Across the world, there are one billion overweight individuals and 300 million of them are considered to be morbidly obese. With the gross amount of overweight people going on crash and fad diets, yet gaining all of their weight back if they have lost any at all, are usually able to have one of these types of weight loss surgery and may wish to undergo one of them in order to put an end to their weight struggles once and for all. And although all types of weight loss surgery are different, each is performed with the same purpose – to reduce the stomach’s size to restrict the amount of consumed food.
Before any of these types of weight loss surgery are undergone, the patient will need to have various test ran. Some of these tests include blood pressure, blood sugar, electrocardiogram, urinalysis, and chest x-ray. To be eligible, the patient usually must be 100 pounds overweight with a BMI of 35 or higher and experiencing one or more of the following weight related medical issues – hypertension, high blood pressure, diabetes, or sleep apnea.
When it comes to the different types of weight loss surgery, Americans today have quite a lot of options. Vertical Band Gastroplasty is a surgical procedure that divides the stomach into two parts by using staples. The bottom part of the stomach stays fairly large, while what is left makes up the upper portion. The smaller part holds the eaten food and is slowly let into the larger part through a reduced passageway between the two. One of the more serious side effects from these types of weight loss surgery that use staples are the risk of infection from leaking stomach juices. However, the risk is very small – around 6%.
Lap band surgery is one of the other types of weight loss surgery that divides the stomach into a small and large portion just as with the vertical band gastroplasty. However, instead of stapling between the two parts of the stomach, the surgeon will input an inflatable band that can be adjusted with the use of saline injected into the valve of the band. Experts say that band types of weight loss surgery can have less complications, most often nausea and heartburn.
The other one of the types of weight loss surgery is called Biliopancreatic Diversion, or BPD. During BPD, a good portion of the stomach is completely removed. What remains will be kept attached to a specific part of the small intestine, allowing other small intestinal parts to be bypassed and the gastric juices from the stomach to mix with the consumed food before it makes its way into the colon. Since there is less gastric juice, the amount of food that can be digested is decreased. The major side effect from Biliopancreatic Diversion is the lack of proper nutrients being absorbed into the body; however, this is still one of the most popular types of weight loss surgery, which almost one million people in the United States have undergone to date.