12:08 AM CDT on Wednesday, May 31, 2006

By JANET ST. JAMES / WFAA-TV

As more and more Americans have turned away from diets and to the knife to lose weight, it has been estimated that 150,000 people will undergo bariatric surgery in 2006, said Baylor bariatric surgery head Todd McCarty.

Eight years ago, less than 14,000 people underwent obesity surgery, and 2002 numbers hit more than 82,000.

Polly Landrum, 65, is among those that decided surgery was her best option after she said she went though years of fighting with food and fat.

"Through the years [I] have tried every diet that's come along," she said. "[I] lost weight on many of them [and] kept it off on none of them."

She's far from alone. McCarty's surgical load has gone from two obesity surgeries a week to about 20 a day.

"It not only helps people to lose weight and keep the weight off, but it also helps to solve so many medical problems that we commonly see like diabetes, high blood pressure, gi reflux," McCarty said. "There's a whole litany of problems including cancer that it helps to prevent."

The numbers also show bariatric surgery has become much safer than it once was, and now both operations are covered by Medicaid and Medicare.

Landrum had the less drastic lap band procedure a week ago and lost 13 pounds.

She said she is already off medicine for high blood pressure and hopes her husband will find the same success when he has the identical surgery next week.

E-mail jstjames@wfaa.com