Having surgery to alter the way you digest your food is not a decision to be taken lightly. But it is one that more and more people who are severely obese are weighing now that safer and more effective obesity surgery is available to them.
About 3 percent of American adults are considered severely obese. People are considered severely obese when they have a body-mass-index (BMI), a measurement that compares your weight and height, of 40 or more. This usually means they are about 100 pounds overweight.
People who are this heavy are often disabled by their extra weight and face a host of medical conditions and even a shortened lifespan. But surgery can be lifesaving, says Marc Bessler, MD, FACS, the director of the New York–Presbyterian Center for Obesity Surgery at Columbia University Medical Center.
"There are centers doing safe operations with good results and anybody who's suffering with this disease needs to at least think about it," Dr. Bessler explains.
If someone decides to have surgery, they will need to figure out which operation is best for them and whether they will be able to adopt new eating habits after a surgery that has made their stomach smaller and/or changed the way that their body absorbs food. Read on for Dr. Bessler's review of the risks and benefits of the different surgical options, including laparoscopic gastric banding, also know as Lap-Band, and gastric bypass.
