Most sufferers try and get by with spinal problems for years – making their situation worse; this is especially prominent among people who are overweight.

I know that treating existing back pain will always be a part of my vocation, but I would like to be able to educate people also, on how to prevent these problems in the first place.

That’s why I’ve created my DVD’s. If you’re currently suffering from back pain, or spinal problems then these simple exercises will definitely aid your mobility and ultimately ease the discomfort. However if you’re concerned about developing back pain, or just want to take preventative measures, then these DVD’s are a brilliant way of ensuring you maintain the fullest range of mobility.

If you’re overweight, your body naturally places more pressure on your spine. This can make mobility more and more difficult and it’s important to address this problem sooner rather than later. The exercises I go through are easy and very simply, yet highly effective.

There are two DVD’s; one aimed at able bodied people and the other is for sufferers with a more restricted range of mobility – have a look at them and see which one is best suited to you.

…

DVD 1 – Exercises for Able Bodied People

Only £9.99 – CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW

This DVD is for you if you are fairly active and mobile and do not suffer from a chronic/disabling condition. To be able to practice the exercises in this DVD you need to have full mobility in your joints, specially spine, and be able to go on the floor without any restrictions. You could still do the exercises if you have severe back pain, however, if you have had a surgery on your spine, have spinal fusion or suffer from Sciatica you will find DVD2 more suitable for you.

…

DVD 2 – Limited Mobility and Wheelchair Users

Only £9.99 – CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW

This DVD is more suitable for people who have issues with their mobility, have spinal fusion or severe sciatica. The exercises also cover getting off the floor in case of a fall and demonstrates the independent manouver on and off bed for people who have these mobility issues. Exercises for wheelchair users is another chapter in this DVD, which focuses on this group of people.

…

After 25 years as senior consultant surgeon at Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin, Jack Miller has hung up his gown.

More than 100 colleagues from across NHS Grampian and beyond are set to gather tonight (Friday) for a farewell dinner, to pay tribute to the huge contribution he has made to health care in general, and surgery in particular, in Moray.

Mr Miller said: “In one way it will be nice to have some time to myself and my family, but it is also difficult to give up the care of my patients.

“Whatever successes I have had at Dr Gray’s have largely been because of the people I have worked with, not just my consultant colleagues but nursing staff, porters, cleaners – everyone. The quality of the people has been immense.

“What has made my job so enjoyable has been the kind of patient we deal with in this area. They are the salt of the earth – uncomplaining, and very kind and appreciative.”

A graduate of Aberdeen University, Mr Miller trained in surgery in Dundee and Aberdeen, also spending two years in Boston, USA, where he developed his interest in bariatric surgery, involving procedures for treating severely obese patients.

He first came to Elgin as a senior lecturer in surgery at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and Aberdeen University, and joined the staff at Dr Gray’s in late 1984, replacing John Smith on his retirement.

From the start, he set out to demonstrate that a wide range of surgical procedures could be carried out at Elgin, including highly specialised operations such as gastric banding for morbid obesity, which although common nowadays, was pioneered as a procedure in Scotland by Mr Miller more than 20 years ago.

In the early 1990s, when the Government was looking to expand services at Dr Gray’s, one of the catalysts was the work being performed by Mr Miller, which demonstrated how specialised and complex surgery could be carried out there. Mr Miller went on to make a huge contribution to the planning of the redeveloped hospital, and was instrumental in persuading the then Scottish Health Department in Edinburgh that in addition to obstetrics, gynaecology and paediatrics, Dr Gray’s should have an orthopaedic and trauma surgery unit.

Mr Miller became the president of the Moray Scanner Appeal, which raised £1 million in less than three years in order to equip the new hospital with a state-of-the-art CT scanner, and he said it was something of which he was very proud.

“We were told that although a scanner was vitally important, there wasn’t the money to pay for it. We turned to the public for help, and they were amazing,” added Mr Miller, who for many years served as chairman of Moray Carers.

