Gastric bypass surgery is proving to be a lifesaver for a lot of us as obesity sweeps across much of the western world but its greatest problem lies in the fact that a significant number of us either fail to lose sufficient weight after surgery or go on to regain much of the weight that is lost initially.
There are naturally several explanations for this failure to lose weight or to put on weight again and top of the list in without doubt the fact that too many people just find it too difficult to make the lifestyle changes necessary after surgery and eat their way back into obesity. However, scientists have now discovered a genetic component that could explain some individual's failure to lose weight after gastric bypass surgery.
In a recent study involving in excess of seven hundred severely obese individuals blood samples were tested for two single nucleotide polymorphisma (SNPs). In layman's terms a SNP is a human DNA sequence, variations in the pattern of which could indicate the way in which individuals will develop diseases and also respond to things like drugs and vaccines. Without taking you through the details of this study which are more than a little complex, the scientists discovered that just under twenty percent of the people examined showed a combination of specific SNPs that indicate they are at risk of not simply failing to lose weight after weight loss surgery, but might in fact be at risk of putting on weight.
The difficulty we face today is not primarily one of finding an answer for those individuals who suffer from obesity, but of stopping obesity to start with and this is essentially a question of education. There is no question that a minority of individuals are susceptible to obesity and genetics and similar factors may well have a role to play in this. However, the vast majority of the obesity that we today results from little more than bad eating habits and a lack of enough exercise.
The true problem however is that when people have reached it is human nature to look for any cause for their obesity that removes that feeling of guilt which comes from the fact that they may just have caused the problem themselves. Now what better excuse can you give someone than to tell them that it is not their fault but is genetic.
This is not to suggest that research into SNPs is not valid or to say that there is not a genetic component to the failure to lose weight or to gain weight following weight loss surgery. The danger however lies in releasing this information at too early a stage in the research process and simply handing individuals another excuse for not dealing with their obesity at a time at which obesity is at epidemic levels and most worrying of all is increasingly being seen in children at younger and younger ages.
Research is important and needs to be given its proper place in the overall scheme of things but we must be careful to ensure that it does not divert us from the real need to deal with obesity by educating individuals to alter their eating habits and to take more exercise.
Author Resource:-
GastricBypassFacts.info provides information on many aspects of obesity including use of the gastric bypass and popular techniques such as gastric lap band surgery
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