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Weight-loss surgery has urinary benefits

MELBOURNE, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- Australian researchers say weight-loss surgery improved female urinary problems but erection issues in men got worse following weight-loss surgery.

Study leader Dr. Weranja Ranasinghe of Austin Hospital in Melbourne found women who underwent gastric band surgery to lose weight reported significant improvements in urinary function and quality of life after the operation.

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However, the study, published in the Journal of the British Association of Urological Surgeons, found men undergoing the same weight-loss surgery did not have similar urinary function improvements and erectile function was considered slightly worse after surgery. The researchers noted that other studies reported patients with non-surgical weight loss, experience improved sexual function.

"We were keen to see what effect weight loss surgery had had on the patients' sexual and urinary functions, as these are common problems in people who are very obese," Ranasinghe says in a statement. "Just under two-thirds of the women -- 65 percent -- and 24 percent of the men had some urinary incontinence, while 83 percent had erection problems before surgery."

Ranasinghe and colleagues surveyed 176 patients -- 142 women and 34 men -- who had undergone laparoscopic gastric banding surgery at a single center in Newcastle, Australia.

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