Less than a week after the Food and Drug Administration approved the marketing of Lap-Band weight-loss surgery to 11 million new patients, a pair of studies has found that a different, older procedure is more effective and no riskier than either the Lap-Band or another less-drastic surgery, sleeve gastrectomy. In the first head-to-head comparison of weight-loss surgeries widely used in the United States, UC San Francisco researchers found that those who had their stomach capacity reduced by a Roux-en-Y bypass lost more weight, required less diabetes medication and were less likely to need further surgery than those who received the Lap-Band. A second study found that diabetic patients who underwent sleeve gastrectomy were more likely to continue needing diabetes medications than those who got the gastric bypass. Both studies were published Monday in the Archives of Surgery.
