Bariatric Surgery

Gastric bypass surgery, a type of bariatric surgery, is a procedure that creates a smaller stomach. A smaller stomach limits the amount of food a person can eat, which in turn, causes the body to lose weight. Gastric bypass also limits the types of food you can eat, and causes you to absorb less of the food that you do eat.

Denver Health’s surgeons perform open Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery, which is the only bariatric procedure currently offered at Denver Health Medical Center.

Bariatric surgery changes everything. Patients considering this surgery must be well informed about the procedure and its after-effects. Denver Health provides intensive pre-surgical consultation and post-operative care. All bariatric surgery patients have private suites in Denver Health’s new Western Addition, which features wireless-Internet availability.

Benefits and Risks of Surgery

   Benefits:

• Right after surgery, most patients lose weight quickly and continue to lose for 18-24 months after the procedure. Although most patients regain 5-10 percent of the weight they lost, many maintain a long-term weight loss of about 100 pounds. 

• Surgery improves most obesity-related conditions. For example, in one study blood sugar levels of 83 percent of obese patients with diabetes returned to normal after surgery. Nearly all patients whose blood sugar levels did not return to normal were older or had lived with diabetes for a long time.

• 10 to 20 percent of patients who have weight-loss surgery require follow-up operations to correct complications. Abdominal hernia was the most common complication requiring follow-up surgery, but laparoscopic techniques seem to solve this problem. In laparoscopy, the surgeon makes several small incisions through which slender surgical instruments are passed. This technique eliminated the need for a large incision and creates less tissue damage. Patients who are super obese (>350) or have had previous abdominal surgery may not be good candidates for laparoscopy, however. Less common complications include breakdown of the staple line and stretched stomach outlets. 

• Some obese patients who have weight-loss surgery develop gallstones. Gallstones are clumps of cholesterol and other matter that form in the gallbladder. During rapid or substantial weight loss, a person’s risk for developing gallstones increases. Taking supplemental bile salts for the first 6 months after surgery can prevent gallstones. 

• Nearly 30 percent of patients who have weight-loss surgery develop nutritional deficiencies such as anemia, osteoporosis, and metabolic bone disease. These deficiencies usually can be avoided if vitamin and mineral intakes are high enough.

• Women of childbearing age should avoid pregnancy until their weight becomes stable because rapid weight loss and nutritional deficiencies can harm a developing fetus.

• Surgery to produce weight loss is a serious undertaking. Anyone thinking about surgery should understand what the operation involves. Patients and physicians should carefully consider the following benefits and risks.