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Is Weight Loss Surgery for You?

Severe obesity is a chronic condition that is very difficult to treat. For some people, weight loss surgery helps by restricting food intake or interrupting digestive processes. But keep in mind that weight loss surgery is a serious undertaking. You should clearly understand the pros and cons associated with the procedures before making a decision.

In order to understand how weight loss works, you need to first understand how the normal digestive process functions.

Normally, as food moves along the digestive tract, appropriate digestive juices and enzymes arrive at the right place and at the right time to digest and absorb calories and nutrients. After we chew and swallow our food, it moves down the esophagus to the stomach, where a strong acid continues the digestive process. The stomach can hold about 3 pints of food at one time. When the stomach contents move to the duodenum, the first segment of the small intestine, bile and pancreatic juices speed up digestion. Most of the iron and calcium in the foods we eat is absorbed in the duodenum. The jejunum and ileum, the remaining two segments of the nearly 20 feet of small intestine, complete the absorption of almost all calories and nutrients. The food particles that cannot be digested in the small intestine are stored in the large intestine (made up of the ascending colon, transverse colon, descending colon, sigmoid colon and rectum) until eliminated.

Obesity surgery involves making changes to the stomach and/or small intestine.

How Does Weight Loss Surgery Work?

The concept of gastric surgery to control obesity grew out of results of operations for cancer or severe ulcers that removed large portions of the stomach or small intestine.

Because patients undergoing these procedures tended to lose weight after surgery, some doctors began to use such operations to treat severe obesity. The first operation that was widely used for severe obesity was a type of intestinal bypass. This operation, first used 40 years ago, caused weight loss through malabsorption (decreased ability to absorb nutrients from food because the intestines were removed or bypassed).

The idea was that patients could eat large amounts of food, which would be poorly digested or passed along too fast for the body to absorb many calories. The problem with this surgery was that it caused a loss of essential nutrients (malnutrition) and its side effects were unpredictable and sometimes fatal. The original form of the intestinal bypass operation is no longer used.

Surgeons now use other techniques that produce weight loss primarily by limiting how much the stomach can hold. Two types of surgical procedures used to promote weight loss are:

• Restrictive surgery: During these procedures the stomach is made smaller. A section of your stomach is removed or closed which limits the amount of food it can hold and causes you to feel full.
• Malabsorptive surgery: Most of digestion and absorption takes place in the small intestine. Surgery to this area shortens the length of the small intestine and/or changes where it connects to the stomach, limiting the amount of food that is completely digested or absorbed (causing malabsorption). These surgeries are now performed along with restrictive surgery.

Through food intake restriction, malabsorption, or a combination of both, you can lose weight since less food either goes into your stomach or stays in your small intestine long enough to be digested and absorbed.

Benefits and Risks of Weight Loss Surgery

Weight loss surgery is a serious undertaking. Before making a decision, talk to your doctor about the following benefits and risks.

Benefits

• Weight loss: Immediately following surgery, most patients lose weight rapidly and continue to do so until 18 to 24 months after the procedure. Although most patients then start to regain some of their lost weight, few regain it all.
• Obesity-related conditions improve: For example, in one study, blood sugar levels of most obese patients with diabetes returned to normal after surgery. Nearly all patients whose blood sugar levels did not return to normal were older or had diabetes for a long time.

Risks and Side Effects

• Vomiting: This is a common risk of restrictive surgery caused by the small stomach being overly stretched by food particles that have not been chewed well.
• “Dumping syndrome:” Caused by malabsorptive surgery, this is when stomach contents move too rapidly through the small intestine. Symptoms include nausea, weakness, sweating, faintness and, occasionally, diarrhea after eating, as well as the inability to eat sweets without becoming extremely weak.
• Nutritional deficiencies: Patients who have weight-loss surgery may develop nutritional deficiencies such as anemia, osteoporosis, and metabolic bone disease. These deficiencies can be avoided if vitamin and mineral intakes are maintained.
• Complications: Some patients who have weight-loss operations require follow-up operations to correct complications. Complications can include abdominal hernias, infections, breakdown of the staple line (used to make the stomach smaller), and stretched stomach outlets (when the stomach returns to its normal size).
• Gallstones: More than one-third of obese patients who have gastric surgery develop gallstones. Gallstones are clumps of cholesterol and other matter that form in the gallbladder. During rapid or substantial weight loss a person’s risk of developing gallstones increases. They can be prevented with supplemental bile salts taken for the first six months after surgery.
• Need to temporarily avoid pregnancy: Women of childbearing age should avoid pregnancy until their weight becomes stable because rapid weight loss and nutritional deficiencies can harm a developing fetus.
• Side effects: These include nausea, vomiting, bloating, diarrhea, excessive sweating, increased gas and dizziness.
• Lifestyle changes: Patients with extensive bypasses of the normal digestive process require not only close monitoring, but also life-long diet and exercise modifications and vitamin and mineral supplementation.

