In the Know About Bariatric Surgery

This area of medicine deals with the prevention, treatment, and causes of being obese. Bariatrics comes from the Greek word baro, which means weight and the suffix latrics, which means a branch of medicine. This is a weight loss surgery and refers to the different procedures that are followed to treat obesity via modifications of your gastrointestinal tract. When you have this surgery, it reduces the amount of absorption within your body and reduces the intake of nutrients. When you have bariatric surgery, it is different from the surgical procedures to remove fat from your body using methods like abdominoplasty or liposuction. Bariatric surgery is like having obesity surgery. It is conducted for those who are unable to achieve any significant weight loss through exercise programs and diet modifications. In addition, there are other factors that have to be considered before having bariatric surgery. - Your body mass index (BMI) must be forty or more or you need to be at least a hundred pounds overweight when compared to your normal weight. Calculating your BMI is based on your weight and height with the average BMI being between eighteen point five and twenty-five. - If you have a BMI of thirty-five or above and are suffering from a life-threatening illness like heart disease, diabetes 2, or sleep apnea, which can be cured by reducing your weight. This is not an easy for weight loss and only those that are committed to losing weight are considered eligible for this type of obesity surgery. After the surgery, the follow-up procedures are equally important. Towards the end, you will have a psychological evaluation along with an evaluation of your lifestyle and need to be done in order to qualify for the surgery. You will also receive before the surgery extensive counseling about nutrition. The procedure to have this surgery is quite straightforward in theory. During the procedure, the bariatric surgeon will make your stomach smaller by dividing the lower and upper section of your stomach into two parts by using staples. The top part of your stomach will hold all the food that is eaten by you. The bariatric surgeon will connect the top part of your stomach to a section of your small intestine to bypass the lower portion of your stomach. This new connection is called the Roux Limb. The base of the connection is connected to the remaining part of your small intestine from the bottom of your stomach forming a “Y” shape. Food now travels from the top of your stomach to your small intestine.