Obesity Surgery

OBESITY SURGERY AND GASTRIC BALOON

What is obesity?

An excessive buildup of fat tissues that is detrimental to overall health is referred to as obesity. Global studies show that in the past 50 years, the prevalence of obesity has tripled. Presently, 23% of adults are categorized as obese and close to 35% of adults are overweight. In addition to being an aesthetic concern, being overweight raises the risk of contracting other significant disorders. When adipose tissue builds up in the body, it excretes hormones and chemicals that boost the appetite, raise the threshold for feeling full, and accelerate the progression of obesity.As a result, once a certain stage has been reached, it could be challenging to resolve the issue on your own. The good news is that if a patient is motivated and seeks out a skilled medical team, obesity can be prevented and treated..

Causes of Obesity

In short, consuming too many calories leads to overweight and obesity. It indicates that you are consuming more calories than you are using up. The extra calories are turned into body fat and kept there. In other words, overweight and obesity are risks for everybody who eats excessively and walks insufficiently. However, weight growth may also be influenced by a few inherited factors, medical illnesses including hypothyroidism, and medications like anti-seizure medications.

Obesity Risk Factors

Usually, a variety of behavioral, environmental, and hereditary variables cause excessive weight gain. Some of them include:

• Sedentary lifestyle. Energy imbalance is unavoidable when exercise is insufficient.
• Unhealthy diet. Extra weight results from eating too much food or foods heavy in sugar, fat, and salt.
• Genetics and family predisposition. Increased hunger, increased food consumption, and increased fat storage may be caused by several inherited genes.
• As we become older, changes in hormones, metabolism, and exercise levels make gaining weight easier.
• People who are anxious may overeat or choose fast food. In addition, ongoing stress generates stress chemicals that cause the body to store excess fat.
• Some medical conditions. The metabolism may be slowed, appetite may be increased, or mobility may be restricted by illnesses such Cushing's disease, polycystic ovarian syndrome, hypothyroidism, arthritis, etc.

How is Obesity Measured?

Body mass index (BMI) is a straightforward and widely used metric for assessing obesity. It takes the patient's height and weight into account. You can divide your weight in kilos by your height in meters, then divide the result by your height once more to determine your BMI. The final outcome is compared to the following BMI classification chart:

Classification of Obesity According to the Body Mass Index

Value Interval	Result
BMI lower than 18.5 kg/m²	Underweight
BMI between 18.5 – 24.9 kg/m²	Normal (healthy weight)
BMI between 25 – 29.9 kg/m²	Overweight
BMI between 30 – 34.9 kg/m²	Class I Obesity
BMI between 35 – 39.9 kg/m²	Class II Obesity
BMI over 40 kg/m²	Class III Obesity (Morbid obesity)

Complications of Obesity

Obesity and being overweight can have detrimental effects on your health. Along with potential digestive issues, it may cause high blood pressure and cholesterol levels, opening the door to heart conditions and stroke. Overweight causes musculoskeletal diseases, including osteoarthritis, by increasing strain on the joints. A higher BMI increases the chance of developing a number of non-communicable disorders, including type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea, and several cancers. Additionally, it's linked to a lower quality of life, anxiety, sadness, and social isolation.

How Can You Prevent Obesity?

• Regular exercise—at least 150 minutes per week for adults.
• Having a diet full of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes while avoiding fast food and processed meals

You can walk your pet on a regular basis or engage in a moderate fitness regimen. Eat more plant-based foods and prepare your own meals. Avoid long-term stress, and get 7-8 hours of sleep each night. Contact a comprehensive obesity clinic where a team of experts can evaluate your case and create a customized weight-loss program to help you reach your objectives if none of these strategies work to keep you at a healthy weight.

Obesity Screening

At least once a year, BMI screenings for both adults and children should be performed. If the numbers are on the rise, the doctor can advise dieting and exercising to stop additional weight gain.

Obesity Diagnosis

A excellent place to start when evaluating weight is the BMI. However, it disregards crucial elements including age, gender, muscle mass, and body fat distribution. It's crucial to understand where fat deposits occur in the body for the accurate diagnosis and treatment of obesity. Generally speaking, there are two types of obesity: pear-shaped and apple-shaped. In obesity with an apple shape, fat builds up in the belly, whereas obesity with a pear shape, fat builds up around the hips. Abdominal fat, also known as waist fat, is more likely to raise the risk of serious health issues, like diabetes or cardiac disease. Men with waistlines greater than 94 cm are thought to be at an increased risk, while those with waistlines greater than 102 cm are thought to be at high risk. Women who have waistlines greater than 80 cm and greater than 88 cm are at higher risk.

The patient's medical history and current health status are taken into account while diagnosing obesity. An effective treatment plan is determined by a variety of things. For best results, we advise consulting an expert in this area.

Obesity Treatment

A skilled medical team must provide comprehensive care for obese patients since obesity is a difficult and complex disease. Each patient's course of treatment is determined individually and may include:

• Custom-made diet and exercise program. A professional, or in the best case scenario, a team of specialists, may do a lot to assist you accomplish a stable weight loss when your own weight control efforts are insufficient.
• Your doctor might suggest weight-loss medications that curb the appetite or heighten the feeling of fullness if diet and exercise are insufficient. Keep in mind that weight-loss drugs are not risk-free, and a doctor must prescribe them after taking into account your general health.
• Nonsurgical obesity treatments. When diet and exercise have failed, some non-invasive endoscopic outpatient procedures may be helpful for people who are overweight.
• Bariatric surgery. There are several surgical procedures designed to lower the size of the stomach, the rate at which food is absorbed, or both.

