NHS feels the strain of obesity

12th February 2010 - The rise in weight-loss surgery is putting pressure on the NHS. The number of NHS operations performed on patients because of their obesity has more than doubled in two years.

The NHS carried out over four thousand procedures such as stomach stapling and gastric bypasses on obese people in 2008 to 2009, compared with less than two thousand in 2006 to 2007.

The figure is up by 55% in a single year.

The rise and rise of obesity

A report by the NHS Information Centre also shows a big increase in obesity in general. The number of people admitted to hospital with a main diagnosis of obesity is up nearly 60% in two years. The figure has gone from around five thousand to a shade under eight thousand.

If you look back ten years, only 950 people were admitted to hospital because of obesity, and it’s now eight times that amount.

Obesity patients are taken to hospital because of problems such as bed sores and ulcers from not being able to move about, as well as more serious cases where people have developed serious heart conditions brought on by the strain of being obese.

Pills for obesity

The number of prescriptions to treat obesity in 2008 was 1.28 million. That’s ten times higher than it was in 1999 when it was only 127,000. The choice of drugs is now more limited due to the recent withdrawal of the anti-obesity drug sibutramine (Reductil) because of an increased risk of cardiovascular side-effects. In theory, now that only one main-stream anti-obesity drug (orlistat) is available in the UK, this may produce even more pressure on surgical solutions.

Chief executive of The NHS Information Centre, Tim Straughan, said in a statement, “This report highlights the impact of obesity not just on society, but on the NHS. The figures show a clear rise in hospital admissions, surgical procedures and drug therapies to help people tackle their obesity.”

What is obese?

Obesity is when a person is carrying too much body fat for their height and sex. A person is considered obese if they have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or greater. BMI is a measurement of your weight in kilograms divided by your height in metres squared.

There are many health problems associated with obesity. Obesity is not just a cosmetic problem; it is a health hazard. Someone who is 40% overweight is twice as likely to die prematurely as an average-weight person. This is because obesity has been linked to several serious medical conditions including:

• heart disease and stroke
• high blood pressure
• diabetes
• cancer
• gallbladder disease and gallstones
• osteoarthritis
• gout
• breathing problems, such as sleep apnoea (when a person stops breathing for a short time during sleep) and asthma

Obesity is increasing all the time

Obesity has now become one of the most serious medical problems of the Western world. In the UK it’s estimated that one in five men and a quarter of women are obese, and that as many as 30,000 people die prematurely every year from obesity-related conditions.

Commenting on the NHS Information Centre report, Tam Fry from the UK National Obesity Forum says in an email: “These statistics not only show how severe the UK's adult obesity problem is, but also how the cost of surgery could ultimately cripple the NHS if we don't do something serious about prevention.”