I know the previous article was a little lengthy. However, this time I was so excited I could not help myself. I am not sure if any of you are familiar with Dr. Walter Pories. He was one of the first bariatric surgeons in this area. He trained our own Drs. Chapman and MacDonald in Bariatric Surgery at ECU. This article was written by Dr. Pories.
One suggestion for articles was to come up with discussion questions, so that we all could participate. The goal is not to read the entire article at length, but rather to focus on key points of the article, to learn more about bariatric surgery. From this article:
1) What are some of the reasons patients choose to have bariatric surgery?
2) What are the differences between the three common weight loss surgeries: ie adjustable gastric band, gastric bypass, and biliopancreatic bypass with duodenal switch?
Here is the article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2729256/
If you have trouble opening it, try copying and pasting it into a new browser window to open.
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1. People choose to have weight loss surgery for many different reasons. One of the main reasons is to lose weight, other reasons include: improving quality of life, preventing diseases, control blood glucose and to get that beach body.
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Great first response. You really opened the door for the discussion with the seriousness of improving quality of life along with the mild humor of the beach body. Thank you posting this way to bring more ease to the discussion as this is a leisure journal club for us to come together and share ideas and to learn together.
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Interesting to learn that there are actually many different procedures performed for bariatric surgery rather than just the two performed at our hospital, Roslyn!
As stated in the article, these types of surgery not only help patients achieve weight loss, but they also may cure diabetes, hypertension, osteoarthritis and other chronic co-morbidities associated with obesity. When you look at our nations health and it’s rates of obesity, why wouldn’t you want to intervene when these surgeries have proven to improve the health status of individuals who have them done and decrease rates of mortality due to the co-morbid conditions associated with obesity. Though there are risks of complications with this surgery, as there are with all invasive surgeries, the positive outcomes are overwhelming! Patients can once again take life each day and live it to the fullest, being healthy and gaining new energy that they no longer had due to obesity and it’s effects.
The differences in the surgeries is the method in which weight loss is achieved, rather restrictive, malabsorptive or a combination of the two. The two surgeries performed at our institution (Vidant Medical Center), gastric bypass and gastric sleeve vary in that the bypass is both malabsorptive and restrictive while the sleeve is simply restrictive. With both of these surgeries, we are worried about the patient’s hydration status. Ensuring that patient’s have adequate fluids while in recovery at the hospital and at home is crucial to their success. Dehydration is one of the most common causes for re-admittance to the hospital.
Working with bariatric patients and knowing some people personally who have had one of these surgeries performed, I can attest first hand to their effectiveness and the improvement of quality of life experienced by these people.
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It is amazing how this surgery does help to reduce the comorbidities and even cure diabetes, HTN, etc in many patient cases. Good answers to the posts too. Great job.
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Bariatric surgery is becoming one of the most common surgeries because our nation is an “obesity nation.” The rates of obesity has greatly increased over the years so patients are getting bariatric surgery because it improves quality of life in several different ways. It enables patients to lose weight, cure diabetes, which usually goes hand in hand with obesity, treat hypertension, lower cholesterol, and helps prevent other co-morbidities. Many of our patients who have underwent bariatric surgery say that they have gotten this surgery because of the success stories they hear from their friends or the media.
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This is so true Kim. Great post.
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