Nonsurgical Weight Loss Procedures

These non-invasive, reversible weight loss methods don't require surgery or a hospital stay. They work best in patients with a BMI of 27 to 35 who are still ineligible for obesity surgery but are unable to control their weight by diet and exercise. The following non-invasive procedures are carried out at the Deva Hospital Obesity Clinic:

• Gastric botox. Application of the botulinum toxin (botox) takes 20 to 25 minutes. It reduces the number of muscular contractions. As a result, the food stays longer in the stomach, the patient feels satisfied, and they require less food overall.
• Gastric balloon. The operation takes 20 to 30 minutes to complete. It entails inserting a saline-filled inflatable balloon into the stomach. Because of the device's stomach volume restriction, less food is consumed. The patient can return home the same day after receiving a swallowable gastric balloon, eliminating the need for general anesthesia and hospitalization. However, some gastric balloons are inserted and retrieved by endoscopy while the patient is sedated.

The effects of gastric balloon and botox are remarkably comparable. The average total body weight decrease six months following the operation is between 7 and 15 percent. Depending on the patient's commitment to making the advised lifestyle adjustments, it can be more or less. Patients who need to reduce more bodyweight and have a BMI over 40 should not use these treatments. In certain circumstances, bariatric surgery may provide a remedy.

What is Bariatric Surgery?

Morbid obesity is treated with bariatric surgery, commonly known as obesity surgery and weight-loss surgery. Metabolic surgery is the name given to the procedure when it is carried out to treat a chronic illness like diabetes. The procedure successfully alters the digestive tract to aid with weight loss. With the help of various approaches, bariatric surgery can lower the size of the stomach, the surface area where nutrients are absorbed from the intestines, or both.

Candidates for Bariatric Surgery

When diet and exercise alone have failed, patients with BMIs greater than 40 may have the option of having bariatric surgery. Patients with a BMI of 35 or above who suffer from one or more weight-related health issues, such as osteoarthritis, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, may use it. Patients with class I obesity (BMI 30.0-34.9 kg/m2) and inadequately managed hyperglycemia while receiving the best possible medical care with either oral or injectable drugs should also be given the option of having metabolic surgery as a treatment for type 2 diabetes (including insulin).Bariatric surgery is also not recommended for those who have major heart conditions, are currently abusing drugs or alcohol, are receiving treatment for cancer, have mental health issues, or are pregnant. Candidates considering obesity surgery need to understand that in order to obtain and maintain good outcomes, they will need to undertake long-term lifestyle adjustments.

Types of Bariatric Surgery

There are various techniques, and which one is used depends on the patient's condition and the desired outcomes. Surgical options available at the Deva Hospital Obesity Clinic include:

• Sleeve gastrectomy. The most popular and first option for bariatric surgery is typically this approach. The sleeve gastrectomy aids patients in losing weight in two ways: first, the stomach capacity is decreased, and second, the production of the ghrelin hunger hormone is stopped. A long, narrow pouch is left after the surgeon removes about 80% of the stomach. The procedure is known as gastric sleeve or stomach reduction surgery because of its shape.We carry out it laparoscopically at the Deva Hospital Obesity Center using four or five tiny incisions. The procedure typically takes 50 to 60 minutes. Four hours after surgery, the patient can start drinking clear liquids, but the next weeks require rigorous dietary adherence. A three-day hospital stay is followed by control exams one week, one month, three months, six months, and a year after surgery.
• Mini gastric bypass. This treatment is more complicated than a gastric sleeve but is a lighter version of a regular gastric bypass. It acts by constricting the stomach and impairing absorption since the small intestine's absorption space is diminished.
• Gastric bypass. This procedure, also known as Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, entails making a little pouch in the top section of the stomach and joining a portion of the small intestine to it. Thus, the meal alters its course and "bypasses" a large portion of the stomach and a small portion of the small intestine. This process aids in lowering calorie absorption as well as food consumption. At the Deva Hospital Obesity Clinic, laparoscopic procedures are frequently used to conduct gastric bypass surgery through minute abdominal incisions.

Following bariatric surgery, patients should maintain a regular diet and exercise routine. Therefore, the patient's desire to make permanent adjustments is a key factor in the long-term effectiveness of obesity treatment.

Benefits of Bariatric Surgery

Within two years of having obesity surgery, patients can anticipate losing between 60 and 80 percent of their excess body weight. If the patient adheres to the suggested regimen and adopts a healthy lifestyle, these outcomes are long-lasting. In general, 80 to 90 percent of people who have bariatric surgery succeed in losing weight.

Along with weight loss, obesity surgery provides significant improvement in many medical conditions:

• Blood pressure is controlled. 70% of individuals discontinue using their blood pressure medications.
• Blood cholesterol levels go down. More than 80% of patients report normal levels two to three months after surgery.
• Cardiac illnesses are less likely to occur since the heart is functioning less.
• Diabetes can be treated. Most type 2 diabetes patients (between 70% and 85%) are able to keep their blood sugar levels within normal range without the need of medication.
• Asthma and respiratory issues are becoming better, and some people even fully recover.
• Sleep apnea and other obesity-related sleep disorders can be treated.
• The extra weight-related back and joint pain is reduced.

Is Bariatric Surgery Safe?

For those with extreme obesity, surgery may be a life-saving option. However, because it is a significant procedure, there are dangers and side effects to be aware of, including bleeding, infections, and blood clots. These are all controllable conditions. In addition, there are more long-term benefits of bariatric surgery than hazards. With the help of a multidisciplinary team of professionals, we conduct a thorough evaluation at the Deva Hospital Obesity Clinic to make sure that every patient receives the most appropriate medical treatment. When done in a skilled facility equipped to handle potential complications, bariatric surgery is typically safe.