The number of patients opting to undergo surgery to achieve weight loss has soared, as growing public awareness about obesity leads to an increase in stomach stapling and gastric bypasses.

Spire Healthcare, Britain’s second-biggest private hospital group, said yesterday that it had conducted 72 per cent more weight-loss operations in the six months to March than a year earlier. Nuffield Health, the third-largest private chain, said that it had nearly doubled the number of such operations last year to 900, from 500 in 2007.

BMI Healthcare, the largest private hospital chain and the second-biggest provider of weight-loss surgery after the National Health Service, with a 16 per cent market share, said that it had performed about 800 weight-loss procedures in the five months to March.

Obesity can pose significant health risks by potentially increasing the likelihood of diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and strokes, according to Tim Straughan, chief executive of the NHS Information Centre. It has become an increasingly hot topic after a series of studies showing obesity growing rapidly in Britain.

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Vita Clinics is a bariatric clinic specialising in weight loss surgery and medical weight management plans.