You may find it hard to believe that the doctor actually reduces the size of your stomach to about the size of a whiskey shot glass, but this is true. Of course it seems abnormally small and you won’t be able to hold more that three tablespoons of food at a time. This can make it extremely easy to get sick from overeating or drinking too much water.

Over time your stomach pouch will expand and you’ll be able to hold up to a cup and a half of food. That’s an increase of about six times the size of a shot glass. This is dramatically more food, but its still a little bit less than the average dinner meal for a person. The stomach has amazing stretching abilities, which is part of what allows some people to become obese. Due to increased food intake over time their stomachs become larger and they can hold even more food.

Even with a larger stomach pouch over time you’ll still need to take vitamin and mineral supplements for the rest of your life after obesity surgery. The surgery will have reduced the length of time food spends in your intestinal tract, which reduces the amount of nutrients that you absorb.

Also because you won’t be eating as much food you will need to drink more water in order to get sufficient fluids. Most of us get our eight daily cups of water from both the water in food we eat and our drinks.

Despite the limits of your new smaller stomach there are still ways to cheat and not lose weight or even regain weight. If you don’t stick to a strict meal regime of three meals a day plus snacks and instead just ‘graze’ all day you can take in too many calories. Some people continue to eat high calorie foods or will eat ‘mindlessly’ while watching television or performing some other task which can also lead to too many calories.

Author: Geoff Godfrey
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera News

Older people who have undergone a certain type of procedure known as the duodenal switch have an increased number of complications following bariatric surgery, according to a study in the March issue of Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

But there is an ever increasing number of bariatric surgeries being performed to induce weight loss which keeps rising dramatically. These procedures are technically demanding and performed on patients whose obesity and related conditions may put them at risk for complications after surgery. Therefore, it is important to understand risk factors that may influence risk, including body mass index (BMI), age, other illnesses and choice of procedure, the authors write.

Robert W. O’Rourke, M.D., and colleagues at the Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, reviewed data from 452 patients (372 women and 80 men, average age 44 years) undergoing inpatient bariatric procedures at the university between 2000 and 2003. The patients received either gastric bypass surgery, which involves sectioning off a small portion of the stomach into a pouch that connects directly to the small intestine, or biliopancreatic diversion with duodenal switch, a less commonly used procedure in which surgeons remove part of stomach but leave a slightly larger pouch and then also perform an intestinal bypass-like procedure by attaching the duodenum (the first part of the small intestine) to the lower part of the small intestine. Researchers examined several variables, including patients’ age, BMI (calculated by dividing their weights by the square of their heights), gender, surgeon experience, other illnesses, type of procedure and whether they underwent open or laparoscopic (minimally invasive) surgery.

Participants lost an average of 54 percent of their excess weight in the year following surgery.

During the study, which followed patients for an average of 419 days

1.) four (.9 percent) died

2.) 10 percent had major complications

3.) 13 percent had minor complications

4.) Patients who were age 60 years or older were more likely to develop complications than younger patients, a risk that appeared to increase with each additional year.

The duodenal switch procedure was also associated with more complications than gastric bypass surgery. BMI, sex, diabetes, surgical approach (open vs. laparoscopic) and surgeon experience did not appear to be associated with increased risk for complications.

Given the amount of risks for the patient the surgeons should warn older adults and those considering duodenal switch procedures of the risks involved. “While some investigators have suggested a specific age limit as an absolute contraindication to bariatric surgery, we do not employ such limits for our patients,” they write. “We nevertheless approach older patients with caution, especially in light of recent data that suggest that the benefits of bariatric surgery with respect to longevity may wane in older patients.”

Author: Glenn Freiboth
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Excise Tax