There are many quick-fix products and services that advertise weight loss, but what if one of them comes directly from a group of well respected medical doctors and surgeons? Would it be more convincing if the doctors paraded success stories in front of you and told you that this same fix could cure some diseases such as type 2 diabetes?Don’t get excited yet. I’m referring to gastric bypass surgery. This is an operation, often performed laparoscopically that consists of restricting the size of the stomach and rerouting digestion past parts of the intestine so more food goes undigested.
Despite a myriad of risks, the surgery continues to grow more popular. Last year alone doctors performed over 200,000 bariatric surgeries. This is more than eight times the number from ten years ago. The average cost for this purely elective surgery is around $25,000. That’s a pretty steep chunk of change to lose weight.
The results of successful surgeries have been shown to reduce mortality rates and in some cases even reverse type-2 diabetes. But there’s no evidence that a more reasonable approach would have any less effective results. Experts admit the surgery is poorly understood because few studies have compared it with less drastic weight loss methods.
If this sounds even remotely good to you, keep reading…
The American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery claims the death rate for gastric-bypass surgery is between 1 of every 200 patients and 1 of every 1000. To give a comparison metric, the estimated death rate for appendicitis surgery is estimated at 1-2 out of every 1,000,000 patients.
In one study, 40% of patients developed complications within the first six months, including vomiting, diarrhea, infections, hernias and respiratory failure. Additionally, up to 40 percent of gastric-bypass patients can suffer vitamin and other nutritional deficiencies. These deficiencies can result in anemia and osteoporosis. In extreme cases they result in seizures, paralysis, and neurological disorders.
One key nutritional deficiency is when the body cannot take in enough vitamin B-1 (thiamine). This thiamine deficiency is called beriberi. This is a disorder that hasn’t been prevalent in hundreds of years (virtually any processed food is highly enriched with thiamine), and suddenly this is disorder is again common enough to be labeled bariatric beriberi.
After bariatric surgery the patient must make an instant and total shift in eating habits. Even when there are no complications, eating anything very often results in extreme intestinal discomfort.
Most who undergo the surgery do lose vast amounts of weight very quickly (so rapidly in fact it would deemed medically unsafe under any other condition). Within 12 to 18 months the beginning gaining the weight back, often around 25% or so of the weight lost. This allows most patients to drop down one BMI classification after the surgery (from extremely obese to just obese, or obese to overweight). Fewer than 10 percent of patients achieve a normal BMI. As the patients weight increases, the positive medical effects of the surgery tend to vanish as well.
Eighty-five percent of people who have gastric bypass experience “dumping syndrome.” The name might actually be more pleasant than the disorder. This occurs when undigested foods, mainly carbohydrates, empty directly into the small intestine, causing nausea, light-headedness, cramping and gas. Other patients instead experience constant vomiting. Some patients have experienced such extreme gastrointestinal complications that they required multiple emergency surgeries. This resulted in lifelong, irreversible digestive disorders and intense pain.
I have a better idea. Instead of having your stomach banded or stapled, why not just have part of your mouth sewn together? Or maybe you could hire someone to punch you in the stomach after each meal so you feel sick to your stomach.
Come on, do we really need to cut ourselves open and rearrange our bowels just to lose weight? Some will certainly argue, but my answer is absolutely not!
I’m all for modern advances in medicine, but this is definitely not one of them. I have a little piece of bad news for some of you. If you want to lose weight, YOU need to do it. You need to take action and change your life. You can’t expect anyone else, including well-paid surgeons to do it for you. It all starts with you.
With that said, you can most assuredly get the help you need. This is why I always recommend you get a personal fitness coach to help you through. We even offer coaching services directly on FitDaily.
Here’s another tip. If you want some specific advice on weight loss (and I have to assume you do, since you’re still reading this)... I have a comprehensive plan on how to transform your life to a healthier one that’s simple and easy to follow. It’s even been co-written and approved by a top medical doctor.
Allow me to save you around $24,970 over bariatric surgery. Check out Three Weeks to Thrive, follow the program, and see how it goes. If that’s not enough for you, I suggest you get a coach or personal trainer to guide you through the process and help keep you motivated. Either way, the choice is yours and it all starts with your immediate action.
This concludes today’s rant and my not-so-subtle attempt to market my own highly effective products that do not involve scalpels or anesthesia.