SOURCES: WebMD & Department of Nutrition Therapy at The Cleveland Clinic. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease.

The New Fluid Guidelines

In February 2004, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued new recommendations. The new guidelines remove the eight-glasses-a-day recommendation, and say healthy adults may use thirst to determine their fluid needs. Exceptions to this rule include anyone with a medical condition requiring fluid control; athletes; and people taking part in prolonged physical activities or whose living conditions are extreme.

How Much Is Enough?

The IOM report made general fluid intake recommendations of 91 ounces (that’s 11-plus cups a day) for women and 125 ounces (15-plus cups a day) for men. These guidelines are for total fluid intake, including fluid from all food and beverages.

Approximately 80% of our water intake comes from drinking water and other beverages, and the other 20% comes from food. The recommended amount of beverages, including water, would be approximately 9 cups for women and 12.5 cups for men.

When You Need More

Physical activity, heat, and humidity can increase our fluid needs. In these situations, keep water bottles close at hand and drink frequently to avoid dehydration. If you’re going to be physically active for long periods, consider sports drinks that hydrate and provide easily usable sugar and electrolytes.

Water and Weight Control

The weight loss benefits of water stem from several facts:

• Foods that incorporate water tend to look larger.
• The higher volume of these foods provides greater oral stimulation.
• Most important, when water is bound to food, it slows down absorption and lasts longer in the belly.

Bottom Line

The experts agree: Drinking water – either sparkling or flat and perhaps with a twist of citrus – is a great, noncaloric way to satisfy your thirst. But if you struggle with drinking water, you’re off the hook as long as you:

• Enjoy plenty of high-volume foods, including fruits and vegetables.
• Satisfy your thirst with a variety of healthy, low-calorie beverages such as 100% fruit juice, skim or low-fat milk, tea, and, of course, water.

Pay attention to signs of dehydration, such as dry mouth and concentrated urine, which indicate a need for more liquids.

Ask For Free Wellness Evaluation Here!

A new study suggests that swapping out a small amount of carbohydrates in an already heart-healthy diet for either protein-rich foods or unsaturated fats may provide additional benefits in lowering heart disease risk.

Reducing Heart Risk

The protein-rich diet reduced heart disease risk by 21%, and the monounsaturated-fat-rich diet reduced it by almost 20%, compared with the 16% reduction found with the carbohydrate-rich diet.

“Our study provides strong evidence that replacing some carbohydrate with either protein or monounsaturated fat has important health benefits,” says Appel. “There is already agreement that reducing saturated fat lowers risk for heart disease, but the question of which macronutrient [fat, protein, or carbohydrate] to emphasize has been controversial.”

Trade in a Few Carbs for Heart Benefits

In the high-protein diet, researchers replaced approximately 10% of the total daily calories from carbohydrates with protein. About 50% of the protein came from plant sources, such as beans, nuts, seeds, and some grains. The unsaturated fat diet was enriched with monounsaturated fats and included olive and canola oils, as well as some nuts and seeds.

In the study, which appears in The Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers compared the effects of the three diets in 164 adults who either had high blood pressure or were on the verge of having it.

Blood Pressure and Cholesterol Changes

Researchers found that blood pressure and cholesterol levels improved after each diet phase compared with the start of the study. But the benefits achieved with the protein-rich and monounsaturated-fat-rich diets were greater than with the DASH-based diet alone.

In an editorial that accompanies the study, Myron H. Weinberger, MD, of Indiana University Medical Center, says the results of this study may be difficult to apply to the public. He says the people in this study were highly motivated to follow the diets because of their blood pressure status and the fact that all of the foods were provided to them.
“Although the benefit of blood pressure reduction in those in the prehypertensive group is clear,” Weinberger says the ability to control high blood pressure adequately in the people with existing hypertension is not clear. “It is likely that more than diet will be required to reach goal blood pressures for the majority of these individuals.”

By Jennifer Warner, WebMD Medical News

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