 Departments and Services > Surgery > Bariatric Surgery > Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass
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Throughout the 1990s, Mary Beth Bencic of Everett, a 43-year-old middle-school teacher for emotionally disturbed boys, weighed as much as 350 pounds.
"In addition to asthma and sleep apnea, I also developed blood clots and cellulitis," she recalled. "After a heart attack that led to two surgeries in 1999, I knew I had to resolve my weight problem." Read More
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The Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass is the most commonly performed weight loss surgery procedure in the United States at this time. During surgery, a surgical stapling device is used to divide the upper stomach and create a tiny stomach "pouch" at the upper end. This pouch is shaped to be about the size of your thumb, and will hold 30 ml or less. This means that 2-3 tiny bites of food is all a patient can hold, and this restriction on the amount of food eaten is the main way that the Gastric Bypass promotes weight loss.
Food leaves this tiny stomach pouch into a segment of small intestine (the Roux limb), which is brought up from the mid-abdomen and is surgically attached to the stomach pouch. This small intestine cannot handle concentrated calories. If the patient consumes foods that contains sugar or fat this segment of intestine reacts by creating a temporary illness called dumping syndrome. For best weight loss patients should stay away from sugar and other carbohydrates - the thought of dumping syndrome seems to help change habits away from these types of food.
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