Why Choose Surgical Weight Loss?

Dieting, exercise and medication have long been regarded as the conventional methods to achieve weight loss. Sometimes these efforts are successful in the short term. However, for 97% of people who are morbidly obese, the results do not last. For many, this can translate into what’s called the yo-yo diet syndrome, where patients continually gain and lose weight with the possibility of serious psychological and health consequences.

Sufferers from morbid obesity frequently re-gain more than what they lost on the diet plan. This is thought to be partially due to ghrelin, a hunger hormone, which increases during dieting and increases the body’s drive for more food. Recent research from the National Institutes of Health confirms that for patients with morbid obesity, conventional methods of weight loss generally fail to produce permanent weight loss.

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Several studies have shown that patients who go on diets, exercise programs or medication are able to lose approximately 10% of their body weight, but tend to regain two-thirds of it within one year and all of it within five years. Another study found that less than 5% of patients in weight-loss programs were able to maintain their reduced weight after 5 years.

The fact remains that morbid obesity is a complex, multifactorial chronic disease. According to NIH research, weight-loss surgery, when compared to other non-surgical interventions, is the only method that has been proven to be effective in the long term for most patients with clinically severe obesity.

Surgical Treatment

Over the years, studies show that weight-loss surgery, with its inherent risks factored in, is the most successful and only clinically proven method for long-term management of morbid obesity. At 90 to 100 pounds overweight, the risk of dying from obesity is almost 10 times higher than the risk of dying from gastric bypass surgery

Surgical options have continued to evolve and the Alvarado Surgical Weight-Loss Program is pleased to offer patients the laparoscopic gastric bypass, gastric banding (Lap-Band) and gastric sleeve laparoscopic surgery options. The laparoscopic gastric bypass is recognized as the Gold Standard among surgical weight-loss procedures. Both the laparoscopic gastric bypass and the gastric banding provide a tool that can help achieve and maintain significant weight loss, improve health and enhance quality of life. Both procedures are potentially reversible, if the patient desires.

Alvarado Hospital also offers the non-surgical “belly” balloon through the Physicians Surgery Center at Alvarado.

Physician Referral and More Information

To be referrered to a bariatric surgeon or for more information on Alvarado Hospital’s Surgical Weight-Loss Program, call the bariatric program coordinator at 619-229-3340 or e-mail her. You also can call (800) ALVARADO (800-258-2723) to allow one of our friendly customer service representatives to assist you. To use our interactive Physician Finder, click here.