A study carried out recently at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne, Australia has discovered some interesting results when monitoring short term results of gastric band surgery. The study involved over 100 patients. Gastric band surgery, which is now a very common procedure for helping severely obese people lose weight by restricting what they can comfortably ingest, means surgically placing an elastic band around the stomach. The study discovered that men who had experienced impotence problems before the surgery often reported that their impotence worsened after surgery. However, women who had suffered urinary incontinence before the operation generally saw an improvement afterward, whereas men who also had this problem saw no improvement. Surgeons say that the survey only looked at the immediate post operative period, and may have been the result of psychological and hormonal changes in the men.

Obesity is known to be a cause of impotence and the best way of ensuring it doesn't happen to you is to take exercise and control your diet. Bing, the search engine, says that weight loss is the number one New Year's resolution, and if that is what you want, the first stop should be your doctor for help and advice.