World’s fattest man prepares for life-saving surgery after spending seven years confined to a

World’s fattest man prepares for life-saving surgery after spending seven years confined to a

Mangalore Today News Network

May 09, 2017: The world’s fattest man is preparing for life-saving gastric bypass surgery after spending nearly seven years confined to a bed.

 

 

Juan Pedro Franco, who once weighed more than half a ton, has lost a whopping 27 and a half stone to go under the knife.

The 32-year-old, from Aguascalientes in Mexico, has been on a three-month diet to prepare for the operation on Tuesday.

He will go through a series of intense tests, with his blood, imaging, pulmonary and cardiac function studied by a team of doctors.

Doctors hope the surgery will help Juan walk again - after being confined to his bed for nearly seven years.

Dr Jose Antonio Castaneda Cruz said: "He has lost nearly 30 per cent of his initial weight, so he is ready to undergo the bariatric surgery."

Juan discovered in November that he was actually 15 stone heavier than doctors first thought.

Doctors believed he weighed nearly 79 stone when he was taken to hospital earlier that month for surgery.

But tests showed his true weight to be 92 stone 9lbs- just over a stone short of record-breaking compatriot Manuel Uribe who reached a peak weight of 94 stone before dying in May 2014.

He had appealed for help in July when he announced he weighed just over 60 stone, revealing he hadn’t left his box room for six years and feared he would die after having to quit a special diet which his OAP parents couldn’t afford.

He was chubby at school but his weight ballooned after a crippling traffic accident he suffered as a teenager which left him bed-ridden for more than a year, followed by a bout of pneumonia.

Admitting in a TV interview last year, he said he’d been ribbed over his size at school.

He said: “When I was six years old I already weighed nearly 10 stone and it’s gone up and up since.

Compatriot Manuel Uribe lost half his body weight with the help of doctors and nutritionists after reaching his peak weight - but died in his native city of Monterrey in northern Mexico on May 26, 2014.

He was 62 stone at the time.

He drew worldwide attention in January 2006 when he made an emotional plea on a Mexican TV network that prompted both private and public help.

He was also featured on ‘The World’s Heaviest Man’, a 2007 television documentary about his bedridden life and attempts to overcome his obesity.

Nearly 75 per cent of adults in Mexico are considered overweight or obese and the prevalence of diabetes ranks among the highest in the world.

The country recently declared a nationwide epidemiological emergency on diabetes.