I'm not a surgeon and therefore I don't perform gastric bypasses, but I sure get that question a lot from folks who are interested in having one.
Came across an interesting report on a paper that was presented by Dr. Daniel Leslie at the 89th meeting of the Endocrine Society. The paper reported on a number of variables that predicted bariatric surgical success and they came up with an "equation" that you simply plug into to answer the question of how much weight a gastric bypass patient can expect to lose.
Ready for it? Here's the equation,
"Weight loss in lbs = [(age in years) x -1.79] + [(preoperative weight in lbs) x 0.36] + [(1 if patient if African-American, 0 if European-American) x -16.56] + [(1 for peripheral weight distribution, 0 for central) x 7.45] + [(1 for type 2 diabetes, 0 for no diabetes) x -7.28] + [(1 for obstructive sleep apnea, 0 for no sleep apnea) x 7.15] + 106.63"Of course there are many other variables.
Basically the surgery provides patients with a tremendous anatomical advantage for weight loss. The average patient's weight loss may be describable on the basis of the equation, but you need not be an average patient.
What the equation doesn't and cannot account for are the personal intangibles. The changes a person makes to their lifestyle will also have a tremendous impact on their weight loss. Some patients tend to take gastric bypass as a fresh start of sorts and get more involved in things like exercise and healthy eating. In my experience, those patients tend to lose more.
Just in case you've forgotten my take on bariatric surgery I'll remind you. I tend to call it, "a fabulous last resort".
UPDATE: My original post was off by a factor of 100, the new equation ought to work
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A colleague and I tried this equation. We are getting numbers like in the thousands (e.g. 7000- 9000). Are is the correct equation?
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely correct!
ReplyDeleteI had copied the equation from the source - I'll go back and revise once I locate the corrected equation.
Sorry I didn't have the foresight to try it myself this morning.
One aspect I never understood about bypass is the long term effect. Once a person reaches a more healthy weight, how do they intake enough energy to keep from losing more weight? How can they live an active lifestyle or create muscle if they can only eat 1 cup of any substance? Is it just a constant moderate intake of food? Seems to me that would be rough on the intestines.
ReplyDelete- Stefan
Firstly the equation has been corrected - forgot a decimal (had 36 rather than 0.36).
ReplyDeleteStefan, I think you may be a bit misinformed regarding the realities of post operative gastric bypass patients. It's true that eating quantity and speed are much slower, however patients certainly still continue to eat and a frequent moderate intake of food is exactly what is required with successful behavioural or surgical weight loss.
There are indeed a small subset of patients that may lose more than they had planned however you've also got to remember that to be a surgical candidate at the very least your BMI must be 35 or above (with comorbidites) or above 40 with no comorbidities so there is certainly a great deal of room for healthy weight loss.
I wonder if this equation is only for the RNY.
ReplyDeleteI had the Duodenal Switch and statistics show that the DS patients have a greater weight loss than RNY patients!..
I'll have to try it out and let you know after I have lost my weight!..
BTW, "Fabulous last resort" is that a bad thing? I havent read back enough in your blog to know what your take on Bariatric Surgery is.
I also find it to be a last resort, for me it was a desperate measure to save my life. I was 450lbs with HTN,High Cholesterol, Beginning sings of DM, Arthritis of the Hips, Knees and an entire herniated lumbar spine.
I felt and my PCP confirmed that with out WLS, I could surely die before 30.
I had my surgery on 03/14/11 and I am down to 331. I feel healthier than I have in years. My High Cholesterol, DM, and HTN are all gone.
My joint pains are slowly getting better.
I strongly believe this surgery saved my life.