Type of Surgery
Information
Last updated: 11/24/2009
Obesity affects nearly one-third of the adult American population (approximately 60 million people). The number of overweight and obese Americans has steadily increased since 1960, and the trend has not slowed down in recent years. Currently, 64.5% of adult Americans (about 127 million) are considered overweight or obese. Each year, obesity contributes to at least 300,000 deaths in the United States, with associated health-care costs amounting to approximately $100 billion.
In the United States, obesity occurs at higher rates in such racial or ethnic minority populations as African American and Hispanic Americans, compared with Caucasian Americans and Asian Americans. Within the minority populations, women and persons of low socioeconomic status are most affected by obesity.
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This animation describes the three main types of bariatric surgery. Topics covered include gastric bypass surgery, adjustable gastric banding, and sleeve gastrectomy.
In this Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, a large incision is made down the middle of the abdomen (A).The stomach is separated into two sections. Most of the stomach will be bypassed, so food will no longer go to it. A section of jejunum (small intestine) is then brought up to empty food from the new smaller stomach (B). Finally, the surgeon connects the duodenum to the jejunum, allowing digestive secretions to mix with food further down the jejunum. (Illustration by GGS Inc.)
Other Information
Gastric bypass procedures (GBP) are any of a group of similar operations used to treat morbid obesity—the severe accumulation of excess weight as fatty tissue—and the health problems (comorbidities) it causes. Bariatric surgery is the term encompassing all of the surgical treatments for morbid obesity, not just gastric bypasses, which make up only one class of such operations.
A gastric bypass first divides the stomach into a small upper pouch and a much larger, lower "remnant" pouch and then re-arranges the small intestine to allow both pouches to stay connected to it. Surgeons have developed several different ways to reconnect the intestine, thus leading to several different GBP names. Any GBP leads to a marked reduction in the functional volume of the stomach, accompanied by an altered physiological and psychological response to food. The resulting weight loss, typically dramatic, markedly reduces comorbidities. The long-term mortality rate of gastric bypass patients has been shown to be reduced by up to 40%; however, complications are common and surgery-related death occurs within one month in 2% of patients.
Other Information
The average Bariatric Surgery patient is a woman in her late 30s who weighs approximately 300 pounds in 2004.
From: Bariatric-Surgery.info
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