Weight Loss After Gastric Sleeve

Also called “calibrated vertical gastroplasty with gastric resection” or “longitudinal gastrectomy”, sleeve-gastrectomy is a digestive surgical procedure performed on obese patients. This operation consists of the removal of a part of the stomach.

First performed in 2001, sleeve-gastrectomy, or more commonly known as gastric sleeve, is a reliable weight-loss surgery that allows patients to lose a considerable amount of weight by reducing the size of the stomach. This reduces the feeling of hunger on a daily basis and makes the patient feel satiated quicker.

The Effectiveness of Weight Loss with Gastric Sleeve

Gastric sleeve is a widely recognized effective surgery to deal with excess weight. There are a plethora of studies showing the surgery is effective in a wide range of demographic groups.

You can expect to see results after just a few months, with patients reporting up to 30% excess weight loss in the first three months after the surgery. And according to the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, the typical patient loses at least 50% excess weight in less than two years, and in some patients, this percentage can be as high as 60 to 70 per cent.

The Long-Term Effectiveness of the Surgery

Since gastric sleeve is a permanent surgical weight loss solution, the likelihood of you gaining back the excess weight is close to nil.

A study titled ‘Impact of bariatric surgery on life expectancy in severely obese patients with diabetes: A Decision analysis’ was published in the journal Annals of Surgery tried to measure the long-term impact of gastric sleeve, and the results were very promising.

More than 60% of the patients had experienced major weight loss after five years, and this had reflected positively on their life, with the researchers estimating an increase in life expectancy on average.

The Benefits of Weight Loss After a Gastric Sleeve Surgery

The benefits of excess weight loss are well-researched and well-publicized, and they’re broad and life-changing. What’s less known is that gastric sleeve weight loss has a few additional unique benefits.

Diabetes Remission

According to a long-term peer-reviewed research paper published in Annals of Surgery, patients who had gastric sleeve surgery and a control group were followed up for ten years. The study found that 52.6% of the patients who had undergone gastric sleeve had long-term remission of type-2 diabetes. That’s more than one in two.

The result is only more impressive when you learn that none in the control group that hadn’t undergone the surgery had remission of diabetes. The study further found a reduced incidence of microvascular complications of about 40% in the patients who had undergone gastric sleeve weight loss surgery.

Mood Improvement

According to a peer-reviewed research paper recently published in the Health Services and Delivery Research journal, undergoing gastric sleeve surgery results in a statistically significant reduction of depression.

Analyzing data from more than 3000 individuals, the researchers found that there was a 32.7% decrease in clinical depression right after the surgery. And the effects weren’t temporary either with almost half of those retaining the alleviated mood 2-3 years following the surgery.

Better Sleep

Excess weight loss is correlated with longer and better quality sleep, and there are a wealth of studies exploring this topic.

For example, a Johns Hopkins study followed 77 participants that lost just about 15 pounds in a 6-month period, and the researchers found a reduction in self-reported sleeping problems including “sleep apnea, daytime fatigue, insomnia, restless sleep, excessive sleep or sleepiness and use of sedatives to aid sleep.” They found a positive correlation between weight loss (especially fat belly weight loss) and quality of sleep.

And although the researchers didn’t follow participants who had undergone gastric sleeve, patients have also reported similar improvements in sleep quality due to weight loss after gastric sleeve surgery.

Factors that Might Impact Your Experience Post-Surgery

Although gastric sleeve is a reliable weight loss surgery, each individual will have a unique experience during the months that follow. This is why the expected weight loss and the average monthly weight loss is different from one person to the next.

This difference can be explained by a few key factors, some of which are under the patient’s control. By understanding these factors, the patient can expect better weight loss results in the months following the surgery.

Diet

Weight loss, without surgical intervention, only occurs in one way: when someone’s caloric intake is lower than their caloric consumption. As such, a person’s diet will play a major role in determining how much excess weight a person has.

And while gastric sleeve will help most patients lose weight at a substantial rate, this doesn’t mean that their diet ceases to be relevant. On the contrary, the patient’s diet can act as a powerful supplement that can help patients see even more impressive results.

So, it is recommended the patient starts fixing his diet and try to keep their caloric intake at reasonable amounts to get exceptional results.

Daily Routine

While your diet will affect your daily caloric intake, you can also affect how many calories your body consumes in a day, too. Through even mild forms of exercise, you can burn off a lot of calories in a day.

Since the initial gastric sleeve weight loss in the first few months is quite substantial, many patients use it as a springboard for a more active and healthy daily routine to impressive results.