5 Steps for a Natural Stomach Bypass
By William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
In a desperate attempt to solve the obesity epidemic, doctors have turned to the Court of Last Resort—the surgeons—who have predictably followed their old mantra, “when in doubt, cut it out” with the well-known gastric bypass procedure.
Gastric bypass involves cutting out all but a tiny portion of the top of the stomach. The rationale behind this is to make the stomach smaller so that the patient feels “full” sooner—and he IS full sooner, literally, because his stomach is smaller.
Doctors and surgeons are quick to tout the benefits of this procedure: maintained weight loss, decreased risk of cancer, lower blood pressure—and now they’re even claiming it cures diabetes.
People are buying into it, too. In just over 10 years, the number of surgeries has jumped from 10,000 to over 170,000, according to the American Society for Bariatric Surgery. But here’s what they’re NOT telling you. The surgery makes your stomach so small that it’s impossible to get all the nutrients you need through the food you eat. Side effects can include vitamin deficiency, abdominal pain, diarrhea, incisional hernia, anemia, arrhythmia, dairy intolerance, constipation, headache, hair loss, and depression. And that’s just the short list.
Oh, and did I mention that 1 in 50 people who have this surgery are dead within 30 days?
When you lose weight one and two pounds at time, your body is able to adjust. With the gastric bypass, though, the fat goes away, but all that excess skin in still there, in all its folded, wrinkled, Jabba-the-Hutt glory. Patients either need to learn to live with it (and trust me, this unsightly mess isn’t exactly a boon for self confidence), or they need to get plastic surgery to correct it, putting themselves at additional risk for serious complications, including death.
That seems like a LOT of risks for a largely unnecessary surgery. Not to mention that in order for the surgery to be successful, patients must change their eating habits and engage in regular physical activity—the very things that would have led to weight loss in the first place!
So then, why is this barbaric surgery gaining in popularity? Because if it doesn’t kill you, it actually seems to work quite well.
Why fad diets don’t work
I have no doubt that most people who turn to bypass surgery are doing so as a last resort. They’ve tried every fad diet under the sun, yet nothing seems to work for them. Well, there’s a good reason for it, and it mainly has to do with the stomach’s appetite-triggering hormone called ghrelin (pronounced GRELL-in).
A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that ghrelin rose sharply before meals and fell shortly after meals, confirming earlier studies showing that it triggers the desire to eat. But get this... After the subjects lost an average of 17 percent of their body weight, ghrelin output rose roughly 25 percent. This will, it appears, virtually FORCE the subjects to eat—and, in turn, re-gain much (if not all) of the weight they lost.
In the same NEJM study, researchers also measured ghrelin levels in five subjects who had stomach bypass surgery. “Despite a 36 percent weight loss...the ghrelin profile in the gastric-bypass group was 77 percent lower than in normal-weight controls,” the researchers reported.
In other words, people who lost weight following stomach bypass surgery had very low ghrelin levels compared to obese subjects who had lost the same amount of weight and compared to people of normal weight. What’s more, ghrelin levels in people who had the surgery didn’t even rise before meals as they do in most people.
This may explain why people who undergo gastric bypass surgery are remarkably successful in losing weight—and keeping it off. But you don’t need to go under the knife to experience these results. You’ll never hear that from a surgeon, though. Putting you on a successful eating regimen won’t put his kids through college.
In fact, surgeons are currently trying to broaden the parameters of who can get the surgery. As of right now, only the morbidly obese qualify for the surgery. Now, the mainstream is referring to this limit set by the National Institutes of Health as a “hitch.” In other words, they’re saying that the only downfall of this surgery is the fact that more people can’t get it. Yeah, right. That’s why they’re suddenly proclaiming that gastric bypass surgery is the cure for diabetes. Never mind that the same things that cause obesity also cause diabetes, and that you have complete control over both of them.
Don’t get caught hook, line, and sinker by this marketing propaganda—because that is, after all, exactly what this is. They have a product (gastric bypass surgery) that they’re trying to convince you that you need. Well, you don’t.
A study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism showed that what you eat has everything to do with keeping this appetite-stimulating hormone at bay. Ultimately, the trick is not to eat LESS, it’s to eat MORE of the RIGHT KINDS OF FOOD. This is what surgeons should be talking to patients about—instead of pushing surgery as the cure for obesity, diabetes, and who knows what else.
5 steps to getting the weight off and keeping it off—no surgery necessary
1. Stop eating carbohydrates. Carbohydrates do a great job of suppressing ghrelin...at first. But after a short period, ghrelin comes back with a vengeance, rising way above baseline. Come to think of it, whether you’re overweight or not, you owe it to yourself and your body to eliminate carbohydrates, sugar, and processed food from your diet.
2. Eat protein—and lots of it. It has a myriad of benefits, but for the sake of this discussion, here’s what you need to know: protein suppresses ghrelin over a long period of time, keeping you fuller, longer.
3. Don’t fad diet. When you lose a lot of weight at once, your leptin levels take a nosedive. Leptin is your body’s natural appetite suppressor.
4. Supplement with zinc. According to the journal Life Science, zinc can raise your leptin levels by as much as 142 percent.
5. Other natural substances can work together with an ongoing dietary plan low in carbohydrates and high in protein to help you lose weight. Nutrients like lecithin, pantothenic acid, chromium, L-carnitine, and bioflavonoids can help support metabolism, boost energy levels, regulate sugar and cravings, and support the immune system. Safe herbal extracts include garcinia cambogia and fenugreek. Most of these should be available in health-food stores, or even your local drug store.
References:
“Stomach hormone foils weight loss efforts,” Clarence Bass’ Ripped Enterprises (www.ripped.com), accessed 6/2/04
“The stomach speaks-ghrelin and weight regulation,” New England Journal of Medicine 2002; 346(21): 1,662-1,663
“Serum Immunoreactive-Leptin Concentrations in Normal-Weight and Obese Humans,” New England Journal of Medicine 1996; 334(5):292-295
“Early onset of reproductive function in normal female mice treated with leptin,” Science 1997; 275(5,296): 88-90
“Weight-reducing effects of the plasma protein encoded by the obese gene,” Science 1995; 269(5,223): 543
“Effects of the obese gene product on body weight regulation in ob/ob mice,” Science 1995; 269(5,223): 540
“A mutation in the human leptin receptor gene causes obesity and pituitary dysfunction,” Nature 1998; 392(6,674): 398-401
“Leptin and the regulation of body weight in mammals,” Nature 1998; 395(6,704): 763-770
“Congenital leptin deficiency is associated with severe early-onset obesity in humans,” Nature 1997; 387(6,636): 903-908
“"Stomach hormone linked to weight,” The Washington Post, 5/23/02
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