Paying tribute to him, colleagues said that his enthusiasm for his patients, work and teaching has always shone through. Throughout his time as a consultant surgeon, he has been innovative and greatly admired by nursing and medical staff alike, and has helped train more than 60 trainee surgeons during their time at Dr Gray’s, some of whom were returning to attend his retirement dinner.

They said: “Around the hospital, Jack is best known for his dedication and professionalism, but above all for his cheery demeanour, and he always has a hug for everyone. He will be hugely missed, but everyone wishes him a long and happy retirement.”

Mr Miller lives near Elgin with his wife, Isobel. They have three children: John, an anaesthetist; Leah, who works in the distilling industry, and David, who is training to be a physician at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.

Source: Northern Scot

As a kid playing in the Seminole Junior Warhawk football league, he was hefty enough to play against kids who were two and three years older.

In college, he would plow through three plates of food at each meal, bulking up for a spot on the team’s defensive line.

And Kunzig, 42, of Seminole, is such a huge fan of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he became the boisterous “Big Nasty” — a hulking, 6-foot-3, tongue-wagging creation in red and black makeup. The character is so well known, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001.

But fans at Bucs training camp last month did a double-take when they caught sight of the local sports celeb. His massive frame has been shrinking to the point that fans are wondering if he’ll change his nickname to “Not-So-Big Nasty.”

The transformation is the result of adjustable gastric band surgery Kunzig underwent after the 2005 season, along with his wife, Debbie, 38. Their weights – 426 and 276 pounds, respectively – were threatening the couple’s physical and mental well-being.

The turning point, Kunzig says, came as the pair left a late-season game at Raymond James Stadium and Big Nasty’s legs collapsed under his morbidly obese frame. He stayed on the ground several minutes as blood circulation returned to his legs.

“When that day happened, I said, ‘We’ve got a problem.’ Because if I can’t walk, how am I going to work, and how am I going to support my family?” he says of the experience, which left his alter ego embarrassed but not hurt.

“Yeah, it’s great to be a Bucs fan and all. But [without addressing the weight], how would I even be able to do all that?” he asks.

In the last three years, Keith has shed 154 pounds, and Debbie, who is 5-foot-7, lost 123. Inspired most by the desire to be around for their daughter, Destiny, 10, the couple don’t regret taking out a second mortgage to pay for the surgery, which costs roughly $15,000 a person.

The surgery, also known as the lap-band procedure, restricts a person’s food intake by reducing the stomach pouch to about the size of a thumb, the National Institutes of Health says. While it is reversible, many people live permanently with the band, which dramatically reduces the amount of food they can eat.

“I’m not the kind of guy that likes to be restricted, but I need to be restricted on the quantities,” says Keith, who works as a financial planner. “That’s my problem.”

Debbie says portion control had always been an issue for the couple, who met when they both worked at a local fitness center. They didn’t pare those portions down when their workouts were replaced by more sedentary jobs, a baby and a busier lifestyle.

“We would go to dinner and you would have the soup, the salad, the appetizer, an entrée, and then you’ve got to have the dessert,” she says of the old routine. “So it just crept up on us, year after year after year.”

Today, she cringes when looking at their wedding pictures or one of the dozens of framed pictures of them with Buccaneers players and coaches that hang in their den. “You look at the pictures and you think, ‘Wow. I really looked like that?’ Because inside, you didn’t feel you looked like that,” she says. “I thought I looked good.”

By the 2005 season, both Keith and Debbie – who dresses for home games as “Mrs. Nasty” – were finding it more difficult to enjoy the games. Big Nasty’s voluntary role required that he stop and pose for pictures with fans and lead his section in cheers. He didn’t mind, but his girth was making it difficult.

“This is a pain where you can’t walk real far, or it’s a pain because then you get embarrassed because you are sweating everywhere,” he says. At some games, he says, he would drop 10 pounds from sweating so profusely.

