The new age formula to cut down weight by fitting gastric bands has been rejected by experts. In a study published in the reputed journal The Lancet, experts cited a number of complications associated with the procedure.
According to the Lancet, the most common complications related to gastric bands are “band slippage or erosion, and lung-related problems”.
An online report details the problems experienced by a 49-year-old woman several years after she had a gastric band fitted. “Given the increasing frequency of people undergoing interventional procedures to aid weight loss, recognition of the short-term and long-term complications is paramount,” said the experts. Dr Adam Czapran, from the department of respiratory medicine and coronary care unit, Russells Hall Hospital, West Midlands, say the woman was presented in May last year with a four-month history of night sweats and a persistent productive cough of green and yellow sputum. Her medical history included asthma that had not responded to treatment, and the fitting of a laproscopic adjustable gastric band in September 2008, which has seen her body-mass index decrease from 45 at that time to 33 when she presented to hospital. A “chest radiograph showed a cavity within the left upper zone, and this, combined with her night sweats, led doctors to suspect tuberculosis”. After tests, doctors suspected the problems were being caused by her gastric band.