Types of Bariatric Surgery
To understand weight loss operations, it is important to understand the normal physiology of digestion. Food is swallowed and passes down the esophagus into the stomach. The stomach is a muscular storage tank that releases the food content into the small intestine through an outlet called the pylorus. Here, in the small intestine, it mixes with digestive “enzymes” that help digestion to occur, and nutrients that will be absorbed into the blood stream. It is in the small intestine that vitamins and minerals, as well as all the nutrients are absorbed.
Weight loss operations include gastric restrictive procedures, which are designed to limit the amount of food a person can eat before becoming full, and malabsorption procedures, which produce an inability to absorb all the calories or nutrients that are ingested.
