Who’s who in bariatric surgery: The pioneers in the development of surgery for weight control

n o s i f p c i b t t p w t m c r a f r s w a r s d t c q w s s s i f t u besity is a complex, multifactorial chronic disease involving nvironmental (social and cultural), genetic, physiologic, metbolic, behavioral, and psychological components. Responsible or greater than 300,000 deaths per year, it is second only to obacco abuse as the leading cause of preventable death in the nited States. Approximately 127 million adults in the United tates are overweight (BMI 25), 60 million are obese (BMI 30), and 9 million are severely obese (BMI 40). The verall prevalence of obesity has geometrically increased from 2.8% in 1962 to 30.5% in 2000. Although the prevalence of verweight is higher in men (67%) than women (62%), obesity nd severe obesity are more prevalent in women (34% vs 27.7% nd 6.3% vs 3.1%, respectively). The comorbidities of obesity re numerous and affect nearly every organ system: cardiovasular (eg, essential hypertension, coronary artery disease, left entricular hypertrophy), central nervous system (eg, stroke, diopathic intracranial hypertension), gastrointestinal (eg, choecystitis, cholelithiasis, fatty liver infiltration), respiratory (eg, bstructive sleep apnea, obesity hypoventilation syndrome, sthma), psychologic (eg, social stigmatization, depression), orhopedic (eg, osteoarthritis), metabolic (eg, insulin resistance, iabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia), reproductive (eg, anovulation, arly puberty), cutaneous (eg, intertrigo, hirsutism), and exremities (eg, varicosities, edema). In addition, obese patients re at an increased risk for complications at the time of surgery nd postoperatively, including myocardial infarction, deep veous thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, pneumonia, and ound infections. The concept for a surgical procedure to treat obesity was eveloped from the results of cancer and ulcer procedures. Paients that had large portions of their stomachs or small intesines removed were observed to experience significant postoprative weight loss. In the mid-1950s, Linnear et al started reating artificial malabsorbtion syndromes. They used intesti