Bariatric Surgery - Part 2

This article was written by Dr. Farooq Ahmad of California Medical Weight Management.

In continuation with our previous blog on bariatric surgery, while it is true that bariatric surgery offers one of the very good options for severely obese individuals who have no other option and it has also initially shown promising results in controlling uncontrolled diabetes as well as preventing serious complications like heart disease & stroke, it has its reservations & limitations too.

This is not specific to bariatric surgery; the fact here is that there is nothing that is perfect. Everything has its advantages and disadvantages. Regarding bariatric surgery, such comparisons are best illustrated at informational seminars hosted by trained bariatric and metabolic surgeons. If you are considering bariatric surgery, we encourage you to attend such an event.

Most forms of weight-loss surgery are major procedures that can pose serious risks and undesirable effects. Also, you must make permanent healthy changes to your diet and get regular exercise to help ensure the long-term success of bariatric surgery. In this context some facts are:

• A meta-analysis of 136 studies on 22094 patients showed the mortality from gastric bypass surgeries to be 0.5%
• The overall rate of complications during the 30 days following surgery ranges from 7% for laparoscopic procedures to 14.5% for operations through open incisions. The general complications include:
  • Infection
  • Bleeding
  • Hernia
  • Intestinal obstruction
  • Stricture formation and
  • Dumping syndrome.
• Post-operative Nutritional problems: Post-surgery, patients feel fullness after ingesting only a small volume of food due to the reduced size of the newly created stomach pouch and also some part of intestine may be bypassed as part of surgery causing reduced absorption of food. This may result in deficiency of many essential dietary ingredients.

Patients must abide by specific nutritional guidelines to prevent these problems.

To learn more about obesity and the benefits of medical weight loss, visit California Medical Weight Management at http://www.calmwm.com.