Gastric Bypass Reconstruction: Cosmetic AND Health Benefits

GBRx: The Prescription for Looking Like You Again^™

In 2009, we published an article in Bariatric Times about our trademark procedure: GBRX. The following is a summary:

Many patients who have undergone bariatric surgery or massive weight loss through medical regimens have found that the inelasticity of their skin and the large amounts of excess skin are equally as distressing as what led them to undergo bariatric surgery in the first place. The face deflates, the arms have tremendous amounts of excess skin, the breasts and chest wall sag and lose their volume. The abdominal wall is possibly the area that is affected the most, with skin hanging over the pubic region and sometimes to the middle of the thighs. The thighs themselves can be tremendously disfigured and have large volumes of excess skin.

To help remedy these problems, our practice has devised the GBRx™ staged surgical approach for reconstructing the body after massive weight loss. The surgery is designed to improve the functional, aesthetic and psychological aspects associated with these patients. The patients who undergo these procedures are usually at least 15 months out from their gastric bypass procedure and plateaued with their weight loss.

On September 19, 2012, a 6-year study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association about the longer-term health benefits of Gastric Bypass Reconstruction. The following is a summary, in non-scientific terms:

(Reuters Health) – The short-term benefits of weight loss surgery are well known in severely obese people, but a new study finds that improvements in diabetes and blood pressure may hold up for years after the procedures.

At six-year patient follow-ups, three quarters of people who’d undergone gastric bypass surgery had lost at least 20 percent of their pre-surgery weight and kept it off, researchers found.

“It’s been somewhat in question how durable the weight loss might be,” said lead author Ted Adams, from the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City.

“What’s unique to this study is that it’s demonstrating that long term, out six years, there’s still a really significant remission of diabetes” and most of the initial weight people lose stays off.

According to the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, about 200,000 people have weight loss surgery every year. The procedures run about $20,000 each.

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