What Is Gastric Bypass Surgery?
Diet and exercise will always be the primary method of losing weight and both are extremely important for keeping the weight off. Bariatric surgery can’t act as a substitute for diet and exercise, but it can limit the amount of food that you are able to eat in a single serving. This is the role of gastric bypass surgery, which helps you control food portions to achieve and maintain a healthy weight.
Reworking the Gut
The way gastric bypass surgery works is by essentially shrinking your stomach, meaning you’ll feel full quicker when you’re eating. It goes a little more in depth than just making your stomach smaller, though. To understand how it works, we’ll first have to understand what happens to food when you eat it.
- Esophagus: After food is chewed and swallowed, it travels down the esophagus, basically a muscular tube that forces substances down into the stomach.
- Stomach: Once your food reaches your stomach, it sits in digestive acid that breaks it down further. This makes it easier for your body to absorb nutrients from it.
- Intestine: Your small intestine is the next step in the process. Here, nutrients are absorbed for use in the body.
In gastric bypass surgery, this process is altered. A portion of the stomach and small intestine are bypassed, meaning less space for food and less intestine to absorb calories.
The Operation
In the surgery, a section of the stomach is portioned off, leaving a small pouch attached to the esophagus. From there, an incision is made partway down the small intestine. The intestine is then reattached to the small pouch, and the remaining stomach-tube section is sewn into the small intestine further down. Everything is then closed up, and after a couple days hospital stay, you’re good to go.
Getting Gastric Bypass Surgery
Again, the function of this is to bypass a portion of the digestive process, limiting the amount you can absorb from your food as well as how much you eat. When combined with diet and exercise, you can expect to lose 10 to 20 pounds in the months after the surgery. To learn more about gastric bypass surgery, contact the office of Malladi Bariatrics and Advanced Surgery today.
