Roux-en-y Gastric Bypass
The Roux-en-y gastric bypass: A type of bariatric surgery for weight loss.
The Roux-en-y gastric bypass is the most commonly performed among the gastric bypass procedures available and can account for a substantial weight loss among patients. Its success has allowed many people to achieve the level of weight loss they desired, or that which is necessary for regaining their health – which they may have never been able to achieve with dieting or frequent exercise.
How it works
This type of gastric bypass is used to divide the stomach into two pouches – a small pouch, and a much larger one. This offers the patient a sense of being “full” from the very beginning of a meal and the patient will find it difficult to eat as much as they were once to. Compared to traditional methods of losing weight, this procedure starts immediately – since the patient starts eating less from day one, changes in body shape are observable in a much shorter period of time.
The procedure
There are two sorts of this type of bypass surgery – proximal and distal – and both work in quite the same way. In the proximal method, once the stomach is split into separate pouches, the small intestine is then divided about 45 centimetres from the stomach outlet and re-arranged into the Y-configuration. The distal method is performed similarly, except the Y-connection is formed further away from the stomach, around 100 – 150 centimeters from the small bowel. The Y-shape is what the main procedure is named after.
Both ways lead to the small intestine absorbing a lot less – fats, starches and various minerals are no longer absorbed in the quantities they were before. Less absorption leads to less fat deposited and, therefore, the patient will lose weight, regain a healthier physique and be in a position to be more physically active, leading to greater overall health.
Tried and tested
A stigma is associated with the procedure – that it is particularly risky for patients to have. This may have been the case when the method was first being introduced and tested; however, modern applications have advanced a great deal. With the huge number of Roux-en-y gastric bypasses being carried out all over the world and their goods rates of success, patients can expect a much better outcome than in years past.
