Am I a candidate?

Only a qualified bariatric surgeon can determine if you are a candidate for bariatric surgery, but the following criteria may give you an indication that you may be a candidate.

You may be a candidate if you:

• are more than 45.4 kg. over your ideal body weight, or
• have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of over 40, or
• have a Body Mass Index of over 35 and are experiencing severe negative health effects related to being severely overweight and are unable to achieve a healthy body weight for a sustained period of time, even through medically supervised dieting

It is indicated for use only in morbidly obese adult patients who have failed more conservative weight-reduction alternatives such as supervised diet, excercise and behaviour modification programs.

 

Procedures

Today, there are two basic approaches that weight loss surgery takes to achieve change:

Restrictive Procedures

The theory is simple: When you feel full, you are more likely to have reduced feelings of hunger and will no longer feel deprived. Restrictive weight loss surgery works by reducing the amount of food consumed at one time. It does not, however, interfere with the normal digestion of food. Some examples are Gastric Banding and Sleeve Gastrectomy.

Malabsorptive Procedures

Malabsorptive procedures alter digestion, thus causing the food to be poorly digested and incompletely absorbed so that it is eliminated in the stool. In addition to restriction, these techniques involve the use of surgical staples to create a bypass of the small intestine, thus limiting the absorption of calories. Some examples are Biliopancreatic Diversion (BPD) and Gastric Bypass Roux-en-Y (RYGBP)