Gastric Exclusion Operations Over thirty percent of the US population is currently obese. A scarystatistic. Contrary to popular belief, obesity is not a psychological, nor aneating disorder. Obesity is a hereditary disease, that can not be "treated" byJenny Craig, or Weight Watchers. Surgery for obesity should not beconsidered only as a last resort. Right now surgery is the only effectivetreatment for obesity.One type of surgical treatment is gastric exclusion. There are fourquestions that will help someone decide if this surgery is right for them. Areyou 100 or more pounds overweight? Have you tried many times to loseweight, including diets, exercise and behavior modification with the only lossbeing a lot of money? Is your health being affected by your weight? Has yourdoctor recommended that you lose weight? If any one of these answers is yes,then surgical weight loss may be right for you.Gastric exclusion is exactly what it sounds like the stomach isexcluded from the digestion process. The top portion of the stomach isdivided, which creates a small pouch and decreases the amount that thestomach can hold. The small intestine is then connected to the pouch whichlets food pass trough the digestive system while lessening the calorie intake.Because the stomach can hold less the person feels full sooner and longer.This surgery also helps lose weight, because it makes it nauseating to eatrefined sugars.There are few complications resulting from this surgery. The mostserious one is pulmonary embolus, and only one out of every one thousandpatients are affected by it. Pulmonary embolus is when a blot clot forms inthe lower abdomen or leg, and breaks off into the lungs. This can be fatal, butis very rare. The most frequent complications are post-operative pneumonia,hernia formation and wound infection. Only five percent of patients developpost-operative pneumonia, more frequent in smokers. Wound infection andhernia formation only affect four p...