Debbie says it got to the point that they would get to a game and go straight to their seats. Big Nasty would stand and lead cheers throughout a game, but he would be black and blue where his legs had to squeeze in and out of the armrests each time.

“Now, he’ll get up and he’ll run up and down the stairs,” she says.

The Kunzigs say they have been able to maintain their weight, but they struggle at times when their stomachs reject certain foods, such as breads. They also say it’s hard to set a proper nutrition example for Destiny, who is growing and has decidedly different eating needs than her parents.

The tradeoff is worth it, however. The family spends a lot more time together, swimming or going out to do something other than eat. Game day, Keith says, is a blast. He is able to mingle with fans and his cohorts – dubbed the Nasty Krewe – far more now.

And he’s not bothered by fans who say to him he needs to put back on some pounds. The Big in Big Nasty, he says, is all about personality.

“But 275? That’s still a pretty big cat,” he says and smiles. “So I don’t feel too small.”

Source: Tampa Bay Online

An overweight woman who has weight-loss surgery before becoming pregnant may help break the cycle of obesity in her family, according to a new study.

Researchers found that children born to women who had weight-loss surgery before pregnancy have improved heart health and a lower risk of obesity compared with their siblings who were born before the mother had surgery. The study was published last week in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Previous research shows a woman’s weight and her tendency to develop diabetes and heart disease can influence the long-term health of her fetus, predisposing the child to metabolic problems related to obesity. Obese young women who are planning to have children some day should try to lose weight through weight-loss surgery or behavioral changes, said the lead investigator, Dr. John Kral, a professor of surgery and medicine at the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn.

“Any obese mother or any mother gaining excessive weight during pregnancy puts her child at great risk,” Kral says. “It’s such a dramatic and substantial risk on so many levels. However, the prevalence of obesity in the children in our post-maternal surgery group was normal.”

The researchers studied 49 women who had undergone weight-loss surgery and their 111 children, who were ages 2 to 25. About half of the women had given birth before the surgery and again after. The other women gave birth either before or after surgery.

The study showed that the children born after their mother’s surgery had reduced birth weight and waist circumference and were three times less likely to become severely obese compared with siblings born before the surgery. These children also had improved cardiovascular markers, such as reduced insulin resistance and lower cholesterol and inflammation.

Some women, and even their doctors, worry that having weight-loss surgery before pregnancy may result in fetal malnutrition. But that is not the case, Kral says.

For women especially, the time to target weight-loss efforts is puberty, he says.

“The prevailing attitudes are still suspicious,” he says. “But it’s time for pediatricians and obstetricians not to sit on their hands any more and say ‘obesity is going to go away. We’ll wait until they’re mature and take care of it then.’ When everything else has failed — the proper education, exercise and diet — then you go to the next level of aggressiveness.”

Earlier this year, the Institute of Medicine released updated guidelines that stress the importance of proper weight for young women and place limits on pregnancy weight gain. Obese pregnant women (body mass index of 30 or greater) are advised to gain 11 to 20 pounds.

“We don’t have evidence to tell women if they have this surgery things are going to be better, for sure, with some kind of probability statement,” said Dr. Kathleen M. Rasmussen, a professor of nutrition at Cornell University and chairwoman of the Institute of Medicine committee on pregnancy and weight. “We can say, in studies that have been done, women who have had bariatric surgery have not gained as much weight and that the risk of some disorders in the mothers, like diabetes and hypertensional disorders, might be less.”

The data on the effects on babies whose mothers have had gastric bypass surgery are less clear, she said.

But, Rasmussen said: “Speaking for the committee, our position is women should begin pregnancy at a normal weight. We didn’t specify how to do that. The easiest way is not get too heavy to start with. But for many women, it’s too late.”

Source: Los Angeles Times

The same is true in the UK, where childhood obesity has risen to almost epidemic proportions. It is estimated that one in five is now obese, and these children are putting themselves at risk of diabetes, certain cancers, heart disease and strokes, and are well on the way to an early grave.

