Cut Your Losses
Bariatric Surgery
What is it?
Weight loss surgery is a serious surgical procedure that decreases the size of the stomach, reduces food intake and can enable you to lose a significant amount of weight. It is a permanent procedure that requires a lifetime commitment to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Weight loss surgery not only helps you to lose weight, but can help improve your overall health, well-being and self-esteem. Gastric bypass can greatly improve the quality of life not only because of an improvement in appearance and an increase in mobility, but also because it can reduce the number and severity of health problems that overweight people are prone to suffer, such as diabetes and heart/circulation problems.
What Types of Surgery are Available?
Gastric Bypass. It is a complex procedure performed under general anesthesia. Time in surgery is approximately one to four hours, followed by a one- to seven-day stay in the hospital. Currently, two techniques are available for gastric bypass:
- Roux-en-Y-gastric bypass (traditional and laparoscopic)
- biliopancreatic diversion bypass
Gastric Banding. Adjustable gastric banding is a restrictive type of weight loss surgery which involves placing a silicone band with an inflatable inner collar around the upper stomach to restrict food intake. This creates a small pouch and a narrow passage to the lower stomach. This small passage delays the emptying of food from the pouch and causes a feeling of fullness. The silicone band can be tightened or loosened over time to change the size of the passage.
Gastric Sleeve. Technically called gastric sleeve resection, it is typically used to safely initiate the surgical weight loss process in people who are too obese or sick to have more invasive weight loss surgeries or are not candidates for gastric banding.
Put another way, gastric sleeve surgery lets such people reach a safe weight so they can then undergo the more radical surgery.
Duodenal Switch. Duodenal switch surgery is a variation of another procedure, called biliopancreatic diversion. But the duodenal switch leaves a larger portion of the stomach intact, including the pyloric valve, which regulates the release of stomach contents into the small intestine.
As the name suggests, the duodenal switch also keeps a small part of the duodenum in the digestive system. Foods mix with stomach acid, move down into the duodenum, where they mix with bile from the gall bladder and digestive juices from the pancreas.
Malabsorptive surgeries restrict the amount of calories and nutrients the body absorbs. The malabsorptive component of duodenal switch surgery involves rearranging the small intestine to separate the flow of food from the flow of bile and pancreatic juices. The food and digestive juices interact only in the last 18 to 24 inches of the intestine.
Incision Free. As an alternative to incision-based surgery, surgeons are using natural orifices (such as the throat) to insert the tools and equipment they need. While some incision-free procedures are still in their experimental stages, the cutting-edge, cut-free procedures may eventually serve as commonplace alternatives to the more popular weight loss surgeries.
