Also known as vertical sleeve gastrectomy, gastric sleeve surgery is a surgical procedure that reduces the size of the stomach by 85%. During the surgery, a section of the stomach is removed leaving a thin tube-shaped stomach. Because the stomach is so much smaller, the patient will feel full faster and consume less food leading to weight loss. (more…)
With one-third of the adults in the United States being considered obese, it is clear that obesity is a difficult issue to treat. The typical solution from physicians is a major change in diet and exercise along with medical therapy, all of which seem to fail for the most part. (more…)
In a controlled study of 45 patients in San Francisco, California, hypoglycemic episodes seemed common while primarily unnoticed.
A three-day monitoring period of regular activity showed that symptomatic hypoglycemia appeared in 22% of 15 individuals following gastric bypass surgery. Additionally, 20% of 15 individuals who underwent biliopancreatic diversion with duodenal switch showed symptomatic hypoglycemia. Out of the 15 obese patients that did not go through a weight loss surgery, none of them had symptomatic hypoglycemia. These non-symptomatic patients were non-diabetic and were a match to the surgical patients in their body mass index (BMI). (more…)