{"id":322,"date":"2007-08-27T21:09:58","date_gmt":"2007-08-27T20:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/resource.bmj.com\/bmj\/2007\/08\/27\/nejm-23-aug-2007-vol-357\/"},"modified":"2007-08-27T21:09:58","modified_gmt":"2007-08-27T20:09:58","slug":"nejm-23-aug-2007-vol-357","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2007\/08\/27\/nejm-23-aug-2007-vol-357\/","title":{"rendered":"NEJM  23 Aug 2007  Vol 357"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The world\u2019s largest swede weighed in at 171.56kg, according to a highly entertaining website mocking the rutabaga (which is the American word for this estimable root vegetable);<!--more--> but it was held to be the product of genetic engineering, so the official Guinness record is still held by a swede of merely 34.43kg.<br \/>\nMy vegetable love should grow<br \/>\nVaster than empires, and more slow.<br \/>\nas Marvell observed to his coy mistress. However, slowly getting vaster is not good for human Swedes. This study collected those who weighed an average of 119kg (<a href=\"http:\/\/content.nejm.org\/cgi\/content\/abstract\/357\/8\/741\">Swedish Obese Subjects, SOS<\/a>) and from 1987 onwards they were randomised to bariatric surgery or conventional treatment. The surgical group lost weight dramatically and then regained some, whereas the others remained the same or got fatter. From about ten years on, the mortality of the two groups begins to diverge increasingly \u2013 in favour of the operated-on.<\/p>\n<p>If you look retrospectively at <a href=\"http:\/\/content.nejm.org\/cgi\/content\/abstract\/357\/8\/753\">outcomes of bariatric surgery in the USA<\/a>, the message is the same.\u00a0 Total mortality at a mean follow-up of 7 years was reduced, particularly deaths from diabetes, heart disease and cancer. However, accidents and suicide were higher in the surgical group.<\/p>\n<p>You think it horrible that lust and rage<br \/>\nShould dance attention upon my old age;<br \/>\nThey were not such a plague when I was young;<br \/>\nWhat else have I to spur me into song?<br \/>\nwrote Yeats when he was 71. Leaving aside the rage, <a href=\"http:\/\/content.nejm.org\/cgi\/content\/abstract\/357\/8\/762\">this study<\/a> sheds some light on how common lust is at Yeats\u2019 age and indeed beyond. Not uncommon at all; if he were an modern American male in his early seventies, there would be about a one-third likelihood of him having sex at least once a month. Should you need more detail, horrible or otherwise, turn to the extensive tabulation of this masterly, or rather Mastersly-Johnsonian, study.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/content.nejm.org\/cgi\/content\/extract\/357\/8\/789\">Isolated systolic hypertension<\/a> is really just the main subset of a condition which could be called EPPA \u2013 elevated pulse pressure of age. I think I\u2019ve coined that acronym myself, but somebody may have got there first, so save your rotten eggs for her\/him, not me. Without some magic way of rejuvenating stiffened (sometimes calcified) main capacitance arteries, it is always going to be hard to treat. I can\u2019t say I found this article much help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The world\u2019s largest swede weighed in at 171.56kg, according to a highly entertaining website mocking the rutabaga (which is the American word for this estimable root vegetable); [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2007\/08\/27\/nejm-23-aug-2007-vol-357\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-richard-lehmans-weekly-review-of-medical-journals"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>NEJM 23 Aug 2007 Vol 357 - 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