Weight Loss Surgeries

Video Transcript

"My name is Christine Marquette and I'm a Registered Dietitian with Austin Regional Clinic, and I'm going to talk to you about weight loss surgeries. There are two major types of weight loss surgeries that are in use today, lap band and gastric bypass. The main difference is, are with lap band surgery, in this particular procedure they're basically making the stomach smaller by placing a band around it. So they are reducing the amount of area that your stomach has to actually hold food. And gastric bypass surgery is a lot more invasive. In this particular surgery, they are actually doing a bypass where they are detaching your small intestine from your stomach. They are surgically making your stomach smaller and then reattaching your small intestine to this new, smaller stomach pouch. So this particular type of surgery actually causes the person to lose weight in two different ways. The first way is that they are having to eat less food because they have less stomach area to actually hold the food. The other way it causes weight loss is through a bit of a process of malabsorption meaning that because they resection the small intestine, not all of the food that is being eaten is going to be absorbed. A lot of it is actually just going to be eliminated. So this is a much more drastic type of surgery, and somebody who has this type of surgery, it is very important that they are taking adequate supplements to make sure that they are actually getting all of the nutrients they need. So they typically will have to have a supplement such as an omega three supplement as well as a liquid multi-vitamin, multi-mineral supplement. In lap band that may not always be as necessary. It's usually a good idea to also take a multi-vitamin mineral as well as essential fatty acids, but it may not need to be in as high of a dose as somebody who has the gastric bypass surgery. With lap band as well, because it is just restricting the stomach, you have to learn how to eat smaller portions. You have to learn how to spread your food out over the whole day which is similar for the gastric bypass. But again, you're mainly focused on portion control in lap band whereas with the gastric bypass you're having to make sure that you're actually ingesting enough of your other nutrients through supplements. So those are the major weight loss surgeries that are available today."