Healthcare India to treat its international patients

This perhaps can be the top rated fact in the dictionary of weight-watchers. Adnan Sami losing 107 kg was a shocker of news for men and women alike.

Supposedly Sami stared westwards for the phenomenal surgery. But ever-increasing number of fat westerners and others round the globe are looking forward to India for the "common" procedure in national capital hospitals.

Nancy Leviatt was an anxious woman till she flew to India, to trim down when she was weighing 120 kg. She was a 40 year old morbidly overweight Pennsylvania dweller who went under a knife for a bariatric surgery at a Delhi hospital. She’s now slightly less than her yester year’s weight.

She works as a plumber and has ditched a brain stroke few years back. Medical practitioners point fingers at her weight for rise and fall of her blood pressure levels and have repeatedly cautioned her against high cholesterol.

Leviatt, mother of two teen-age boys Christopher and Jachary, confesses that she wants to stay fit and fine to watch her grand children play.

Now the question arises - What lured her to India? The answer is price-less, quite literally. The expenditures incurred for the surgery, which is also known as gastric bypass, is cut by 75% of what it is in the US. It is approximately priced at Rs 3 lakh in India; 3 times less than what it is originally priced in US.

The ABC of morbid obesity
Morbid obesity, classically defined, is a disease, which is chronic and lasting. It involves unnecessary storage of fat inside one’s body. An individual may appear fat; however the possibilities can be that he or she is not clinically obese. Ideally, an overweight person has a BMI of 25-30.

Patients who suffer from clinical obesity, even slight amount of weight loss is difficult to accomplish.

Overweight tags along with itself blood pressure, diabetes (type 2), heart disease, stroke, gallstone disease and cancer of breast, prostate and colon. Doctors would agree to the fact that there are around 30 odd medical conditions which are unswervingly related to obesity.

Thumbs up for surgery
Patients who suffer from morbid obesity can opt for it. Weight loss, altered body's food digestion and absorption levels, are some of its highlights. This particular surgery alters the gastrointestinal tract to trim down nutrient intake and absorption.

Diabetics in a win-win situation
According to JAMA, researchers have found that 73 percent of patients, who underwent a stomach reducing surgical procedure, were cured of Type 2 diabetes when compared to only 13 percent of diabetics that followed other forms of conventional therapy - dieting, weight loss and medication - went into remission.