The rapid rate of increase in obesity suggests that behavioural and environmental influences rather than genetics play a fundamental role in its development. Childhood overweight and obesity are associated with a variety of serious adverse consequences, such as risk for cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders such as diabetes. Furthermore research shows that 85% of obese children tend to be obese adults (Johannsen DL et al 2006).

These conditions not only cause poor health, reduced life expectancy and quality of life but also result in a tremendous economic burden. Obese children miss 20% more school days so perform poorly, are less likely to attain good jobs and also less likely to marry. Poor eating and exercise patterns are often established during childhood. Fortunately, a healthy home environment can promote healthy habits and alter unhealthy habits.

A study by Oliveira (2007) found that parent’s obesity history and socio-economic class play a significant role in the development of childhood overweight/obesity irrespective of ethnicity. It is known that the life style adopted by parents is generally transferred to their children, thus perpetuating the overweight phenotype (Stein & Colidtz, 2004). Therefore whole family education and lifestyle change is key in reducing childhood obesity.

In the White paper ‘Choosing Health’ (2004), the UK government stated its objective ‘to halt, by 2010, the year-on-year increase in obesity among children under 11 by providing information, guidance and practical support for parents. Various health campaigns have been launched and initiatives implemented such as ‘change4life’, most of which focus on improving nutrition knowledge and awareness of healthy eating guidelines.

Nutrition knowledge has been associated with socio-economic variables including level of education. Therefore, current interventions may be more effective in some families, where parents are well educated and information may be better understood and applied, but less effective in less well-educated groups.

The government is starting to address this issue by introducing new policies such as ‘Every Child Matters’ (DOH 2004) where education about nutrition and exercise is implemented through schools and by changing laws on food advertising and how food is labelled in the supermarkets. Improved food labelling systems will help parents clearly understand and see at a glance foods that contain high sugar, salt and fats so that informed choices can be made.

Between 1995 and 2000 the proportion of overweight boys in England aged 2 to 19 years increased by two per cent and the proportion of overweight girls in the same age range increased by three per cent. In the same time period, the proportion of obese boys and girls increased by one per cent.

In 2000, 27 per cent of girls aged 2 to 19 years were overweight compared with 20 per cent of boys. In the same year, seven per cent of girls were obese compared with five per cent of boys.

In a typical week in 1997
Four in five young persons aged four to 18 years consumed white bread, chips, savoury snacks, biscuits, chocolate confectionery and boiled, mashed and jacket potatoes.

The most commonly consumed fruits among 4- to 18-year-olds were apples and pears (53 per cent of boys ; 57 per cent of girls) followed by bananas (38 per cent of boys and girls, respectively). Children and adolescents from higher socio-economic households were more likely to have eaten raw and salad vegetables, apples, pears and bananas than those from lower socio-economic households.

Parents should also be supportive of their children’s physical activity interests and enhance opportunities for them to play outside and engage in both recreational activities as well as incorporating an active lifestyle into daily routines e.g. walking or biking to the shops everyday instead of using the car for big weekly shops, or walking to school instead of driving.

Children’s physical activity patterns have changed dramatically in recent years. Whereas energetic free play outdoors used to be the typical activity in childhood, such opportunities are now rare due to the availability of TV, video and computer games and largely because of parental fears about child safety. Sadly this has a restrictive effect on a child development and health.

Families and communities should work together with the government to embrace these changes and start to implement healthy lifestyle changes. Parents need to take responsibility and ownership for their own health and the health of their children.

Vita Clinics is committed to supporting the fight against obesity. Many of our patients tell us that once they have lost their excess weight, whether through our medical weight management treatments or as a result of weight loss surgery such as gastric bypass or gastric band, this has a positive impact on the rest of the family. Shopping and eating habits inevitably change, and where there are children in the house, they become more conscious of healthy eating and the importance of activity. This has to be a good thing!

Vita Clinics is not registered to treat children who are obese, but we are committed to the concept.

