Learn about the latest developments surrounding obesity, medicine and weight-loss surgery. Following are examples of articles you should seek out as you are learning about bariatric surgery and making decisions about your care.

More People are Turning to Barix Clinics of Pennsylvania for Obesity Surgery

"Christina Brown of Ambler said she chose Barix because the hospital specialized in weight-loss operations. Brown hopes that dropping down from 451 pounds will give her the energy to keep up with her 11- and 12-year-old kids. "I just want to be healthy," she said. Barix was built for people like her." Read More

Gastric Bypass Lowers Risk of Death

"Studies have shown that after surgery, patients often lose 50% or more of their excess weight - and keep it off - and symptoms of obesity-related conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and sleep apnea are improved or eliminated altogether. Now, two new studies in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) show another long-term benefit: a lower risk of death."

- Sora Song, 22 August 2007, TIME Magazine

Obesity Surgery Can Cure Diabetes, Study Finds

"Obesity surgery helps patients do more than shed weight - it often cures their diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, researchers say.

The research - an analysis of 136 studies - found that such operations are more than cosmetic. They appear to alter the patient's body chemistry itself and eliminate or relieve conditions that can lead to heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure...

Diabetes was eliminated in nearly 77 percents of the affected patients; high blood pressure was eliminated in nearly 62 percent; cholesterol improved in at least 70 percent; and obstructive sleep apnea - episodes when breathing stops during sleep - disappeared in almost 86 percent. All four conditions are strongly linked to obesity and can have lethal consequences.

The study appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association."

- 12 October 2004, MSNBC.com

Boston Globe Archives

"But the gastric bypass is so difficult, according to physicians who have tracked the results of their cases, that patients of surgeons who have done fewer than 70 to 100 operations have complications more often - and a greater chance of death from those complications - than patients of more experienced doctors. These results are exacerbating worries that surgeons are rushing into the field without adequate training. Some hospitals allow surgeons to operate after one weekend seminar, during which they do a handful of cases under the guidance of a more experienced surgeon."

- Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff, 4 January 2004, The Boston Globe