Concerned for patients whom he feels are being offered only false hope while their health continues to suffer, a bariatric surgeon has challenged medical weight loss clinics to compare their results with those of his surgical weight loss patients. “Study after study shows the absolute failure of diets, exercise and drugs to result in significant long term weight loss, while weight loss surgery has proven to be exceedingly safe and effective” says Dr. Lee Schmitt of Alabama Weight Loss Surgery. “If the weight loss clinics on every corner miraculously have better results than the poor results published so far in the medical literature, I wish they would share with the world. In the meantime I publicly challenge any and every weight loss clinic to compare their long term weight loss results in their morbidly obese patients to mine. Unfortunately, the ugly truth is these clinics do not track their patients long term and when the patients regain weight they are off to a new clinic and new disappointment.”
Asked about the risks of surgery, Dr. Schmitt points out that weight loss surgery is safer than gallbladder surgery and adds it usually cures potentially deadly diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. “There are small risks with surgery, but there are also risks of remaining morbidly obese” says Schmitt. Numerous medical studies have shown patients who have weight loss surgery live longer than similar patients who do not.
