What is Gastric Bypass Surgery?
Gastric bypass surgery changes how your body processes food, allowing you to lose substantial amounts of unwanted weight previously impossible through diet and exercise.
At Beltre Bariatrics, we understand that obesity can negatively affect other health-related conditions like type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease.
But you don’t have to live with your current diagnosis forever.
Gastric bypass surgery is one of the most effective bariatric surgery options for extensive and long-term weight loss. It is also called the Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass.
This operation allows a patient to lose from 60% to 80% of their weight while helping them maintain their new weight for a long time by surgically altering the size of their stomach and the way their digestive system processes food and nutrients.
Because it alters the functioning of a hormone called ghrelin, which is made in the larger part of the stomach, the patient feels full after eating a small amount of food, drastically changing their eating habits and consumption amounts.
One of the safest, most effective methods for rapid weight loss is here.
1. You will want to eat less
After gastric bypass surgery, the food-processing part of the stomach is reduced to the size of an egg and can only hold about 3 ounces of food. As portion size is controlled and your appetite suppressed, smaller amounts of food will make you feel fuller for longer. This changes the amount of food you consume and how your appetite operates, which is one of the most significant benefits of this bariatric procedure.
2. Your body will absorb fewer calories
As food moves through your small intestine, the body absorbs calories and nutrients. Because gastric bypass surgery shortens the length of the small intestine, your body has less time to absorb calories allowing for less weight gain and faster weight loss.
Gastric bypass surgery is also highly beneficial in helping reduce symptoms and issues associated with health-related conditions, including:
- High blood pressure
- Cardiovascular disease
- Type 2 diabetes
- High cholesterol
- Sleep apnea
- Gastrointestinal reflux disease
- Depression
- Joint pain and arthritis
- Fertility complications from PCOS
During gastric bypass surgery, a doctor forms a small pouch or stomach out of the main stomach. This pouch holds only about an ounce of food. After formation, the small pouch is then reconnected to the intestines, therefore, bypassing the main stomach, part of the upper intestines, duodenum, and pancreas.
This change causes a robust release of metabolic hormones that helps you lose weight very quickly and get rid of co-morbidities like type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.
The procedure can be performed laparoscopically or robotically for most patients, making it as safe as any commonly performed surgical procedure and minimizing adverse side effects, such as pain and discomfort, scarring, and risk of infection and hernia.
Using about six small incisions in the abdomen, a small video camera and precise instruments are passed into the body, allowing the surgeon to complete the required surgical steps:
- Surgical staples are used to separate the stomach into two halves, a small top half (the “pouch”) and a larger bottom half.
- The small intestine is cut in two, and the lower half is attached to the pouch, allowing food to bypass the bottom part of the stomach and shortening the intestine.
- The bottom part of the stomach and the remainder of the intestine are attached to the intestine below the point where the food passes from the pouch, enabling digestive juices to aid the absorption of the food as it passes through the remainder of the small intestine.
On Average
80%
of the stomach is bypassed
Restricts Food Intake
The new smaller stomach will need less food to feel full
Decreased Hunger and Appetite
Removes the stomach that produces most of the hunger hormone, Ghrelin
Results
Type 2 Diabetes
A Multifaceted approach to Bariatric Surgery
Dr. Wiljon Beltre, a board-certified lead surgeon at Beltre Bariatrics in Maitland, Florida. He is happy to and well-versed in helping you achieve weight loss and health goals through gastric bypass surgery.
As with any surgical procedure, gastric bypass entails certain risks that Dr. Beltre will review with you before you undergo the procedure. He and his team will provide strict guidance on important, long-term lifestyle changes required to ensure the success of your gastric bypass surgery.
By following the advice provided by our team of experts, continuing a healthy diet and exercise routine, and maintaining and building relationships with an ongoing support network, you will give yourself the greatest possible chance to finally achieve the weight loss success you have worked so hard for.
His holistic approach to the entire weight loss journey ensures that you will receive the finest possible care and the warmest possible support as you pursue your weight loss journey. So get started on your path to better health and lower weight now.
Are You a Candidate for Weight Loss Surgery?
Take Our 60 second assessment and find out if you are a candidate for weight loss surgery
The doctors at Beltre Bariatrics Center for Metabolic & Obesity Surgery have reviewed and approved this content.
Page Updated: