Jamie Dukes Official Website

 

Jamie Dukes, 44, the Atlanta Falcons offensive lineman from 1986 to 1993, who is now a popular and sometimes controversial television commentator and analyst for the NFL Network, says his decision to have gastric band surgery may have been the most important decision of his life. Since retiring from the NFL in 1996, his weight ballooned to 385 pounds – about 100 pounds higher than his playing weight. He also developed high blood pressure and thought it was only a matter time before he had type 2 diabetes, which runs in his family.

 

“When I turned 43, I was more than 100 pounds overweight and realized that four of my former teammates had died before the age of 44. This was a real wake-up call for me. I had to come to terms with my situation,” said Dukes who still lives in Atlanta with his wife and two children. “I tried lots of things to lose weight but nothing short of surgery worked for me. I came to grips with that and thought I owed it to myself and my family to at least investigate the option.”

 

He turned to Christopher Hart, MD, Medical Director of The Atlanta Bariatric Center at Emory Johns Creek Hospital, who helped Dukes assess the risks and benefits of various weight loss options and together they determined gastric band surgery with the REALIZE™ Band was his best option.

 

The REALIZE Band is a surgical implant that wraps around the esophagus just above the stomach to limit food intake. It makes people feel full faster and longer and slows digestion, leading to significant weight loss and improvement in obesity-related conditions.

 

“For Jamie, deciding to have gastric banding surgery wasn’t just about losing weight, it was about getting healthy, staying healthy and achieving long-term success,” said Dr. Hart, a bariatric surgeon. “Medically, he was a good surgical candidate and psychologically, he had the right attitude going in. He knew this was a beginning to a new life and a healthier lifestyle.”

 

Wife, Angela, and friend and former teammate, Deion Sanders, were also supportive of Dukes’ decision to turn to gastric band surgery, which he had on July 16, 2008. Since the surgery, more and more people are noticing a “new Dukes” on television and in real life, and now he wants to share his story to help others improve their health. In as few as seven months, he has lost about 85 pounds and counting, his high blood pressure is much improved, he has more energy and feels healthier.

 

Now Dukes is committed to raising awareness of the dangers of obesity in Atlanta and across the country. He’s partnering with Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc., the maker of the REALIZE Band, to help him spread the word. He says he’s living proof people can safely and effectively address obesity and is encouraging former athletes, as well as the general public, to take action against the disease, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says affects 34 percent of adults.

 

According to the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS), more than 15 million Americans have morbid obesity, a more severe form of obesity, and last year about 220,000 people had some form of weight loss surgery in the U.S. The Georgia Department of Public Health says about 1.9 million adult residents are obese, putting them at increased risk for developing obesity-related conditions like cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, hypertension and some forms of cancer.

 

“As a professional athlete, I had to be big and wide to do my job – I was used to eating 40-ounce portions, but I was vigorously exercising several hours a day with a trainer,” said Dukes. “Today my job is to be healthy, be around for my family for a very long time and help others who are going through what I went through. To me, it really doesn’t matter whether you choose surgery or not, just as long as you choose something that works and works over a lifetime.”

 

Along with eating healthier and smaller portions of food and working out about three times a week, Dukes has started using the REALIZE mySUCCESS™ program, an innovative Web-based clinical tool to facilitate positive long-term outcomes for patients. REALIZE mySUCCESS is an integral element of the REALIZE™ Personalized Banding Solution offering through which the patient and bariatric practice stay connected pre- and post-surgery to help develop actionable strategies specific to each patient’s individual challenges. The comprehensive solution helps to identify the root cause of obstacles to success, as well as provide tools to overcome them. The bariatric practice has access to the patient’s information to help monitor progress and can step in when necessary to keep patients on track. Patients who regularly use REALIZE mySUCCESS lose significantly more weight than those who do not.*

“What you do after bariatric surgery may be as important as the surgery itself,” said Dr. Hart, who continues to monitor Dukes’ progress. “Surgery is a powerful tool, but success comes from a long-term commitment to a new way of life after surgery.”

 

The REALIZE Gastric Band is a device intended for use in weight reduction for patients with morbid obesity and is indicated for individuals with a body mass index (BMI) of at least 40 kg/m², or a BMI of at least 35 kg/m² with one or more obesity-related conditions. It is for use in morbidly obese adult patients who have failed more conservative weight-reduction alternatives, such as supervised diet, exercise and behavior modification programs.