World’s fattest man ready for life-saving surgery after 7 years in bed

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.

Dr Cruz said at the time they would go ahead with their
pre-arranged diet plan, adding: “Everything we’re doing has been mapped
out and if everything goes to plan in a year and a half we’ll have him down to
between 12 and 14 stone.

“Initially we didn’t think he was going to be apt for this
treatment because of his level of obesity and a lung problem he suffers, but
now we’re seeing a more promising horizon.”

Juan’s plight became world news in November last year when
pictures emerged of him being transported from his home to a clinic 100 miles
away in Guadalajara where he is now being treated.

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.

“At 17 I weighed just over 36 stone. That was when I had an
accident and broke half my body and spent a year and a half in bed.

“I’m looking forward to going out again, driving again,
singing. That’s what I like doing. God willing, I’ll be able to do all those
things in the future.”

He said in November: “I’ve been trying to make sure I stay
calm and don’t get too stressed out.

“I’ve been doing the lung exercises my doctor has ordered
and taking the medicine they’ve given me, and spend some time every day playing
the guitar and a piano.”

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. Mirror UK revealed.

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.