Bariatric Surgery

Bariatric Surgery is commonly known as weight loss surgery. This surgery helps obese individuals to lose weight by limiting the quantity of the intake of the food that they eat.

There are various ways through which the surgery is performed on an individual. These types include, gastric bypass, gastric splicing and gastric banding. It takes time for the surgery to show up results as it requires cooperation from the individual on which it is performed in the form of sticking to the exercise and diet regime etc.

The scientific basis to lose weight is either to restrict calorie intake by diet or burn the excess body fat by exercise and work out. The available options for this are:

• Diet and exercise: This can reduce the weight for a short term, but more than 90% of people fail to maintain the lost weight in long term and become obese again. This is due to hunger caused by a hunger hormone called Ghrelin produced from stomach. People weighing more than 100 kg or so cannot perform any effective exercise.
• Medicines: Till date there is no effective medication to reduce hunger or to burn the excess fat in the body.
• Liposuction:  This is a cosmetic surgery to remove accumulated fat from thigh, tummy etc to contour the body and has no health benefits. The fat will again accumulate after sometime.

In addition to the above, bariatric (weight loss) surgery is a scientifically proven and well established method of weight reduction being practiced all over the world for more than five decades. Weight loss surgery is the only permanent treatment for people who are morbidly obese.

The weight loss surgery is a key hole method to reduce the stomach size and suppress hunger by removing the hunger hormone producing area of stomach. After surgery, the amount of food (calories) intake reduces and fat deposited in the body melts. Hence patients who have sleeve gastrectomy or gastric bypass operations gradually lose their excess weight and then maintain the same lifelong. The healthy food, life style and daily exercises help to maintain a disease-free body. With modern hospital care and technology, the risks associated with these operations are negligible and the benefits far outweigh the risks.