Surgery For Weight Loss

Surgery For Weight Loss
Overweight has reached epidemic proportions, particularly
in the United States where two-thirds of the population is
overweight and one-third of the population is severely
overweight, or obese. Given the sheer number of overweight
people, not to mention the detrimental effects of being
overweight, it’s expected that various solutions to
losing weight would be available, and that is in fact the
case. One particular weight loss method that’s gotten
a good deal of notoriety is a surgical solution known as
gastric bypass.

Gastric bypass occurs through making the stomach smaller
and by allowing food to bypass part of the small intestine.
The end result of gastric bypass is a sensation of feeling
physically full sooner after eating than is typical, with
fewer calories consumed. Fewer calories are also absorbed
during eating after a gastric bypass procedure because of
the reduced role of the small intestine in digestion.

The specific method for performing a gastric bypass
procedure involves literally dividing the stomach into two
sections, one considerably smaller than the other. This
smaller section of stomach is what food comes into contact
with first: because this initial section of stomach is so
much smaller, it gives off signals of being full with a
small amount of food intake. Though all procedures that
alter the stomach for purposes of weight loss are referred
to as gastric bypass, there are variations in the
procedure. The most commonly performed gastric bypass is
Gastric bypass, Roux en-Y (proximal). As the name suggests,
Gastric bypass, Roux en-Y (proximal) is a complicated
procedure, but what it basically serves to do is alter the
small intestine and produce a feeling of fullness in the
patient soon after eating.

In a very real sense, gastric bypass is an emergency
procedure. Gastric bypass is only performed on obese
individuals. Further still, gastric bypass is typically
only performed on individuals who have been obese for a
period of at least five years. Such individuals would be
considered at high risk for the health risks from extreme
overweight, and gastric bypass could be seen in such a
situation as an effort to extend life. Gastric bypass is
never performed as a cosmetic procedure for improving body
image, as is the case with liposuction for instance.
Gastric bypass is also often considered a last resort type
of procedure and will often not be performed until other
attempts at weight loss have been documented to have
failed. When gastric bypass is performed, the typical time
period for returning to normal activities is three to five
weeks.

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Zinn Jeremiah is a freelance author. To find weight loss
help resources, visit http://www.hubonline.biz/lose-now.htm
or http://www.hubonline.biz/get-fit.htm .