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Patients who undergo gastric bypass surgery to treat their
obesity are also finding the weight loss relieves bothersome
gastrointestinal symptoms, according to researchers at the
University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Patients
who undergo minimally invasive gastric bypass surgery for
morbid obesity not only experience significant and long-term
weight loss, but their problems with gastroesophageal reflux
disease (GERD), abdominal pain and other symptoms of gastrointestinal
distress improve, according to the study presented at the
annual meeting of the American Society for Bariatric Surgery
in Las Vegas.
"Before
they have laparascopic gastric bypass surgery, morbidly obese
patients are greatly bothered by a host of gastrointestinal
symptoms," said Dr. Ronald H. Clements, who compared
surgery patients' symptoms to those of a less obese control
group. "After surgery, these symptoms essentially returned
to normal -- their symptoms are no more troublesome than in
the controls."
However,
researchers found that the patients who had gastric bypass
surgery had more difficulty swallowing than the control group.
This is an expected side effect of the surgery as the operation
reduces the patient's stomach to the size of a thumb, and
when the stomach is full, it is hard to swallow, said Clements.
Measurements
taken before surgery of abdominal pain, irritable bowel syndrome
symptoms, GERD, gastric reflux and sleep disturbances were
as much as double what was seen in the control group, reported
Clements.
"Symptoms
related to the GI tract cause morbidly obese patients significant
problems. Now we can tell them the data shows many of these
difficulties will be improved after laparoscopic gastric bypass
surgery," he added.
Source:
Obesity
Week of July 7, 2002
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