Gastric Bypass Weight Loss Surgery

Of all of the different forms of gastric bypass surgery that are today the sleeve gastrectomy with duodenal switch is possible the most controversial and, although widely carried out, there are a lot of surgeons who will not undertake the procedure because of concerns over possible adverse long-term effects on a patientâ%u20AC%u2122s health.

Frequently referred to as simply a duodenal switch, this type of bariatric surgery is essentially a sleeve gastrectomy with an added duodenal switch. This form of surgery is also sometimes known as a biliopancreatic diversion with duodenal switch.

The initial part of this operation is a sleeve gastrectomy where the stomach is divided vertically and roughly 85 percent is permanently removed. The small the small sleeve shaped stomach that is left retains the original stomach outlet into the intestines and functions just as a normal stomach. This part of the operation is designed purely to restrict the quantity of food that can be eaten and this restrictive surgery is not reversible.

The second part of the surgery is to make the duodenal switch thereby in an element of malabsorption surgery that is largely reversible. In contrast to restrictive surgery that causes weight loss by preventing you from eating too much food, malabsorption surgery limits your body's power to absorb calories from from as it passes through the digestive tract.

During the operation the intestine is divided and a reasonably small section (normally about 150 cm long) is then used to make a bypass from the duodenum, which lies close the stomach outlet, to a point close to the end of the intestinal tract thus bypassing the major part of the digestive tract. The consequence of this bypass is that food that passes through the intestine will only mix with the body's digestive juices in the short final section of intestine below the switch thereby permitting the digestive juices little time to absorb calories from it.

Despite the fact that duodenal switch weight loss surgery enjoys the advantage of providing the patient with weight loss through both restriction and malabsorption, it is the degree to which malabsorption predominates in the duodenal switch that results in much of the debate surrounding this form of surgery. By comparison, the classical Roux-en-Y operation has a much shorter bypass and the distance over which food is digested is roughly five times greater.

The argument that many surgeons use against the duodenal switch is simply that insufficient absorption takes place so that there is too great a danger of anemia, protein deficiency and metabolic bone disease. The sleeve gastrectomy with duodenal switch is also arguably the most complex form of obesity surgery and many believe that it involves an unacceptably high level of risk.

Regardless of the risks the sleeve gastrectomy with duodenal switch remains a surgical option and can be extremely successful, especially in those patients with a very high BMI.

Strictly speaking gastric bypass surgery is one specific form of weight loss surgery and the important element here is that of the 'bypass'.

Weight loss surgery comes in two basic forms:

1. Restrictive surgery, which simply restricts the quantity of food you can eat by reducing the size of the stomach.

2. Malabsorption surgery, which not only reduces the size of the stomach to reduce food intake, but also bypasses part of the intestine to reduce the number of calories which can be absorbed during digestion.

The classic Roux-En-Y procedure and the vertical sleeve gastrectomy with duodenal switch are both forms of malabsorption surgery and, as such are true examples of gastric bypass surgery.

Increasingly popular procedures such as laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding, which was licensed for use in the United States in 2001, and other forms of gastric banding are purely restrictive forms of surgery and are not strictly speaking gastric bypass surgery.

For all practical purposes however we tend nowadays to use the term gastric bypass surgery as a general term regardless of the particular form of weight loss surgery we are discussing.

As obesity continues to rise, particularly in many Western countries, and more and more people are now being classed as morbidly obese, the number of surgical weight loss procedures being undertaken is also rising fast. Indeed, even adolescents are now beginning to feature significantly in the statistics.

For this reason it is vitally important that, if you are obese, you arm yourself with as much information as you can on the subject of both obesity and obesity surgery.

Fortunately, there is a wealth of information available online and a search on your favorite engine for obesity articles or gastric bypass articles will provide you with some excellent reading.