Weight Loss Surgery Options

Are you struggling with excess weight and looking for weight loss surgery options?

Well, there are different types of weight loss surgeries, such as gastric bypass, sleeve gastrectomy, gastric band, and biliopancreatic diversion, however, each of them has different ways to restrict food consumption and benefits.

If you want to learn about them in detail, then this article will help you. Read this article and learn about its facts, how it works, and other major aspects.

What is Weight Loss Surgery?

Weight loss surgery is also known as bariatric surgery, which is a category of surgical operations that aims to help patients with obesity lose weight. Additionally, healthcare providers may recommend bariatric surgery when other weight loss methods have failed and if obesity appears to pose a greater risk to your health.

It works by modifying your digestive system, especially your stomach and sometimes also your small intestine, to regulate how many calories you can consume and absorb. However, it also reduces your hunger signals so that you won’t feel that hunger like you did before.

Furthermore, these procedures can help in preventing so many metabolic diseases related to obesity, which include diabetes and fatty liver disease, yet the surgery is not that easy because it requires preparation beforehand and long-term lifestyle changes afterward to be successful.

Why is bariatric surgery done?

Bariatric surgery is the most effective long-term treatment for people with severe obesity (class III obesity). It is very hard for these individuals to lose weight through diet and exercise alone. When your body gets used to a higher weight, it tries to go back to that weight even after you lose it. Bariatric surgery changes the way your body processes food, making it easier to maintain a healthy diet and lifestyle for lasting weight loss and better health.

What kinds of conditions can bariatric surgery treat?

Obesity is associated with various chronic diseases, and many of them are life-threatening. However, these conditions and risk factors will improve after surgery. So, if you’re a candidate for weight loss surgery, then you may have or be at risk of developing any of these health problems, which include:

• High Cholesterol: It means your blood has too many lipids in it, which can lead to blockage in your blood vessels, and it can also put you at risk for stroke or heart attack.
• High Blood Pressure: This means the blood flow in your vessels is too high, and it can wear down the walls of your blood vessels and put you at greater risk of heart attack and stroke.
• High Blood Sugar: It is highly linked to insulin resistance and is considered a precursor to diabetes. However, if it is left untreated, then it can damage your nerves, blood vessels, tissues, and organs, which increases the risk of many diseases.
• Type 2 Diabetes: This is caused by excess fat storage, which leads to adult-onset diabetes (type 2). However, the risk of developing type 2 diabetes increases by 20% for each point on the BMI scale.
• Heart Disease: Obesity can cause abnormal cardiac function and congestive heart failure, and it can also cause plaque to build up inside your arteries, which increases the risk of heart attack and stroke.
• Kidney Disease: Metabolic syndromes involved with obesity include insulin resistance, high blood pressure, and congestive heart failure, which is a major cause of chronic kidney disease and kidney failure.
• Osteoarthritis: Having excess weight can put so much pressure on your joints, like your knees, which may cause osteoarthritis or even worse.

How Do You Qualify for Weight Loss Surgery?

When you are obese and lifestyle changes don't provide you enough relief in losing weight, then weight loss surgery, also known as bariatric surgery, is an option. Additionally, these surgeries help you by changing your stomach size and appetite.

However, here are some reasons that show that you may qualify for the surgery:

• When your body weight is 100 pounds or more.
• You have a BMI of 40 or above.
• Your BMI is 35 or higher, and you have any weight-related health condition like gallbladder disease, high blood pressure, heart disease, etc.
• You have a history of unsuccessful weight loss surgeries through traditional methods like diet and exercise.
• When you don't have alcohol or drug issues.
• When you haven't been diagnosed with any mental disorder.
• You should be healthy enough for the surgery.

What are the Types of Weight Loss Surgery?

• Gastric Sleeve Surgery

It is also known as vertical sleeve gastrectomy, where a surgeon removes most of your stomach and leaves only banana shaped section that is closed with staples. Additionally, this surgery reduces the amount of food that can fit in your stomach and makes you feel full with a small amount of food. 

However, taking out part of your stomach can affect hormones or bacteria in the gastrointestinal system that affect appetite and metabolism, yet this type of surgery can’t be reversed because some of the stomach is permanently removed.

• Gastric Bypass Surgery

It is also known as the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, which is done in three different steps. First, the surgeon staples your stomach and creates a small pouch in the upper section, which makes your stomach much smaller, so you eat less because you feel full sooner. In the next step, the surgeon divides your small intestine into two parts and attaches the lower part directly to the small stomach pouch, which allows the food to bypass most of your stomach and the upper part of your small intestine, so your body absorbs fewer calories.

Then, the surgeon reconnects the upper part of the small intestine to the new which allows digestive juices in the stomach to flow from the bypassed part of the small intestine to the lower part of the small intestine so the food can be digested properly.

• Adjustable Gastric Band

In this approach, the surgeon places a ring with an inflatable band around the top of your stomach to create a small pouch. Just like gastric bypass and gastric sleeve, the gastric band makes you feel full even with a small amount of food. 

Additionally, the inner band has a circular balloon inside which is filled with saline solution so that the surgeon can adjust the inner band to resize the opening from the pouch to the rest of your stomach by injecting or removing the saline solution through a small device that is called a port, placed under your skin.

• Biliopancreatic Diversion with Duodenal Switch

This procedure involves two separate procedures in which the first procedure is similar to gastric sleeve surgery and the second surgical procedure divides the small intestine into two tracts, which aim to reduce the number of calories and amount of nutrients absorbed.

However, this type of surgery helps to lose more weight as compared to other weight loss procedures, but it also causes some problems and a shortage of vitamins, minerals, and proteins in your body.

Which Weight Loss Surgery Is Best?

Well, the ideal weight loss surgery depends on your particular health and body type; however, if you’re very obese or you’ve undergone abdominal surgery before, then simpler surgery might not be possible. For that, you need to discuss this with your doctor about the pros and cons of each procedure then the doctor will advise you which procedure will help.

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