Eat+Food+Podcast

Weight-Loss Surgery: It’s not for Everyone by Patricia Neighmond media type="file" key="CChumanbiopodcast.m4a" -Bariatric surgery, also knows as gastric bypass surgery is done on overweight men and women who are in potential dangers for obesity related diseases, or have tried everything possible to lose weight and nothing seems to work. -The surgery continues to become more popular, with more than 150,000 Americans getting the procedure each year. -Part of the reason it is so popular is because insurance and medicare pay for it. -Dr. Paul Shekelle is the director at the Evidence based practice center at the Rand Corporation. -He believed gastric bypass surgery works -On average, each patient loses approximately 100 pounds in just one year -patients are often stunned by the results of the surgery -A positive aspect to this surgery is that the weight loss decreases the chances of obesity related diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol. -This surgery is being advertised to the public everywhere, making it appealing to people who may not really need the surgery. This becomes dangerous when there are inexperienced doctors out there just looking to make money, and not so much worried about the true health of their patients. -While there are many positive effects of the surgery that come along with any weight loss, there are also some negative affects. -One major complication is leaking. Leaking is when some of the intestinal contents leak into the abdominal cavity, causing people to get infections. In this situation, people with this infection can be bed bound for months, and often have a very very hard time recovering from this. -One out of 200 patients dies due to the surgery. Some fatal affects of the surgery include blood clots in the lungs or legs, hernia’s at the site of the incision, or possible dumping syndrome. -dumping syndrome is when the patients becomes naseous and sweaty after eating foods that have a lot of sugar or fat. -Patients may also become deficient in some nutrients and vitamins.

So, Who qualifies for the surgery and when does it become something that needs to be done? Initially gastric bypass surgery was intended for people severely overweight, with a body mass index of atleast 40. It has now moved down to men and women with a BMI of 35 and above, and doctors are scared the BMI of patients before the surgery will continue to drop.