A Little Bit About Bariatrics

It's a scenario playing out in homes across the western world: since the birth of her four children, Joan has not had the time to get out and exercise the way she used to. She's always been on the heavy side, but her sedentary lifestyle and poor eating habits have turned a little weight problem into a big weight problem. She feels unattractive now.

She is depressed about her weight yet she seeks to make herself feel better by eating even more. Joan is caught in a vicious cycle that she can't seem to get out of: she tries to diet and exercise, but the hunger pangs come back with a vengeance and she ends up bingeing in the middle of the night. The next morning she feels defeated. Again. She feels powerless. But what can she do?

With obesity rates rising in the United States, more people are turning to bariatric surgeries to help them get their severe weight problems under control. There are many different surgical options to choose from: here's a little bit of info about bariatric science and procedures.

"Bariatric" refers to the treatment of obesity; since modern bariatric surgery procedures began to become popular in 1998, the number of people seeking such help has multiplied by nearly twenty fold!

Because a larger test group has been undergoing the treatments, scientists have been able to get a pretty accurate feel for the success rate of the procedures over the last ten years. The fact is: people who have bariatric surgery can expect to achieve significant weight loss, and most have been able to maintain that weight loss for up to a decade afterwards.

There are three ways that bariatric procedures work. They can:
-- limit the amount of food a stomach can hold at any given time
-- keep the digestive system from absorbing all of the food that is eaten
-- use a combination of both methods.

The two types of surgeries that limit the amount of food in the stomach are gastroplasty and gastrobanding. Gastroplasty, also called stomach stapling, uses staples to seal off a small part of the stomach into which food will enter. Gastrobanding's concept is similar, except that it involves the placement of a band around the top of the stomach.

Gastric bypass is a more involved procedure whereby food goes into the stapled stomach pouch, but instead of traveling into the larger part of the stomach to be digested, food is channeled directly into the small intestine. Most doctors today use a combination of methods in order to maximize results.

There are solutions to Joan's obesity problem and there is bariatric help for anyone who wants to live a healthier life by returning to a normal weight.