GMA: Weight Loss Surgery Poses Health Risks

N E W   Y O R K, March 28 -- Patsi Parker felt fat and was eager to find a solution. She thought she'd found it when she decided to have her stomach surgically stapled, drastically reducing its size.

But there is mounting evidence that some doctors are performing weight-loss surgery on patients who are not obese enough to require it. Parker soon discovered that she was one of them.

Before the surgery, Parker stood 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighed 218 pounds. The attractive 45-year-old brunette had tried the standard weight-loss tactics, including diets and aerobics, but she couldn't stick to any of them.

Then Parker ran into two colleagues who had undergone gastric bypass surgery. Once very overweight, both women were now remarkably slim.

Parker immediately asked the name of their weight-loss surgeon, made the call and prepared for her own operation. In order to qualify for the procedure, she actually put on additional weight.

Recently, however, Parker was featured in Self magazine's investigative report on the dangers of weight-loss surgery — especially for those who undergo it for cosmetic reasons.

Struggling with abdominal pain, vomiting and an inability to gain weight, she wishes she had stuck with her old body.

'No Going Back'

Dr. Edward Livingston, director of the University of California at Los Angeles Bariatric Surgery Program, says the weight-loss surgery should be reserved for people who have problems that result from obesity."You do this once and there is no going back," he told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "They have to be emotionally prepared to change their eating habits for good."

The American Society of Bariatric Surgery says weight loss surgeries have increased from about 20,000 in 1995 to an estimated 45,000 in 2001. It estimates a 7 percent complication rate.

But Livingston's own study of 800 patients found complication rates of 20 to 40 percent, with everything from intestinal leaks to nutritional deficiencies.