Gastric-bypass surgery can be effective option
Lap-Band also delivers weight-loss; criteria to qualify for procedures can be quite rigorous.
By Ashley Lutz
HAMILTON -The weight-loss procedure of gastric bypass surgery has been prevalent in the media since singer Carnie Wilson famously lost half her body weight in 1999. Since Wilson's success, hundreds of thousands of Americans have opted for gastric-bypass and Lap-Band procedures.
The gastric-bypass procedure involves surgically reducing the stomach, allowing food to "bypass" some of the intestine, while the less-invasive Lap-Band procedure employs a gastric band that wraps around the stomach, allowing the patient to feel more satisfied while consuming less food.
In August, the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that gastric-bypass surgery decreases risk of death in obese patients.
However, these procedures should not be used until other weight-loss options have been exhausted, said Dr. David Fischer, a general and bariatric surgeon who operates at Christ and University hospitals.
"The criteria to qualify for the surgeries are pretty rigorous, and we make people go through counseling and evaluations before going through with the surgery," he said. "These procedures should be used after other nonsurgical weight-loss options have been exhausted."
Patients usually must have a body mass index of 40, he said. A BMI of 30 is considered obese.
However, the mortality rate for these procedures is less than 1 percent, Fischer said, and is even lower for high-quality centers that frequently perform the surgery.
Those who undergo the Lap-Band procedure run the risk of their body rejecting the foreign band, but this is also very rare.
Fischer said that nearly all of the hundreds of patients that underwent surgery at his center experienced dramatic and life-changing weight loss.
The Lap-Band procedure is not as common as gastric-bypass, but is gaining popularity because of recent advertisements that are raising awareness, Fischer said.
People often seek these procedures for hope of a normal life, said Patricia Boggs, the practice manager for bariatric wellness at Middletown Regional Hospital.
"These are people that just want to run around with their kids and grandkids," Boggs said.
Middletown plans to open a new bariatric center in September, and has already seen hundreds of patients, she said.
The overwhelming weight loss that results from the surgery can give patients a new perspective, Boggs said.
"People make their surgery day their new birthday," she said. "And they celebrate in crazy ways, (doing) things they would have never done without the surgery."