So, did she or didn’t she? Aretha Franklin is looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and notably slimmer after losing 85lbs in just the past 5 months. She says no, she didn’t have weight loss surgery, telling People magazine in an interview that

“My habits have taken a 180-degree turn for the better…before I ate whatever I wanted, as much as I wanted. After concerts, I’d get burgers and lie down. It went on like that until my weight got out of control.”

Weight Loss Surgery – Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That!
Though Aretha claims not to be one of them (this doctor is skeptical), there are many famous faces out there that are slimmer with the benefit of weight loss surgery. Celebrities who have had weight loss surgery include Sharon Osbourne, Roseanne Barr, Star Jones and Al Roker.

But it’s not just TV personalities – professional athletes are also turning to bariatric procedures. NFL lineman Max Jean Guilles lost more than fifty pounds with LAP-BAND, deciding to have the procedure when his playing time was threatened by too many weight-related injuries.

Guilles good-naturedly refers to himself as “the LAP-BAND man”, and is unabashedly vocal about finally winning the lifetime war against his weight. “I got that (fat) monkey off my back,” he told reporters.

Joining Guilles in the NFL weight loss surgery Hall of FAme is Jets coach Rex Ryan, who had LAP-BAND surgery last year.

The United States of LAP-BAND?
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the number of obese Americans outweighs the number of those who are merely overweight: ~33% of Americans qualify as overweight while 34% meet the medical definition of obese (Body Mass Index, or BMI>30). An additional 6 percent are classified as morbidly obese or superobese (BMI>40)

Partly in response to these obesity trends, the FDA recently approved lower BMI qualifications for Allergan’s LAP-BAND stomach restriction device, acknowledging that Allergan had adequately demonstrated people with lower BMIs (30-35) have experienced “statistically significant decreases in all measures of weight loss. With this change, the number of Americans eligible for the LAP-BAND procedure (which takes about 20 minutes and is reversible) doubled – good news for gastric band manufacturers (Johnson&Johnson sells the Realize band system), and also likely good news for insurance companies, who have recently been increasing coverage for bariatric procedures.

Increasing Number of Non-Invasive Options for Weight, Diabetes Control

Not everyone approves of the new lower BMI requirements for qualifying for LAP-BAND; bariatric surgeons have been accused of downplaying both the side effects and band failure rates. , as well as patient difficulty maintaining weight loss long-term. But with the increasing prevalence of obesity-driven diabetes (“diabesity”) – which will affect more than 380 million by 2025) the answer will be more weight loss surgery options, not fewer.

The most promising of these is the gastric plication, a stomach restriction procedure that is essentially a re-purposed evolution of the surgical technique for treating Gastro-esophogeal Reflux Disease, or GERD. Patients having gastric plication are losing more weight at the same time interval as LAP-BAND patients- up to 80% of excess weight is lost vs. about 50% for band patients.

Whether gastric plication becomes the new gold standard for weight loss surgery remains to be seen. And whether Aretha Franklin lost her weight through diet and exercise, or will turn out to have a Star Jones-style confession (“Star Jones Reynolds on Gastric Bypass Surgery: I’m ready to open up”) on how she lost the weight, congratulations are in order. Obesity is not just ‘too fat’ – it is a serious disease with serious co-morbidities, and losing excess weight is something to feel good about!