Gastric bypass surgery is a procedure where a surgeon makes the stomach smaller and reroutes the food passage past the majority of the stomach and the first part of the small intestine. Despite many warnings, gastric bypass is growing more popular. According to a study, gastric bypass surgery may also result in loss of bone mass.
In the surgery, doctors staple off a section of the stomach so that it can only hold a small amount of food and add a bypass that allows food to go around part of the small intestine, limiting the absorption of calories.
Gastric bypass surgery makes the stomach smaller and allows food to bypass part of the small intestine. You will feel full more quickly than when your stomach was its original size, which reduces the amount of food you eat and
thus calories consumed. Bypassing part of the intestine results in fewer calories being absorbed. This leads to weight loss.
Obese people who underwent gastric bypass surgery may lose weight faster as the levels of a hormone known to stimulate hunger fall after the operation is made, researchers claim in a study published in the July issue of The Archives
of Surgery journal. The hormone, ghrelin, is released into the bloodstream from the stomach and upper intestine and is among two dozen hormones thought to help regulate hunger
The study involved 27 patients who had the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery and another 29 people who were awaiting the procedure. Patients who had had the surgery lost an average of 80 to 100 pounds after 10 months.
However, according to urine and blood tests, they were also breaking down bone faster than it was rebuilt. The more weight lost, the faster the rate of bone breakdown, researchers said. Patients awaiting surgery were breaking down and rebuilding bone at normal rates. The bone breakdown rate of those who had had the surgery was about twice the rate of those who did not have the surgery.
Researchers are not certain why this effect is occurring, but suggest that the surgery may decrease calcium absorption. Another potential explanation is that the patients excess body weight may have been strengthening bones as
lifting weights strengthens bones. Therefore, when the excess weight is removed the bones have to adjust to the reduction in weight. Researchers plan to continue studies to determine whether the findings lead to a loss of bone over time that could put patients at risk of osteoporosis. They note that patients should have their bone density measured every couple of years.
One of the severe side effects of intestinal bypass surgery is liver failure. This is a long-term side effect and doesnt show up until about 10 years postoperative in most patients. Combined with the liver failure is damage to
the immune system, and most patients who exhibit the symptoms of liver failure also show evidence of autoimmune disease as well.
Consuming raw dairy products would clearly be a helpful strategy at combating this bone loss, as it is without question the best calcium supplement one can obtain.
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