Gastric bypass surgery will cure all our ills

Or so 60 Minutes would have us believe. View the series here.

We are a nation swimming in obesity and nutrition related problems. 60 Minutes would have us believe that we should all go have a bypass and all our ills would be cured.

60 Minutes bills itself as 'investigative' news, but this was more of an advertisement for the bypass industry. If you've ever doubted that big business has a hand in news production, this video should fix that.

They correctly point out that bypass surgery eliminates the need for diabetes medication almost immediately for the vast majority of patients - they made a special point that this effect came prior to weight loss. Of course, we already know that metabolic syndrome is caused by overeating, not obesity. Since a gastric bypass makes overeating physically impossible at first, naturally the metabolic problems disappear.

Other problems with the 'report' include:

• No nutrition ramifications were discussed, in fact, nutrition was not even mentioned nor was there a nutritionist interviewed. Gastric bypass patients are routinely malnourished, including seriously low levels of iron and carotenoids.
• They mentioned a non-specific 'success' rate of 85-90%. But published research indicates that 50% of bypass patients experience significant weight regain within 48 months.
• There was no mention of the small but significant risk of neurological complications beginning 10 years post surgery.
  

And that's just the beginning. Watching this so-called 'news' program suggest that bariatric surgery is the cure for type 2 diabetes, implying that the only 'glitch' was that non-obese people aren't eligible made my skin crawl. This ought to be a criminal act.

Ms. Lesley Stahl, you ought to be ashamed.