Most people know weight loss surgery as a way to lose a lot of weight very quickly. The results that are shown by most bariatric clinics are the short-term ones. They typically show patients who lose 100 pounds in a year or less, since that’s what draws many patients to surgical options for weight loss.
The long term effects of bariatric surgery are much less understood by most patients, however. Because of the reputation of bariatric surgery as a “quick fix”, people may be unaware of the long-term benefits that weight loss surgery can have.
What are the long-term benefits of bariatric surgery? To understand them, you must first understand how bariatric surgery works.
How Does Bariatric Surgery Work?
Bariatric surgery works by altering some aspect of your digestive system in order to reduce the amount of calories your body can digest. There are two primary ways that bariatric surgeries aim to address obesity. The first is by restricting the size or available volume of the stomach so that you are unable to eat as much food as you used to. The second by reducing the body’s ability to absorb calories from digested food.
Gastric sleeve and gastric bypass are the most popular bariatric procedures today. The gastric sleeve primarily uses a restrictive method to reduce calorie consumption, whereas the gastric bypass uses both restrictive and malabsorptive methods.
Long-term Benefits of Gastric Sleeve & Gastric Bypass
Obesity complications can go into remission
Type 2 diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure) and sleep apnea are all conditions related to obesity, and many obese patients find that they no longer have to deal with these issues anymore. But how is this possible?
Obesity is a condition that can be reversed, and several obesity-related complications can go away simply by losing enough weight. Type 2 diabetes, for example, is caused by insulin-resistant cells, resulting in chronically high blood sugar. By eating a healthier diet and reducing the amount of fat tissue you have, type 2 diabetes can go into remission.
It’s also been found that these obesity-related conditions become easier to manage after bariatric surgery regardless of the amount of weight lost.
Relief of joint pain
Joint pain is often a difficulty for obese patients, and it’s easy to see why. The knees, hips, and ankles are the most affected due to their functions. Patients who lose even a little bit of weight can feel much less pressure on their joints. For example, a patient who loses 25 lbs takes about 100 pounds of pressure off their knees when walking or standing! When patients lose much more weight, the relief is readily apparent.
Better overall prognosis
Those who are successful in losing weight and keeping it off after bariatric surgery have a better prognosis. All-cause mortality is lower in normal weight patients than in obese patients, and weight loss surgery can help a patient get to a healthy weight by addressing the root causes of their obesity.
If you are looking for bariatric surgery in Lubbock, West Texas Bariatrics serves Lubbock and several other communities in West TX.
