Bariatric Surgery

General Information about Bariatric Surgery or Weight Loss Surgery:

Bariatrics is the field of medicine that deals with the study of being overweight, its prevention and treatment.

Bariatric surgery is a term derived from the Greek words: "baros" meaning "weight"

The procedure was developed out of modifications on cancer/ulcer operations that involve the removal of a part of the stomach or small intestine. It was noticed that patients undergoing these operations lost weight afterwards, and the doctors developed the idea of using similar types of surgery to treat morbid obesity.

These surgical procedures are major gastrointestinal operations that work on the principles-

1. To bypass most of the stomach to reduce the amount of food one can eat.

2. To rearrange the small intestine so as to reduce the calories the bodies can absorb.

There are several different types of bariatric weight loss procedures, and they are collectively called as 'bariatric surgery.

Due to the current high levels of obesity among people in US of all age groups, and the lack of success with non-surgical weight loss methods-

Bariatric surgery is now becoming a very important option for severely obese patients.

It is estimated that approximately 170,000 bariatric operations were performed in the US in the year 2005.