Stomach Surgery

There are many people out there who suffer from terminal obesity. This is one type of weight gain which gradually saps the life out the person literally. These types of people have very few choices to remedy their lives because everything they do would depend upon a massive weight loss program, which would be slow and in many cases with very high risks such as anemia, vitamin loss, bone mass loss, heart failure, and so on.

The fact that they are overweight influences not only their physical condition, but also their psychological make up. Normally these people are dejected with life, lonely, exceedingly shy of company and unable to sustain themselves economically. Work for them is not possible because, (i) their mobility is highly restricted by their weight and (ii) they tire easily.

For these people surgery is often the only chance to get back to the main stream of life. However, again due to their excess weight they rarely are recommended/ eligible for surgery because of the danger of complications. The sleeve gastrectomy is a boon for most people who fall in this category.

What Is Sleeve Gastrectomy?

Sleeve gastrectomy is a surgical medical intervention whereby 85% of the stomach is removed. This would leave behind a sleeve-like stomach in its wake from which the name of the sleeve gastrectomy is derived. The stomach though drastically reduced in size, would retain all its functions and feelings. It is important that the pros and cons be measured with great care before this surgery is undertaken because this is not a reversible procedure.

The greatest advantage with the sleeve gastrectomy is that the patient would feel normal and there would be hardly any real restriction in the diet of the patient. The weight loss would come from the drastic reduction in food intake because after the sleeve gastrectomy is performed the stomach would accommodate only one fifth is not less of the food it used to accept.

Many sleeve gastrectomy patients have lost weight drastically after this surgery--some as much as 200 pounds. This is also attributed to the fact that when the stomach is narrowed into a tiny sleeve-like strip the parts that produce the hunger hormone are also removed. Hence, the patient enjoys double benefit -- (i) reduced capacity of the stomach to accept food and hence less material to be changed into fat and (ii) no hunger pangs and hence less attention to food.