MELBOURNE, May 2 (UPI) -- An Australian study finds that gastric banding surgery appears to be more effective than a very low-calorie diet for losing weight and keeping it off.
Researchers at Monash University Medical School in Melbourne studied 80 patients who were about 50 pounds overweight, USA Today reports.
Half went through adjustable gastric banding. The laproscopic operation puts a band around the top of the stomach, so that patients feel full when they have eaten less.
The other half were prescribed a combination of weight-loss strategies, including a 500-calorie diet, meal replacements and weight-loss medication.
The researchers found that at the end of the six months both groups lost about 14 percent of their starting weight.
But at the end of two years, the diet group had regained some of the weight they had lost, although they were still 5.5 percent or 12 pounds lighter than they started. The surgery group had lost an average of 45 pounds or 87 percent of their excess weight.
The surgery costs from $14,000 to $18,000 in the United States.
The study was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