References
Choosing Health (2004) Dept of Health London
Every Child Matters (2004) Dept of Health London
Johannsen DL, Specker BL (2006)Influence of parents eating behaviours and child feeding practices on childrens weight status Obesity (silver spring) 14(3)431-9
Oliveira AM, Oliveira AC, Almeida MS, L Adan & Oliveira N (2007) Influences of the family nucleus on obesity in children from northeastern Brazil: a cross sectional study BMC Public health 7:235
Stein CJ & Colidtz GA (2004) The epidemic of obesity J Clin Endocrinol Metab 8:2522-2525

www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=718
www.wellspringcamp.co.uk

Obesity is known to increase the risk of many types of cancer, but it was unclear whether surgery to address the problem also cut the risk of cancer.

Now a Swedish study, published in Lancet Oncology, has shown that weight loss surgery is associated with a 42% reduction in cancer levels in women.

Experts believe the surgery’s impact on hormone levels could be key.

It is estimated that obesity is linked to 20% of all cancer deaths in women, and 14% in men in the western world.

A team from Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, set out to discover if weight-loss (bariatric) surgery could help to cut the risk.

Over an average period of 10.9 years, the researchers followed 2,010 obese patients who had undergone weight-loss surgery, comparing them with 2,037 obese who received other forms of treatment, or no treatment.

Over the study period, patients who had surgery lost an average of 19.9kg in weight, compared to an average of 1.3kg in the group who did not have surgery.

Among women, the number of first-time cancers was significantly lower (79) in the surgery group than in the non-surgery group (130).

But surgery appeared to have no effect on men’s cancer risk, with 38 cases recorded in the surgery group, and 39 in the non-surgery group.

Wide-ranging effect

The beneficial effect of weight-loss surgery on women seemed to apply to a wide range of cancers.

However, exactly why the surgery had a beneficial effect remains a mystery – analysis could find no direct link with losing weight, or reducing food intake.

This suggests the surgery has a more subtle impact on cancer risk.

Dr Andrew Renehan, a cancer expert at the UK’s University of Manchester, said the most likely explanation was that weight loss surgery had an impact on hormone levels in the body.

Several common cancers are known to be linked to the female sex hormone oestrogen in particular.

Dr Renehan said it was possible that weight-loss surgery might also cut cancer risk for men, but that the effect might take many years to become apparent.

Dr Ian Campbell, medical director of the charity Weight Concern, agreed that hormone levels were probably the key, with weight-loss surgery reducing the amount of hormone-producing fat cells in the body.

“In obese men, the types of cancer most common are not so hormone sensitive and therefore not so directly influenced by weight loss,” he said.

“However, it may also be due to the development of cancers at later stage in life in men.

“In men, obesity is often goes hand in hand with a nutrient-poor diet, and lack of exercise and so even when weight loss has been achieved through surgery, unless these lifestyle issues are addressed, significant increased risk of some cancers will remain.”

Dr Julie Sharp, of the charity Cancer Research UK, said less drastic measures, such as healthy eating and taking exercise, were the best way to control weight.

“In the UK around 13,000 people a year could avoid cancer by maintaining a healthy bodyweight,” she added.

Source: BBC News

On BBC1, there was a documentary called Fix My Fat Head, a video diary about an obese woman’s attempts to lose weight by addressing her ‘issues with food’ with the help of various counsellors.

On BBC3 was My Big Fat Wedding, documenting a pop star’s attempts to shift six stone before getting married.

Unfortunately, I was too late to tune into ITV’s The Biggest Loser, about assorted morbidly obese people trying to shed their bulk, but luckily the various satellite channels offered no fewer than seven documentaries about the world’s fattest mums, grans, teenagers and babies.

Programmes about obesity have become the new home improvement shows – the latest reality TV pornography.

Five years ago, it was impossible to escape the endless stream of shows telling us how to sell, improve or clean our houses.

