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Gastric Bypass Guide
Gastric Bybass Surgery
Looking back just 10 years, less 20,000 weight-loss operations were being performed in the United States each year. In the coming year that figure is estimated to reach a staggering 200,000.
Today more or less 30% of the population of the United States is overweight and, of those people that are overweight, more or less one third are clinically obese with a body mass index of 30 or more.
Furthermore, around 9 million adults today are overweight by more than 100 pounds and are considered to be morbidly obese.
For such people the usual remedy of diet combined with exercise is quite simply not effective and they are turning in growing numbers to gastric bypass surgery.
The most usual form of gastric bypass surgery today is a procedure named Roux-en-Y in which the stomach is greatly reduced in size and the small intestine is re-routed to bring down calorie absorption.
In the past few years several things have increased the popularity of Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery including the fact that the procedure can now be performed laparoscopically, aggressive marketing by the medical community, an expansion of coverage for the procedure by Medicare and its use by a number of celebrities.
This has produced an increase in the number of medical centers providing the procedure, some of which are chiefly concerned with the profit to be made, and this constitutes an escalating danger for those considering surgery.
Results can be very impressive, however gastric bybass surgery is a major surgical procedure and is not suitable for everybody and is not without its risks.
Before embarking on any medical procedure, people must be guided by their doctor and certainly must not consider surgery until they are fully informed about the operation and the associated risks.
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