Gastric Bypass May Help Obese Teens

Dec. 29, 2008— -- Teenager Amanda Munson has struggled with her weight all her life. It's a problem that runs in her family. At age 16, her 5-foot-2 frame had ballooned to 311 pounds.

"I really couldn't go anywhere," says Munson. "I wouldn't fit into the seats at movie theatres. I couldn't go running because it just hurt so bad and my heart would speed up too much."

So threatening was Munson's weight to her health that she became one of a growing number of teens who have undergone gastric bypass surgery -- a procedure that has traditionally been used only in adults whose obesity puts their lives at risk.

And in a new, small study, doctors at five medical centers around the country report that the operation indeed appears to improve the health of patients in their teens -- at least in the short term.

For Munson, the surgery may have come not a moment too soon. She was diagnosed with heart problems, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes.

The Kentucky teenager said she received a dire warning from her doctors: "The doctors said you're not going to live to see 25, if this continues," she says.

On March 12, 2007, Munson opted for the radical and controversial operation, which involves dramatically reducing the size of the stomach and rerouting the intestine. She underwent the procedure at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, and it turned her health around.

"I can honestly say that the last time I took medicine for my type 2 diabetes was ... the day I went in for surgery," she says.

Munson is now diabetes-free and about 100 pounds lighter.

The new study, released today in the journal Pediatrics, studied 11 obese teens who had gastric bypass surgery. Ten of the 11 patients, ages 14 to 21, saw their diabetes go into remission. They no longer needed to treat the disease.

"I think the bottom line is we, for the first time, documented in an extremely obese teenage group of diabetics that weight loss surgery is effective for weight loss and that it results in disappearance of diabetes," says study lead author Dr. Thomas Inge, surgical director of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital's Surgical Weight Loss Program for Teens.