Tampa, Fla. – With 360 pounds hanging on his 5-foot-7 frame, Robert Stratiff was in sad shape.
He had heart problems, poor circulation, wasted knees and sleep apnea that kept him awake most nights. Miserable at age 69, he knew he wasn’t long for the world unless he did something drastic. And soon.
So in February 2002, the Colonial Heights, Va., resident had gastric-bypass surgery to lose weight, with Medicare picking up the cost. Because he couldn’t eat as much, the weight dropped off faster than he could believe. Exercising got easier.
Now the retired Army colonel who flew helicopters in Vietnam is down to a svelte 170 pounds and swims a mile in the pool four or five times a week to keep fit.
He’s since had heart-bypass surgery and a knee rebuilt. All the other medical problems disappeared with the pounds.
“I knew I was not going to make it if I didn’t have that done,” Stratiff, now 73, said of the weight-loss surgery.
Medical advancements are helping Americans live longer, but a fast-food culture and sedentary lifestyles are making us fatter than ever.
People who are morbidly obese – at least 100 pounds overweight – are increasingly opting for some form of gastric-bypass surgery as a last resort.
Recent research suggests seniors can benefit from weight-loss surgery as much as younger people and maybe more. One study, from Columbia University’s Center for Obesity Surgery in New York, found that patients over 60 got the same benefits from the surgery and had a comparable rate of postoperative complications as younger people.
A soon-to-be published study of 27 gastric-bypass patients 65 and older who had surgery at the University of South Florida and the University of Miami showed the procedure produced good results and improved quality of life with about the same rate of mortality and complications as seniors who have heart-bypass and hip-replacement surgery. That’s a mortality rate of about 2 percent to 4 percent, double the death rate for younger gastric-bypass patients.
