Please please read - Stanford letter

[Guest guest]

Recently, I received a form letter from the Stanford

Center for Bariatric Surgery. (No, I never wrote or

called them). It is a spiel about WLS. In part, it

says:

WHAT ARE THE TYPES OF OPERATIONS THAT MAY BE DONE TO

PRODUCE WEIGHT LOSS?

Operations to assist with weight loss can be broken

down loosely into gastric restriction operations and

malabsorptive operations.

In general, malabsorprive operations are more

effective than gastric restrictive operations, but

carry a high incidence of serious complications and

are very rarely performed any longer. Malabsorptive

operations work by bypassing the majority of the small

intestine and sometimes the stomach as well. Their

basic mechanism of action is to produce continuous

diarrhea and inability to absorb food. Unfortunately,

though quite effective at producing weight loss, these

operations are also recognized to produce metabolic

side effects that may be devastating, irreversible,

and even fatal. They are seldom performed any longer.

For all practical purposes only gastric restrictive

operations are commonly performed, and these are the

only operations that are performed at Stanford. These

act primarily (but not exclusively) by restricting the

amount that can be eaten at any one time. In

practice, only the Roux Y Gastric Bypass is performed

any longer except in very unusual circumstances.

Please please tell me they were not dissing the

duodenalswitch. If they were, it's terribly

misleading, to say the least.

=====

Dee

Waiting for Ins. Co. Approval

313/Want to be 165

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