You’ve heard the bariatric surgery success stories and maybe even seen one firsthand. Perhaps a family member or friend underwent the surgery, and weight loss immediately followed. Now, you might be curious about what bariatric surgery is and how you can qualify for bariatric surgery.
If you’re ready for bariatric surgery, you’ve already done your homework. You know it can help you lose weight, boost your confidence and give you more energy. What other benefits can you expect?
Understanding Weight Loss Surgeries
There are a few types of bariatric surgery, and they all have the same goal: to help you lose weight. To do this, surgeons reduce the size of your stomach so you eat less. As a result, your body absorbs fewer calories.
The University of Maryland Medical System offers three types of bariatric surgery.
- Adjustable gastric band — The surgeon fits a special band around your stomach and tightens it. This band essentially creates a small upper stomach, limiting how much you can eat. Adjustments allow you to eat more or less food so you reach your goals and maintain good health.
- Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery — The surgeon makes a small pouch at the top of your stomach. The small intestine is then connected directly to this pouch. Once completed, food moves directly from this small pouch to the lower part of your small intestines. This limits how much you can eat. It also forces food to skip most of your stomach and part of the small intestine. Less time in the body means fewer calories absorbed.
- Vertical sleeve gastrectomy — A surgeon removes most of your stomach, leaving a remainder called a “sleeve.” Because the stomach is much smaller, you feel full faster and stop eating earlier.
Surgeons perform these procedures with minimally invasive techniques, use very small tools and operate through tiny incisions, reducing blood loss and helping you recover more quickly. In some cases, you return home the same day as your surgery.
Who Can Have Bariatric Surgery
Wanting bariatric surgery doesn’t mean you’re a good candidate. To be eligible, you must meet certain criteria. These include the following:
- Having a BMI (body mass index) of 40 or higher or being 100 or more pounds overweight
- Having a BMI of 35 or higher, along with sleep apnea, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes or another obesity-related condition
- Having failed at weight-loss efforts in the past with diet and exercise
If you meet these requirements, you may benefit from bariatric surgery. Prior to your procedure, you will undergo a full medical evaluation to help set you up for success following weight loss surgery. You’ll discuss your goals, how your previous weight-loss efforts went, and your commitment to the changes necessary for success.
The surgeon will use this information to guide you toward the appropriate treatment option.
Benefits Beyond the Scale
With bariatric surgery, many people can finally obtain and maintain a healthy weight. However, bariatric surgery is about more than the scale. It’s about health and well-being. It can help you avoid dangerous and deadly diseases and live a better life.
Other benefits bariatric surgery offers include:
- Longer life. Your risk of dying from any cause drops by more than 40% following bariatric surgery and weight loss.
- Improved diabetes management. Soon after surgery, many experience lowered blood sugar. It’s even possible to gain such good control over diabetes that you no longer need to take insulin or other diabetes-related medication.
- Heart protection. Obesity is one of the major risk factors for heart disease. By losing weight, you protect your heart. Bariatric surgery puts you on the fast track to heart-healthy weight loss. Recent research shows that weight loss surgery even protects those already living with heart disease. This discovery offers a ray of hope, because heart disease kills more Americans than anything else.
- Lowered blood pressure. One way bariatric surgery protects your heart is by lowering your blood pressure. In one study, 2 out of 3 people enjoyed lower blood pressure following surgery. And the reduction is significant. Thanks to bariatric surgery, it may be possible to reduce or stop blood pressure medication.
- Reduced cancer risk. Obesity increases your risk for many cancers. Extra weight leads to extra risk, including breast and kidney cancer. In fact, up to 40% of diagnosed cancers are caused by obesity. Want to drop your cancer risk? Bariatric surgery and weight loss can be an effective tool to make it happen.
- Better bladder control. Urinary incontinence is more likely if you’re obese. Losing weight can help you regain bladder control.
A Metabolic Shift
Metabolism plays an important role in your weight. It’s what ensures your body uses food as energy.
A high metabolism helps your body use food as energy. It helps you burn calories, even when you’re sitting around.
A low metabolism does just the opposite. With low metabolism, your body doesn’t burn calories efficiently, putting you at risk for weight gain. If you eat more than you should, a slow metabolism will keep you from burning it off.
There are several ways to improve your metabolism. Exercise gives you a short-term metabolism boost. Adding muscle to your body helps a bit as well. But if you’re 100 or more pounds overweight, this can be very hard to do without medical help. For many, bariatric surgery is the answer.
Bariatric surgery doesn’t just help your metabolism a little. It has such a powerful effect that it’s often called metabolic surgery.
All types of bariatric surgery improve your metabolism. Some are more effective than others. Of the three options offered at UMMS, Roux-en-Y gastric bypass improves metabolism the most. Adjustable gastric band has the least impact.
Bariatric Surgery and Weight Loss: Is it for You?
According to the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, the connection between bariatric surgery and weight loss is strong, consistent and predictable. The evidence indicates that nearly 90% of bariatric surgery patients drop 50% of their extra pounds. Even better, bariatric surgery patients keep the weight off for the long haul.
Despite these consistent results, weight loss surgery isn’t for everyone. That’s why it’s important to work with your specialists and other health care providers to develop a plan that leads to your optimal success.
Why? For bariatric surgery and weight loss to have long-term health benefits, you have to be willing to work. The first step is to prepare yourself before surgery.
Weight loss surgery requires some major changes. You must adopt a healthy lifestyle. Your diet will change, and you’ll need regular physical activity. Most of all, you’ll have to stay in touch with your primary care provider. Otherwise, bariatric surgery may not provide the results you desire.
Some consider this lifelong commitment as bariatric surgery’s main disadvantage. Many are looking for a quick fix, something that allows them to continue making the same choices every day and somehow get different results. Bariatric surgery doesn’t offer that. Nothing does.
What it offers is a solution to weight loss, and hope when you’ve tried everything else. It’s a way to reach a healthy weight and become confident in yourself. Ideally, you’ll be able to do normal activities without getting out of breath. You’ll be able to avoid all sorts of health problems. It can be a second chance at life.
