willygee
06-03-05, 09:56 PM
Argentinian football legend Diego Maradona has had his stomach stapled to force him to lose weight.
The 44-year-old World Cup winner now weighs more than 18 stone although he is only 5ft 6ins tall.
Maradona had the two-hour operation in the port city of Cartagena on Colombia's Caribbean coast.
"Everything went well," Francisco Holguin, head of Cartagena's Medihelp clinic, where the operation was performed, said.
The former midfielder only stopped playing professionally in 1997 but has grown almost unrecognisably fat in recent years despite spending much of his time in a Cuban clinic fighting cocaine addition.
Maradona, considered to be one of the finest players of all time, will be fed intravenously for two days before going on a two-week liquid diet to be followed by solid foods.
In eight to 10 months he should be back to his ideal weight of just under 12 stone.
Stomach stapling, also known as a gastric bypass, reduces the stomach's capacity for holding food and bypasses part of the small intestine, forcing individuals to eat less.
Maradona, whose audacious playing propelled his home country Argentina to World Cup victory in 1986, spent more than
a week in the intensive care unit of a Buenos Aires hospital last April with heart and breathing problems.
He was then confined to a psychiatric clinic by his family.
In September, he returned to Cuba, where he has lived since 2000, to undergo more treatment for drug addiction but under a stricter regime than before.
SOURCE (http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1173542,00.html)
The 44-year-old World Cup winner now weighs more than 18 stone although he is only 5ft 6ins tall.
Maradona had the two-hour operation in the port city of Cartagena on Colombia's Caribbean coast.
"Everything went well," Francisco Holguin, head of Cartagena's Medihelp clinic, where the operation was performed, said.
The former midfielder only stopped playing professionally in 1997 but has grown almost unrecognisably fat in recent years despite spending much of his time in a Cuban clinic fighting cocaine addition.
Maradona, considered to be one of the finest players of all time, will be fed intravenously for two days before going on a two-week liquid diet to be followed by solid foods.
In eight to 10 months he should be back to his ideal weight of just under 12 stone.
Stomach stapling, also known as a gastric bypass, reduces the stomach's capacity for holding food and bypasses part of the small intestine, forcing individuals to eat less.
Maradona, whose audacious playing propelled his home country Argentina to World Cup victory in 1986, spent more than
a week in the intensive care unit of a Buenos Aires hospital last April with heart and breathing problems.
He was then confined to a psychiatric clinic by his family.
In September, he returned to Cuba, where he has lived since 2000, to undergo more treatment for drug addiction but under a stricter regime than before.
SOURCE (http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1173542,00.html)