[Bariatric surgery: 10-year results of the Swedish Obese Subjects Study]

The 10-year results of the prospective, controlled Swedish Obese Subjects Study were recently reported in the New England Journal of Medicine by L. Sjöström and colleagues. This trial compared obese subjects who underwent gastric surgery and contemporaneously matched, conventionally treated obese control subjects. The follow-up rate for laboratory examinations was 74.5 percent at 10 years. At that time, data of 627 patients of the control group (mean age of 48 years, body mass index of 41 kg/m2) were compared to those of 641 patients who were submitted to surgery (banding n = 156, vertical banded gastroplasty n = 451 and gastric bypass n =34). At 10 years, the body weight had increased by 1.6 percent in the control group and decreased by 16.1 percent in the surgery group (p < 0.001), and similar changes were observed for waist circumference (+2.8 percent versus -10.1 percent, respectively, p < 0.001). Energy intake was lower and the proportion of physically active subjects higher in the surgery group than in the control group throughout the observation period. Ten-year rates of recovery from diabetes, hypertriglyceridaemia, low levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, hypertension, and hyperuricaemia were more favourable in the surgery than in the control group. The surgery group had lower 10-year incidence rates of diabetes, hypertriglyceridaemia, and hyperuricaemia (but not of hypertension) than the control group. In conclusion, as compared with conventional therapy, bariatric surgery appears to be a valuable option for the treatment of severe obesity, resulting in long-term weight loss, improved lifestyle, and, except for hypercholesterolaemia that was not significantly affected, amelioration in cardiovascular risk factors that were elevated at baseline. Obtaining long-term data concerning the effect of weight loss on overall mortality and on the incidence rates of myocardial infarction, stroke, and cancer remains a key-objective of this landmark study.

[Multidisciplinary management of the obese patient: example from the Obesity Center at the University of Liege]

Obesity is a mulfactorial disease whose prevalence is progressively increasing. Ideally, it requires a multidisciplinary management by medical doctors, dieticians, psychologists and kinetherapists. The new "Centre de l'Obésité" at the University of Liège aims at fulfilling such objectives with: 1) a first outpatient visit including the simultaneous participation of an endocrinologist, a dietician and a psychologist; 2) a structured and individualized programme of physical rehabilitation; 3) an individualized management of obese subjects as in-(hospital) and/or outpatients, using medical and/or surgical approaches; and 4) an opportunity to benefit of other specialized medical advices, if necessary, in order to increase both the efficacy and safety of the treatment. Owing to the increasing importance of obesity and the well-known difficulties to succeed in treating it, general practitioners should consider this new centre as a valuable help rather than a competitive structure for the management of their patients, especially those with severe or morbid obesity.

[Physical exercise for preventing obesity, promoting weight loss and maintaining weight management]

Obesity is a multifactorial disease making difficult the determination of the precise role of one specific factor such as physical activity or sedentary. Nevertheless, numerous arguments, derived from epidemiological observational studies or from randomized controlled interventional trials, support a favourable role of regular physical activity in the control of body weight. Physical activity contributes to prevent the occurrence of weight excess, especially in children or adolescents, to obtain a satisfactory weight loss, in general in combination with reduced-energy diets, and to maintain long-term weight loss. In addition, physical activity improves both the metabolic profile and health of obese subjects.