Imagine for a moment that there was a medical benefit to penis enlargement. I can’t imagine what it might be. But you can bet that if there was the slightest chance of one, Big Pharma would be working the PR angles overtime.
There would be submissions to parliamentary enquiries on the virtues of large members. There would be intense lobbying for bigification to be added to the medicare schedules. Universities would be endowed with grants for studies showing that despite the huge costs involved, the community as a whole would be better off.
Successful recipients of the procedure would make regular appearances on current affairs shows. And even the occasional celebrity might become a posterboy for his newly enlarged and much more healthy lifestyle.
Normally this kind of cosmetic surgery misses out on the PR windfall of there being a remote possibility of medical benefit. But there is one kind of beautification which has managed to land smack bang in the middle of the biggest medical concern we have (no not hair regrowth, the other one).
Lap-band surgery promises to blow away years of eating the wrong thing with a simple slice of the scalpel (and large quantities of liquid food). But it’s not cosmetic surgery, oh no, this is about reversing Type II Diabetes.
You need look no further than our own Monash University’s Centre for Obesity Research and Education (CORE) for proof that lap-band surgery is a cost effective way to manage diabetes. I’m sure that the fact that CORE’s ‘principal sponsor’ is Allergan has very little to do with their decision to focus their efforts on the study of lap-band surgery.
Allergan is the little pharmaceutical company that gave the world Botox. It followed up that gift to mankind with the invention of the very first (and still the most popular) device for bariatric surgery. Years of marketing Botox for medical uses (really? It’s also used for cosmetic purposes? Well spank my bottom and call me Anna) has ensured that Allergan knows how to tread the cosmetic-surgery-that’s-healthy path with great skill.
CORE has been having a bit of success on the lobbying front. It submitted to the House of Reps inquiry into obesity that “the barriers to publicly funded access to this surgery need to be addressed as a matter of urgency”, (but forgot to mention that their principal sponsor was a maker of such devices). And voila out pops a key recommendation that governments need to work together to boost access to bariatric surgery.
One of the chaps who has run multiple studies for CORE is a GP by the name of Dr John Dixon. His latest study correctly discloses that he is affiliated with CORE and the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, but doesn’t mention that he is also a consultant to Allergan and “the charter member of the board” of, and has an ‘ownership interest in’ Bariatric Advantage.
The recipients of lap-band surgery are put on an Optifast diet before and after surgery. It’s not the surgery that makes them thin, it’s being forced to stick to a very low calorie liquid diet. Optifast is one of those shake diets you can buy at the local pharmacy, but there is a special high end version for those undergoing lap-band surgery.
Bariatric Advantage makes its money flogging optifast liquid diets (and various other bibs and bobs) to lap-band patients, so it’s logical that Dr Dixon might want to have an ‘ownership interest’ in its operations. The primary ingredient in Optifast shakes (besides powdered milk) is fructose, a substance so dangerous to diabetics (remember diabetes is the disease we are ‘curing’ here), that the American Diabetes Association has pronounced “the use of added fructose as a sweetening agent in the diabetic diet is not recommended.”
CORE expects that 14,000 lap-band procedures will be done this year in Australia. But don’t worry, since Nestle make Optifast, they can probably get their hands on the industrial quantities of fructose required for the construction of that many ‘diet shakes’. And Nestle have no problems selling fructose to our kids as health food, so I guess this isn’t much of a leap to push it to diabetics either.
Bariatric surgery is not a simple piece of cosmetic beautification. One in five patients will suffer complications (but don’t worry less than 1 in 100 dies). And all for what? An average of just one decade’s remission from Type II Diabetes (for up to 40% of patients – the rest miss out).
Are we really going to seriously consider publicly funding surgery based on a submission from an outfit funded by the maker of the surgical device? Are we to seriously consider ‘research’ run by a GP who is a paid consultant to that manufacturer? And what are we to make of his side business flogging fructose (on behalf of Nestle) to the recipients of these devices? Is this really how public health policy is put together in this country?
Here’s an idea. How about instead of leaving a publicly funded first aid kit at the bottom of the slippery slide, we give some thought to telling people about the dangers before they climb the ladder? How about instead of blindly accepting that people are obese because they’re lazy or gluttonous (or both), we pay some attention to the more than 3,000 studies which suggest we’re fat because of a dangerous toxin (fructose) in our diet? How about we look a little deeper than the shiny surface that Big Pharma and Big Sugar want us to see?
Also published in Crikey
Image courtesy of artur84 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
valid point but why blame only sugar?
what about total kilojoules? more in than out will lead to weight gain regrdless of where the energy is coming from. Am i incorrect? Is sugar in the diet an independent weight gain promotor separate from total kilojoules? I guess you could argue that it leads to addiction and thereby an increased intake. And if it causes insulin resistance this could lower your BMR and increase hunger.
what about the omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acid ratio that has dramatically increased in the western diet in the past 20 years.
Wow, optifast! And as a student dietitian i’m being taught that this is a great option for weight loss, one that is more effective than the traditional weight loss method with real food. I’m sure if you ate the same ‘nutrients’ in optifast from real food you’d lose just as much weight and be much better off. Good one nestle!
Joey … if you drank a glass of milk and took a multi-vitamin, you’d be in exactly the same position as you would by drinking a diet shake, but without the fructose.
Fructose (one half of sugar) is not just extra calories. It is converted immediately to fat. It bypasses out appetite control and blunts that control for everything else we eat as well. Besides that direct effect it has many flow-on effects which directly link it to this list of diseases:
Weight Gain
Type II Diabetes
Polycystic Ovary Disease
Heart Disease
Stroke (or aneurism)
High Blood Pressure
Gout
Dementia
Depression and Anxiety
Fatty Liver Disease
Cirrhosis of the Liver
Liver Failure
Acute Pancreatitis
Kidney Disease, oh, and Tooth Decay
I’m one who was sucked in by lap-band surgery – which DID NOT slow down the onset of type 2 diabetes, but DID cause Oesophegeal disease which requires twice daily medicine to relieve it. It DID cause ulceration of the oesophegus which required a gastroscopy and extra medication to relieve it, and DID cause an incessant cough due to the Oesophegeal disease. And I’m still overweight because I was afraid of strenuous exercise with the port in my abdomen – oh – and I DID get an incisional hernia from the coughing after one of the gastroscopies!!
It DID cause ulceration of the oesophegus which required a gastroscopy and extra medication to relieve it, and DID cause an incessant cough due to the Oesophegeal disease.
lap band
Round of bands, although not designed to be removed can be removed if the need. These needs can include things such as pregnancy, a pregnant mother needs more food, so that the fetus is born healthy.
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Thanks to The Sweet Poison Quit Plan, I managed to avoid the surgery and have much improved health. Thank you David.
I have had the surgery. I did not need to go on an opti diet before or after. I have found that i am able to make better food choices because i require less food and don’t have that hunger that goes along with making bad decisions . Appreciate that some think this surgery is a “quick” fix however you still have to change your way of thinking and bad habits. I believe the surgery gives you that added help to do that successfully