How LAP-BAND® Is Like a Band-Aid®

Some brands are so well-known they become the generic references for a whole category - think Kleenex, Jello-O and Hula Hoop (did Hula Hoop have any competitors?). 

LAP-BAND^® is like the Band-Aid of  bariatric surgery, the Allergan-branded system is basically ubiquitous for minimally invasive adjustable gastric banding surgery.


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More than 650,000  LAP-BANDs^®  have  been placed, and with more than one third of Americans (that's about 60 million people) meeting the medical definition of obesity (a BMI of 30 or more), and two of every three Americans overweight, this number is likely to increase.


Being overweight increases the risk for diseases such as type 2 diabetes (Read: 10 Truths About Diabetes), heart diseases, stroke, sleep apnea, respiratory problems and some cancers. Research from the National Institutes of Health has shown that obesity will decrease average life expectancy by nearly five years.

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Going Green

The latest news in LAP-BAND^® is the Green Zone LAP-BAND^®, a variation on the procedure conducted with the new FDA-approved Endoflip system, which provides the obesity surgeon with multiple, real-time images of the gastrointestinal tract, enabling precision band placement and thus, opitmal weight loss.

Most interesting to patients is the fact that the first band 'fill' takes place inter-operatively; while 'regular' LAP-BAND^® patients must weight up to three months for their first fill,  patients having a Green Zone LAP-BAND^® get their first fill before they even leave the OR; often, the next fill is not needed until five months post-surgery. 

It's a win-win for both surgeons and patients: an advancement that results in more and faster weight loss, a quicker reduction of the more serious complications of obesity such as Type 2 Diabetes, while reducing the overall risk of complication.

Click here to take the Type 2 Diabetes Risk Test

 Why Mexico is the Land of LAP-BAND®
Thanks to a sometimes glacially slow FDA approval process, the LAP-BAND® was available in Mexico a good five years before the United States.  As a result, top gastroenterologist surgeons in Mexico placed thousands of LAP-BANDS® before American surgeons had placed even one.  Rock star surgeons like the Allergan-certified "little Giant of LAP-BAND®" - Dr. Juan Lopez Corvala - visited as many as 100 US research hospitals proctoring the procedure.   His patient roster now includes about 6,000 gratefully thinner Americans.

The pattern holds true for this latest LAP-BAND® as well - as of this writing, Green Zone LAP-BAND® is available exclusively in Mexico's top private hospital network, where regular surgical clinics are held for US surgeons to train on the use of the EndoFlip. 

Although geographically speaking it's now just as easy to have a LAP-BAND®  in Missouri as Mexico, the economics still significantly favor Mexico, where the procedure costs $5,200 at a top private hospital - less than half the average cost for having  the procedure in a clinic in the US.  With medical travel facilitators like Health Travel Guides on hand to handle all the details, it's not only cheaper to have the procedure in Mexico, it's often easier as well.

Is LAP-BAND® Getting a Bad Rap? 

Watch this animated video about Green Green Zone LAP-BAND® and be the judge!




Want to find out if you're a candidate for Green Zone LAP-BAND®? Submit a secure online medical history and receive information about the Green Zone LAP-BAND® procedure.