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Gastric Bypass
Nationwide, statistics indicate the Gastric Bypass surgery is effective in 85 percent of all people who have the surgery. Success means the individual must lose at least 50 percent of their excess body weight and maintain that weight loss for more than five years. Bear in mind, this also means that 15 percent of all people who have had Gastric Bypass surgery did not lose weight, or they lost weight but gained it back within five years.
How it works...
In Roux-en-Y gastric bypass the stomach is divided into two compartments. The upper, and much smaller component, is about 1-2 oz., or roughly the size of a thumb, which can hold approximately 30 cc (1/8 cup) from its original capacity of 2000-3000 cc. A new outlet, 1.0 cm in diameter (approximately the size of a dime), is created in this small portion of the stomach. The upper small intestine is then divided close to its beginning and the lower divided end brought up and joined to the new stomach opening. Food entering this new "small stomach" causes a sensation of fullness, and then slowly empties into the intestine through the "new" small outlet. This re-routing causes food to bypass the lower part of the stomach (hence the name "Gastric Bypass"). Digestive juices from the lower stomach and the duodenum still flow around to mix with food through a new hook-up further down, thus permitting digestion of the food.
To ensure that staple line failure does not occur, the stomach is no longer simply partitioned with a row of staples. It is now completely divided between two staple lines, each with double staple rows. Finally the staples are oversewn to reinforce the closure. Staple line failure is very uncommon with this technique. Eliminatation of staple line failure as a cause of weight gain should significantly improve the long term weight loss results of gastric bypass, especially when combined with a healthy diet and exercise. On average, successful patients will lose about one-third of their preoperative weight.