Gastric Bypass

Obesity is an epidemic that greatly affects over 50% of the American population. The reasons for this epidemic are numerous, from the growing trend of the super-sized meal to the intense laziness of the average American. It is this inherent laziness that leads many Americans to look for a quick fix to the problem of obesity; this has resulted in the increasing popularity of cosmetic surgeries to "cure" someone of the obesity. Gastric bypass surgery is the leading remedy for this particular problem.

Gastric bypass surgery achieves its effectiveness by creating a thumb-sized pouch from which the rest of the stomach is permanently divided and separated. The small intestine is cut about 18 inches below the stomach, and is rearranged to provide an outlet to the newly created small stomach, while maintaining the flow of digestive juices at the same time. Your food enters the second part of the small bowel within about 10 minutes of the beginning of a meal; whereas it usually takes about 20 to 30 minutes.

Gastric bypass surgery forces the stomach to shrink and allows food to bypass portions of the small intestine, hence the name of the surgery. These changes cause the patient to feel full more quickly than when the stomach was its original size, which reduces the amount of food, and in turn calories, that the patient consumes. In normal digestion, food passes through the stomach and enters the small intestine, where many of the fatty calories and nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream. However, gastric bypass causes this fat increasing step of digestion to be skipped when portions of the small intestine are bypassed. This, coupled with the reduced size of the stomach, results in rapid weight loss.

People who have had this operation have reported amazing results.

It usually results in the loss of 80% of excess body fat within the first year and a half, and 85% of patients have reported that the weight remained lost after four years. Over 95% of all weight-related health problems (co-morbidities), such as high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep apnea, stress, and degenerative

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