Now, it’s impossible to turn on the box and not be faced with images of wobbling, dimpled flesh, tearful confessionals and grotesque obesity surgery.

Yes, it’s fair to say that fatties are big business – and the public is lapping it up. I admit I’ve found myself watching a documentary about the world’s fattest man – his 60-stone frame, how he eats six buckets of chicken for breakfast and has to be lifted with the aid of a whale sling.

But as I watch such tales of woe about how fat people just can’t beat this ‘disease’, I am aware that I am (excuse the pun) helping to feed the lucrative obesity business.

The real message of these programmes is that it’s OK to be life-threateningly overweight – it’ll get you on TV! – and that we should all try to be a bit more understanding and accept obesity as a modern-day ‘addiction’.

The question of personal responsibility doesn’t come into it. Everyone mutters ‘There, there’, but no one says: ‘Stop whining and go on a diet.’ I am 20lb overweight. My life isn’t at risk and I can still leave my home without having the roof removed.

The reason I am overweight is that I have big ‘issues’ with food: I put far too much of it in my mouth. My other ‘issue’ is that I don’t move my flabby backside nearly as much as I should.

I would love to be able to blame an unhappy childhood, low self-esteem or loneliness – as so many of the inadequate people who appear on these programmes do – but the reality is that I had a happy time as a child, I’m brimming with confidence and have an active social life. The reason I’m fat is that I’m a little greedy.

We are in the middle of an obesity epidemic and teenagers have a shorter life expectancy than their parents, yet these TV programmes are treating greed and lack of self-control as an illness.

Chicken pox, measles and flu are all diseases, because you can catch them – usually through no fault of your own. Since when did stuffing your face with junk food become an illness?

After dithering over the TV schedules, I decided to watch Fix My Fat Head, where the bright, funny, attractive – and very fat – journalist Hannah Jones set out to try to understand why she over-eats.

Shedding bulk: Contestants on the UK version of The Biggest Loser, which is one of many programmes about obesity

Well-meaning counsellors spoke endlessly about her ‘complicated relationship’ with food – presumably psychobabble for ‘gluttony and bone idleness’.

The psychologist was convinced Hannah must be using food as an emotional crutch to make up for an unhappy childhood, but it soon became clear she’d had an idyllic time growing up.

What was glaringly obvious to the viewer, but which none of the experts mentioned, was that Hannah ate chips with nearly every meal and piled her plate high with the sort of portion sizes that would keep a dozen hungry truckers full for a week.

She also got in her car for any journey longer than 100 yards. Mystery solved, Dr Watson.

If  obesity really is due to people having hard lives, then why is it a modern phenomenon?

Are we really meant to believe that today’s have-it-all generation has more to worry about than our grandparents and great-grandparents did at a time when obesity was rare?

The fatty industry is distorting our minds about something we all have the power to control, but choose not to.

Marilyn Monroe would turn in her grave if she could hear today’s size 22 teenagers describing themselves as ‘curvy’ – they are blissfully ignorant of the fact that a curve goes in and out, not just out.

Because of the culture we live in, where few people are forced to pay for their own failings, obese people know they don’t need to worry about dieting, understanding nutrition or exercising, because the NHS will pay for them to have a gastric band or stomach stapling.

One of the more shocking documentaries I watched recently showed a group of huge people attempting to gain even more weight in order to qualify for free surgery.

They filled their bulging bellies with doughnuts, cakes, curry and fizzy drinks to hit the 25- stone minimum required by their NHS trust.

Strangely, it never occurred to them to apply the same determination to dieting and send their weight in the opposite direction.

The Government estimates that by 2050, up to 90 per cent of children could be overweight, costing the taxpayer £50 billion a year – people who look after themselves will end up paying for fat people’s lack of self-control.

I have lost weight on several occasions and, yes, I always put it back on again when my resolve weakens. But when I set my mind to it, my success has been down to a winning formula of eating less and exercising more.

Never once have I thought of going to see a psychiatrist to address my relationship with food because I know my fat is my fault, and no one else’s. And the TV companies peddling obesity porn would do well to acknowledge that, too.

