Gastric Bypass Patients Exert Less Effort Ignoring Food Temptation

The news source is Reuters and the study was conducted by Imperial College London and Hammersmith Hospital in the UK.

A new study was conducted which revealed that people who already had undergone gastric bypass surgery had the least tendency of being tempted to divulge unhealthy food choices compared to those who had gastric banding.

The two weight loss operations have a similar broad goal to reduce the stomach in size so people feel full even with less food eaten. In gastric bypass, the stomach is surgically cut and one end of it is rerouted to bypass part of the small intestine while in gastric banding, a silicone band is placed around the top of the stomach which reduces its capacity. Although gastric banding is more popular, previous researches have found that gastric bypass patients seem to lose more weight and lose it faster than banding patients.

In the study, the researchers analyzed 30 gastric bypass patients, 28 gastric banding patients and 20 people who did not favored any weight loss surgery at all. All the participants started out obese and the two surgery groups had lost an average of 28 percent amounts of body weight since their respective procedures. Since banding patients lose weight more slowly, those in this study had undergone their procedure an average of 18 months earlier, compared to the bypass patients at 10 months post-surgery. Then, the participants filled out an eating behavior questionnaire, and 20 people in each group underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while looking at pictures of food.

The results showed that among the significant differences in questionnaire responses, the gastric bypass patients reported having to restrict themselves from eating poorly. They also did less impulsive eating and less eating to boost their mood, or “emotional eating”. Those who underwent fMRI had not eaten overnight, and then viewed pictures of foods and ate ice cream during the brain scan. The gastric bypass patients rated the pictures of high-calorie foods as less appealing which showed lower brain activities than the gastric banding patients did.

According to the researchers, the feeling of fullness is brought about by the gut hormones being more released quickly in gastric bypass patients which influences their responses to food in a way the gastric banding patients don’t experience. In addition, they found out that the right surgery for people to undergo varies from one person to another that is why it is a must for medical professionals to delve into the cause of obesity in a possible patient as this greatly affects the outcome of what surgery to be conducted.

Therefore, the ability to screen patients properly has a great deal of impact on the success or failure of every weight loss surgery.

People who are undergoing surgeries must take all precautionary actions beforehand so that the outcome is ideal. However, nothing beats being prepared with a good health insurance plan. For your health insurance needs, contact Illinois Health at (800) 707-5795 to find an Illinois health care plan that meets your requirements.

 

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