Myths And Facts About Obesity Surgery

Hi,

I am Dr. Neeraj Rayate, General Surgeon and today we are going to discuss myths and facts about obesity surgery or weight loss surgery or bariatric surgery. The commonest myth about weight loss surgery is that it is nothing but liposuction. In liposuction, we just remove fat which is below the skin and called subcutaneous fat. In bariatric surgery, we do not remove any fat. So, liposuction is made to make someone beautiful while bariatric surgery is made to make someone healthy. Because after bariatric surgery, if you have diseases like diabetes, blood pressure, obstructive sleep apnea, PCOS, joint pain, reflux disease, heart disease, all these diseases are either cured, get reversed or they get better. Because the problem for all these diseases is weight. After bariatric surgery, your weight gets reduced and that is how you become healthy. The 2nd common myth is that bariatric surgery cures diabetes. It is partially true. Diabetes has 2 types. Type 1 diabetes. Now, this diabetes is because your body is not able to produce insulin.

And in type 2 diabetes, the body is producing insulin but because of excess fat, the insulin is not able to work effectively. This is called peripheral insulin resistance. Bariatric surgery causes fat loss and weight loss because of which the peripheral insulin resistance increases. That is why diabetes in obese people can be completely reversed. We have a good number of patients who have gone off diabetic patients like tablets, injections of insulin and living a healthy life without any anti-diabetic drug. Whereas who have type 1 diabetes and not able to produce insulin, their utility of diabetes or bariatric surgery is only for the purpose of weight loss and not for the purpose of diabetes reversal. Another common myth about bariatric surgery is that it is an irreversible surgery. No, it is not. In fact, surgery of gastric bypass is the surgery which can be completely reversed. So, in future at a given time, if you are feeling like going back to your original anatomy where you were, that is very much possible. The endoscopic gastric balloon is a procedure which is done very routinely in young woman, who wants to get married and wants to lose 15-20 kgs and is a completely reversible procedure. Endoscopy is a daycare procedure. 3-6 months down the line, when you see the result, you can take out the balloon again it is a daycare procedure.

People feel that once they get bariatric surgery, their job is done and they are free to live the way they are living. So, you have to understand, whatever weight you have gain which is excess weight is because of indiscipline lifestyle. Now if you want to get operated for bariatric surgery and do not follow the discipline, you are heading to where you were already. I have not seen a single patient who has not lost weight after bariatric surgery but yes, I have seen a few patients who have been non-compliance indiscipline and they are gaining their weight despite undergoing bariatric surgery. So, bariatric surgery does cause weight loss but diet and exercise discipline after the surgery is something which we were not able because of excess weight but now we should be doing after the surgery. A lot of people keep on asking us whether this surgery is covered in insurance.

Yes, it is. Ask your insurance person. Besides this, if somebody is obese and having diabetes or any other medical diseases, you imagine your monthly expenditure must be at least 10-15k on drugs. So, you can recover by taking bariatric surgery and also your medical cost will go down significantly. So, it is your choice whether you want to live with wellness or you want to live with sickness. There are enough institutions which give finance for getting operated for bariatric surgery. So, you can just pay 1/3 cost of the bariatric surgery and get interested free EMI to get your weight shed off and start a new healthy life. I hope, I have cleared enough myths about bariatric surgery and this video will give enough knowledge of what is right when it comes to the science of weight loss.

Thank you!