Beyond Change

In our practice, we have preoperative bone densities done on all bariatric surgery patients with follow-up studies done on a yearly basis. A number of years ago at the International conference on obesity in Greece a few of the surgeons questioned why we would do this. Although the answer to this question comes in the results of our baseline studies my first response was “Did you read the memorandum sent by Dr. Mason to all of us in July 2000 as well as his article on calcium in the November 2000 issue of Beyond Change?” We have had a number of patients in their early 30’s whose bone density studies have indicated the diagnosis of osteopenia. [Osteopenia is known as a thinning of the bones