South Indians top the scales on India’s obesity charts

The Gastroenterology Medical Centre and Hospital (GEM) in Coimbatore will open a dedicated department of bariatric surgery for the treatment of obesity at a private hospital in Chennai next week.

Bariatric surgery is a laparoscopic procedure that is performed in the stomach or intestines for the treatment of obesity and its related diseases.

“South India has the largest number of people with obesity in the country, about four times the number in the whole of north India, and we have a huge percentage of diabetics too. This is due to our consuming rice,” says Dr P Praveen Raj, head consultant, department of bariatric surgery, GEM Hospital.

With India having the third largest population with obesity and second largest with diabetes, bariatric surgery is being looked upon as a boon. But Chennai, while being a hub for medical tourism, had not been exploited enough for its potential as a centre for bariatric surgery, according to him. “Andhra Pradesh sees close to 100 bariatric surgeries a month, while Chennai is still lagging behind,” Dr Raj adds.

GEM, which opened the first bariatric centre in south India in 2003, is also conducting its seventh annual conference and live workshop on bariatric and metabolic surgery called ‘LAPAROFIT 2015’ on November 20 and 21 at the Westin Hotel. Their aim at this event is to streamline the surgical procedure and ensure that uniform guidelines are followed as bariatric surgery has always been looked upon with some scepticism due to a lack of guidelines.

“We want to ensure that the procedure doesn’t get unpopular due to the mistakes made by a few doctors,” he says. The event is expected to bring together bariatric experts from across Asia and enthuse more doctors in the city to specialize in the field, Dr Raj says.