Obesity Surgery

Obesity Surgery, when a person is overweight, it brings about certain kinds of secondary health problems. It is a complex disease, often including secondary conditions. Moreover, these secondary conditions worsen the outcome for obese patients too. Secondary problems caused by obesity put the patient’s life at peril if not addressed.

These problems include:

• Diabetes type 2
• High blood pressure
• Some types of cancer
• Sleep apnea
• Osteoarthritis
• Fatty liver disease
• Heart disease
• Stroke
• Kidney Disease

However, these problems are not impossible to solve.

Thanks to today’s technological advancement in the medical industry, we can get rid of our extra weight. As a result, we can gain the look and health that we have always desired.

What Is Obesity Surgery?

People with weight problems seeking to find an ailment often try many different kinds of approaches. Some resort to dieting, some try weight loss pills, thinning

teas, exercise, etc. When all else fails, modern medicine offers a solution for these people. Surgical interventions are highly effective in treating obesity and in turn, its secondary complications.

In surgical interventions to help lose weight, doctors lower limit the amount of food the stomach can hold. Sometimes these procedures aim to create a malfunction in food absorption, and some operations combine both of them.

In today’s world, there are certain obesity surgery types in practice.

• Gastric bypass
• Adjustable gastric band
• Sleeve gastrectomy
• Biliopancreatic diversion with duodenal switch

Each of these operations has its own advantages and disadvantages. In this article, we will go over each of these options for surgery for obesity. And help you determine which one to go with. Let’s begin with the gastric bypass operation.

Gastric Bypass

Gastric bypass is sometimes also referred to as “Roux- en-Y Gastric Bypass”. This kind of operation is the most popular obesity surgery type today. Let’s delve into the details of the procedure.

This surgery for obesity consists of two parts. In the first part, the doctor dissects most of the stomach away from the gastric pathway. This way, the majority of the stomach gets detached from the GI tract. After, the physician makes a tiny incision on a small fraction of the small intestine. Then, this dissected small intestine gets connected to the new, smaller stomach. The majority of the stomach gets left out from the pathway of the food. Though, this bigger part of the stomach still stays attached to the small intestine. This way stomach keeps producing stomach acid and enzymes for digestion. These enzymes just interact with the ingested food a bit later on.

Taking away most of the stomach from the pathway of food means that the patient cannot eat as much volume as before. In turn, this leads to less calorie consumption and thus, weight loss. On top of this, most of the stomach does not interact with the food directly.

Another thing that this operation cause is the body to derive fewer nutrients and fewer calories from food intake. All the while, we also bypass a small amount of the small intestine in this operation too. This segment of the small intestine that we usually bypass absorbs food too, but not anymore. Let’s move on to the advantages and disadvantages of gastric bypass obesity surgery.

Advantages of Gastric Bypass

• Patients lose 60% to 80% of their excess weight in the end result.
• Limits the number of food patients can eat in one sitting.
• It can indirectly cause the body to spend more energy overall.
• Makes changes in the gut microbiome and hormones; this translates to less appetite. In other words, patients feel less hungry.

Disadvantages of Gastric Bypass

This operation is a rather complex one, getting this operation from an inexperienced doctor increases certain risks of unwanted complications.

Since the body cannot absorb nutrients as efficiently as before, certain nutrient deficiencies may occur. Usually, patients experience one or more of the following micronutrients: calcium, folate, iron, or vitamin B12 deficiency.

Patients have to stay in the hospital for longer compared to other types of gastric surgery.

This operation requires life-long aftercare. Patients need to stick to individual dietary restrictions. Some may need continuous vitamin or mineral supplementation. Furthermore, periodic check-ups are necessary.

Sleeve Gastrectomy

This kind of operation is sometimes also called Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy. In this kind of surgery for weight loss obesity, doctors take away around 80% of the patient’s stomach. The remaining 20% of the stomach resembles a banana in shape.

The Operation

There are a number of different aspects of sleeve surgery that facilitate weight loss. First and foremost, this operation drastically reduces the volume of the stomach. This way stomach cannot hold much food at the same time. In other words, the patient cannot take as many calories as before.

However, the majority of help comes from the effects on the gut biome. The reduction of stomach volume affects hormones found in the guts. These hormones manage certain factors such as hunger, fullness, and blood glucose regulation.

Research indicates that sleeve gastrectomy operation is just as effective as roux-en-y gastric bypass. These studies show that it does its job at facilitating weight loss just as well as gastric bypass. On top of that, sleeve obesity surgery works at improving type 2 diabetes symptoms as well as gastric bypass too. Also, some research suggests that sleeve obesity surgery improves symptoms of type 2 diabetes regardless of weight loss.

When it comes to the risk of complications after the operation, obesity sleeve surgery falls somewhere in the middle. This kind of surgery for weight loss has a slightly higher complication risk than an adjustable gastric band. While compared to gastric bypass surgery, it poses slightly less risk. Let’s have a look at the advantages and disadvantages this weight-loss operation offers.

Advantages

• Limits the patient’s food intake drastically
• Gives significant results very quickly
• Shows a similar graph to gastric bypass surgery in terms of weight loss speed and weight loss maintenance
• During the operation, doctors do not have to insert any foreign bodies inside the patient. The procedure contains no bypassing of any sort. Nothing about the gastrointestinal tract gets rearranged.
• Patients do not have to spend a long time in the hospital compared to other weight loss operation types. Usually, doctors allow patients to leave after two days.

This operation causes gut hormones to behave differently. This difference in behavior leads to less experienced hunger, less appetite throughout the day, and better satiety all around.

Disadvantages

We are not able to revert this procedure and restore the volume of the patient’s stomach. Patients undergoing this operation are at risk of vitamin deficiencies. Less stomach volume means food absorption is not as good.

When compared to adjustable gastric band obesity surgery, this operation has a higher early complication rate.

Here are some of our Patient’s Before & After Pictures