Source: Daily Mail

Vita Clinics are a specialist weight loss surgery clinic based in Birmingham providing weight management plans, gastric bypass surgery, gastric banding, sleeve gastrectomy, duodenal switch surgery, surgery rescue for patients who have gastric bands fitted and skin reduction services.

To get more information, to see whether obesity surgery is right for you or to book a free no obligation consultation with a Vita Clinics expert call 0800 849 4050 or fill in the enquiry form here.

Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) describes the repetitive pausing of breathing that occurs during sleep as a result of the breathing passageway or airway collapsing at the back of the throat and tongue. The symptoms of OSA include snoring, witnessed breath holding, interrupted sleep, choking and gasping. Because it is interrupted, the sleep is fragmented and of poor quality. This is why an individual with OSA will often feel tired in the morning and throughout the whole day.

Driving whilst tired is dangerous as there is an increased risk of road traffic accidents with people falling asleep at the wheel. The DVLA insist that patients with OSA have treatment with Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) therapy in order for them not to have restrictions placed on their driving license.

It is widely thought that an increase in weight may promote the development of OSA.

The severity of OSA is measured by the number of breath holds that occur during sleep as determined by an overnight respiratory monitoring test (carried out at home, using equipment supplied by Vita Clinics). Up to five breath holds per hour of sleep is regarded as acceptable with no treatment necessary. Between 5 and 15 breath holds per hour is regarded as mild OSA. Lifestyle measures where applicable are suggested e.g. weight loss. Between 15 and 30 breath holds per hour indicates moderate severity of OSA and in such a group, there is an increased risk of high blood pressure and diabetes. CPAP therapy is recommended in such individuals. Over 30 breath holds per hour is regarded as severe OSA and CPAP is recommended even in the absence of other health issues.

CPAP will often quickly provide an excellent improvement in daytime function and sleepiness, as well as improving blood pressure that previously may be have been difficult to control. Untreated OSA has been shown to increase the risk of heart disease and strokes.

CPAP will be demonstrated in the clinic. CPAP can be obtained via the NHS but this will depend on whether funding is available through the patient’s own primary care trust (PCT), and there can be a lengthy wait. CPAP can be obtained immediately from Vita Clinics working in partnership with a national supplier.

A significant number of patients with morbid obesity are at risk of, or may already have, sleep apnoea. OSA means that many Bariatric Surgeons and Anaesthetists will be reluctant to operate due to the associated risks. By offering diagnosis and treatment,

Vita Clinics are the only weight management healthcare provider to offer expert diagnosis and management of sleep apnoea associated with morbid obesity. Do you have or think you may have sleep apnoea, and worry this may stop you getting surgery?

Vita Clinics can help many patients proceed to surgery by stabilising or resolving their OSA. To find out more about the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of OSA, and the associated costs, please call us on 0800 849 4050 or click here.

Mrs Polzin, from Kingsthorpe, was the first person to have the surgery at a Toowoomba hospital.

Until this year the service was only available at major centres including Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

In the procedure a gastric band is wrapped around the top part of the stomach to reduce the stomach size so patients can control their hunger.

Private surgeon Dr Evan Willingham, who has rooms at St Vincent’s Hospital, believes Toowoomba has the population to warrant the service.

“They can have the procedure done in town and done by a surgeon available locally. Lap-band operations require regular follow-up visits and the patients do not have to travel to Brisbane for a check-up,” he said.

Dr Willingham said the surgery was successful in helping people to be healthy again.

Mrs Polzin was a diabetic, an asthmatic, had shin splints and regularly sustained hairline fractures in her legs.

She was advised to have lap-band surgery.

“I’m now off one of my medications for my diabetes and have halved one of the other medications. My asthma is a lot better.

“I’m losing weight which is the best part of all. I can have a go at ping-pong now where before I would lose my breath,” she said.

Source: The Chronicle