Weight-Loss Surgery Arrives at Heart Hospital

AMS group member, Arkansas Heart Hospital in Little Rock, recently began offering weight-loss surgery as a way to fight heart disease and rising obesity rates in Arkansas.

The newly formed Bariatric & Metabolic Institute at the Arkansas Heart Hospital started seeing patients at the first of the year and has had “hundreds of patients” so far, said Dr. Samuel Bledsoe, the director of the institute. After the patients go through the necessary tests and screenings to determine if they are candidates for the weightloss procedure, Bledsoe said, he estimates that by the summer he’ll be performing between
20 and 40 surgeries a month.

The Arkansas Heart Hospital decided to offer the procedures because adult obesity rates have skyrocketed from about 10 percent of the population in Arkansas just a few decades ago to 35 percent, said CEO Dr. Bruce Murphy.

“It’s an epidemic,” Murphy said, and it is tied to several factors, including a lack of physical education in schools and the increased use of artificial sweeteners. Dieting and exercise almost never work for the obese for the long haul, he said. Surgery can also help diabetics, who account for about 40 percent of the admissions to the Heart Hospital, he said.

Read more at ArkansasBusiness.com.