Surgical Management of Weight Loss

Abstract

For millennia, severe obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2DM) were considered hopeless diseases. Without effective treatments, patients endured dietary limitations, drugs and injections with the recognition that early death, blindness, amputation and renal failure were the unavoidable outcomes. Bariatric surgery has sharply changed this dismal picture. Within only a few days these operations are followed by rapid, full and durable remission not only of T2DM and severe obesity but also of hypertension, dyslipidemias, polycystic ovary syndrome, non-alcoholic hepatic steatosis, gastro-esophageal reflux, sleep apnea. However, as in other therapies, there are also complications. The early ones are similar to other abdominal operations; the late complications are just now becoming more clear. This chapter will review bariatric surgery, its indications, and the major operations and provide an overview of early and late outcomes.