Is it the solution to meeting your health goals?
By Kristen West
Imagine struggling to meet your weight loss and fitness goals. It seems like you’re doing all the right things—exercising consistently and eating healthy—yet the scale just won’t budge. When traditional weight loss methods aren’t working, exploring surgical options might be an alternative route to lose weight, improve health and improve overall well-being for people living with obesity. We talk to medical professionals about two standard bariatric surgery options and their pros and cons.
Dr. Michael Snyder, Medical Director at the Denver Center for Bariatric Surgery, says there should be a myriad of treatments discussed for a patient with obesity before turning to surgery alone, just like someone who sees a doctor for heart disease. “Weight loss should be additive, and we use all the tools—dietary and behavioral, lifestyle, medications, and a variety of surgical modalities.”
To qualify for surgery, you’d need to first undergo psychological screenings, nutritional and lifestyle education, medical screenings, and additional testing based on your current medical status. Current recommendations suggest a BMI of 35 with comorbidities or a BMI of 40 with no comorbidities (that’s about 240 pounds for a 5’6” woman).
Two of the most common surgeries are gastric sleeve surgery, also known as sleeve gastrectomy, and gastric bypass surgery, also known as Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. Both procedures reduce the amount of food you can eat before feeling full.
Dr. Sany Thomas, director of adolescent bariatric surgery at Denver Health and a bariatric and general surgeon, says that while there are slightly more risks with gastric bypass surgery, more patients opt for this because it is also slightly more effective. “They are both relatively low-risk procedures,” she says. “With the gastric bypass surgery, you have better weight loss results from it, as well as better sustained weight loss results when we look at the five-to-ten-year post-op weight loss trends in these patients.”
Gastric sleeve surgery works by removing 70 to 85 percent of your stomach, leaving a tube-like sleeve. This surgery works better for people who don’t have as much weight to lose and is a good option if you don’t think you can commit to a strict vitamin and supplement schedule. You’d lose weight at a slow, steady rate, approximately 60 to 70 percent of excess weight in the first year and a half, but you may not lose as much weight overall compared to the bypass surgery.
Gastric bypass surgery is a longer surgery that creates a smaller gastric pouch, about the size of an egg, Dr. Sany says. “We reroute the intestines to bypass a certain amount of the first part of the small intestine, which is what makes this a malabsorbed process.” You could expect to lose 60 to 80 percent of excess body weight within the first year and a half. Because there are two new connections, the potential risk for infection, leaks and bleeds increases, and you’d also need to be committed to taking vitamins and minerals and be continuously monitored for nutritional deficiencies.
Most bariatric surgery centers will take any major insurance plus Medicare and Medicaid, and many also offer a self-pay option. Both the Denver Center for Bariatric Surgery and Denver Health say their patients must meet their health assessment requirements to qualify for surgery, regardless of whether they are going through insurance or self-pay.
Dr. Snyder says the benefits of the surgery far exceed just the weight loss, and it is also about the non-scale victories. “There is no number that is more important than getting off the ground to play with your kids,” she says. Surgery might be the solution to help you reclaim your life and live it to the fullest.
