about the Texas state government's motivations for offering the surgery as a benefit. According to sources I cited for the article, it was strictly a bottom-line decision for the Lone Star State's legislature. Apparently, the cost of the surgery (around $50,000, if I recall) was justified by the prospect of trimming the increased costs of health care for chronically obese people over the long haul.

This made me wonder what the state would've done if their cost-benefit analysis would have shown that it was cheaper to let the fatties eat themselves to death. In other words, would they have supplied office doughnuts every morning to hasten a fatal heart attack and get these people off the books faster?

But I digress. Today's article isn't about the Orwellian aspects of eating disorders and invasive governments. It's about the downsides of the very surgery the Texas state government is unwittingly dangling as a carrot for their employees to gain those last few pounds…

According to a recent Associated Press article, some doctors are now warning that bariatic surgery - which jumped 40% in frequency in 2005 from the year before - can increase a patient's risk of a rare, yet serious neurological condition called Wernicke's encephalopathy. A result of a vitamin B deficiency (no doubt spurred by the poor digestion that removal of large portions of the stomach and intestine can cause), this condition can cause confusion and impaired coordination, memory, and vision.

The AP piece cites even the President of the American Society of Bariatric Surgery as suggesting that attending physicians closely monitor their patients post-stapling. The full report on these new research findings appears in this week's (March 14th) issue of Neurology…