Asia's Fattest Cuts Flab With Some Help From City Doctor

By Author: Mike Smith
Total Articles: 103
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Mumbai: No doctor in China wanted to operate on 33-year-old Qin Fang, who weighed a challenging 285 kg. A fortnight after local newspapers carried Qin's weighty problem, authorities at the Nankai Hospital near Beijing called a Mumbai doctor to help the young man.

"We are told he was Asia's heaviest man when we operated on him 10 days ago," announced Dr. Muffazal Lakdawala, relating how he was invited to China to place a gastric band around Qin's stomach. The Chinese man has since lost seven kg, Dr. Lakdawala said at a press conference held in L H Hiranandani Hospital, Powai, on Friday.

The Hiranandani team was first asked to operate on a 25-year-old-woman who weighed 170 kg during the workshop. "The Chinese doctors said that they had so far only operated on 130 kg patients," said the doctor. "After the girl's operation, we were introduced to Qin as the heaviest man in Asia."

Now, the Chinese doctors want to train at Hiranandani Hospital on the nuances of bariatric surgery. Given a recent survey's finding that 25% of Chinese men were obese, this is not surprising. "Batches of four doctors will come in ...
... turn to train at hospital early next year," said medical director Dr Sujit Chatterjee.

Bariatric surgery is used to reduced the size of the stomach of a morbidly obese person or one whose body mass index is over 37 (BMI is equal to one's height divided by one's weight). Doctors either place a band around the stomach or a make a bypass between a portion of the stomach to the small intestine to reduce the effective area of the stomach. The logic being that morbidly obese patients will then carve less for more food and start losing weight.

"Even in anaesthesia, the doctors concerned were preparing doses that were too heavy for the patient," said Dr Sunita Goyal who was part of the team that visited Tianjin last fortnight. Chinese anaesthetists, too, are also planning to come down for training to Mumbai.

Dr Muffazal Lakdawala believes the Chinese experience is a pointer that bariatric surgery will boost medical tourism to India. "It proves that we have the knowledge and the infrastructure to carry out such a surgery," he said, adding that he has been invited to Sri Lanka for another workshop.

Moreover, given the fact that obesity surgery costs a fraction of the costs abroad - $7,000 in the city as against $33,000 in the West-India makes economic sense.

Dr. Muffazal Lakdawala the famous bariatric surgeon with years of experience helps you reduce weight and unwanted fat in your body and makes you healthy and fit.

About the Author:
Muffazal Lakdawala, the Founder and Director of CODS created a support centre to battle the cause of obesity. Dr. Muffazal Lakdawala is also the Founder member of IFSO which has increased the visibility of Asian surgical fraternity.