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Gastric Bypass Guide
Gastric Bypass Surgery
Although gastric bypass surgery has been around for half a century it remained, until quite recently, a fairly seldom seen surgical procedure. Today however the gastric bypass, in one form or another, is fast becoming one of the most frequently performed surgeries across much of the Western world, with the United States leading the field.
When you look at just how obesity has increased in the past 10 years the figures are staggering and obesity in America has reached epidemic proportions with more than 30% of the population of the United States now classed as obese. The United Kingdom is not far behind at about 22% but both the US and the UK are well ahead of most European countries which come in at between 9% and 13% and Japan with a figure of around 3.5%.
Perhaps of more concern however is the rise in the number of morbidly obese people and of the increase in child obesity and teenage obesity. Although perhaps not considered by many to be a serious problem today, the effects of childhood obesity will simply fuel the growth in morbid obesity surgery in the years ahead.
Obesity surgery has developed significantly in recent years and there are now a number of different procedures performed including traditional gastric bypass surgery (such as Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery and mini gastric bypass surgery), restrictive procedures (such as the vertical sleeve gastrectomy or the lap band system) and malabsorptive procedures (such as the biliopancreatic diversion).
Whatever form of surgery for weight loss is undertaken, the basic principle is to reduce the size of the stomach significantly (normally by more than 90%) to physically restrict the patient’s intake of food and thus dramatically reduce the availability of calories. This, in turn, forces the body to call upon its reserves of fat and leads to a rapid loss of weight.
Although gastric bypass surgery, even with modern minimally invasive techniques, is still considered as major surgery with a wealth of associated risks, its rising popularity is in no small way due to its success in terms of weight loss and the publicity surrounding a growing list of celebrities who have chosen this route.
The list of personalities is both long and growing and includes such names as Diego Maradona, Sharon Osbourne, Anne Rice, Al Rocker, Randy Jackson and Roseanne Barr.
Throughout the pages of this website we will examine the problem of obesity, and morbid obesity in particular, through a series of articles on obesity, and look at such things as how to figure body mass index in an effort to help answer the question which more and more people are asking - "Am I Obese?"
We will also look in detail at all aspects of obesity surgery covering such things as the risks and complications of gastric bypass surgery, its long term side effects, the risks of gaining weight after gastric bypass surgery, the need for a strict post gastric bypass diet, finding suitable gastric bypass recipes and the important subject of gastric bypass cost and whether this can be covered by insurance.
But, as we mentioned earlier, there have been considerable advances in weight loss surgery recently and so we will also look at new techniques such as robotic and laparoscopic surgery and the increasing use of the lap band system. Here, we will answer such questions as "What is lap band surgery?" and "What is the cost of lap band surgery?"
Here are just some of our recently published articles:
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