Big News For Big Loser Wannabes: New Minimally Invasive Device-Free Restrictive Gastric Plication Free Webcast

Free Gastric Plication Live Medical Webcast: You have nothing to lose but weight!

If you have been researching weight loss procedures, you can't afford to miss this free gastric plication webcast produced by Health Travel Technologies, part of the excellent Patient Education Series.

Gastric Plication is the latest in a series of bariatric innovations (including the gastric pacemaker and metabolic surgery) and features some great benefits for patients:

- minimally invasive: the procedure is laparoscopic
- device free - no band to refill or adjust or remove
- no resection - no loss of stomach tissue
- greater weight loss than LAP-BAND

All of this adds up to lower risk of complication. Weight loss results have been consistently comparable to the much more invasive RNY Gastric Bypass, or Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy. The procedure requires only an overnight hospital stay, and unlike LAP-BAND, which requires a healing period before the first fill (after which optimal weight loss begins), weight loss begins sooner, and happens at a faster rate.

The About Gastric Plication webcast was developed in cooperation with the obesity surgical team of Hospital Angeles, led by Dr. Juan Lopez-Corvala, the world's leading gastroenterologist surgeon performing the gastric plication.

register now!

Bonus: The panel will spend some time discussing another recent bariatric innovation, Green Zone weight loss surgery.

we invite you to check out what we're reading:

Brown Fat, Triggered by Cold or Exercise, May Yield a Key to Weight Control
How LAP-BAND® Is Like a Band-Aid®
Diabetes, Obesity and Superheroes
Why Gastric Bypass Spells the End of Type 2 Diabetes
Minimally Invasive Weight Loss Surgery Alternatives
The Noninvasive Solution to Weight and Diabetes Management
More Fat News and This Time it’s Good!

Why Gastric Bypass Spells the End of Type 2 Diabetes

Bariatric surgeons and patients have known for years that the gastric bypass procedure has one effect that is often more immediate even than the weight loss it is designed for: an improvement in blood sugar levels that often results in the resolution of Type 2 diabetes.  Now research has given us the ‘why’. 

According to a study published in Science Translational Medicine the key lies in amino acids: the gastric bypass procedure significantly reduces the amount of branched-chain amino acids circulating in the blood.  This decrease results in an improvement in the body’s response to insulin.

Somehow this drop in amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) improves the body's response to insulin with the end result of normalizing blood sugar and correcting diabetes. 

The blood sugar of the gastric bypass patient is also stabilized due to decreased food intake.  Patients having the gastric bypass experience a surgical reduction of stomach size – after the procedure, the remaining stomach pouch typically holds only 1 ounce.

Insulin  resistance continues to improve over time as the gastric bypass patient loses weight as a result of  reduced stomach capacity as well as the malabsorption of nutrients created by re-routing  of the intestines (food that is consumed bypasses the segment of the small intestine closest to where it attaches to the stomach). 

Additionally, anatomical changes resulting from the gastric bypass procedure result in hormonal changes which also effects insulin resistance. 

Gastric Bypass: The Gold Standard
Although adjustable gastric banding – ubiquitously referred to as Lap-Band – has rapidly become the most popular weight loss surgery, the gold standard for obesity surgery remains the gastric bypass. 

This surprised me – after all, Lap-Band is a much less invasive procedure with far fewer risks to the patient.  The Lap-Band takes just 20 minutes and can be performed as an outpatient procedure.   The stomach is reduced through the placement of a silicone band that is adjusted, or filled, with water to create a sensation of fullness in the patient.

By comparison the gastric bypass is a far more serious procedure, involving intestinal re-routing and up to 80% of the stomach permanently removed.  That doctors sworn to ‘first do no harm’ would prefer a maximally invasive operation over the minimally invasive Lap-Band seems counter-intuitive, to say the least.

It turns out that surgeons have different criteria for gold standard than patients which on reflection is not surprising. Patients value convenience (will I have to miss a lot of work? Will I be in a lot of pain?) While surgeons, of course, are focused first and foremost on patient safety – i.e. reducing the risk and potential seriousness of complications.

The gold standard of any surgical procedure is all about the availability of long-term tracking data and outcomes; the gold standard is a benchmark against which newer lesser known procedures are measured quality and effectiveness.

Long-term studies have clearly demonstrated that the gastric bypass regularly results in significant long-term loss of weight and recovery from Type 2 diabetes.

As well, gastric bypass results in improvement in other obesity correlates that pose serious health problems, for example cardiovascular risk factors and premature mortality.

Dr. Oz Advocates for Gastric Bypass Surgery
Most of us have heard weight loss surgery referred to as ‘the easy way out’, an attitude that suggests that healthy ‘normal’ weight loss can and should be achieved solely through diet and exercise.  Perhaps not surprisingly, Dr. Oz does not agree.

“We probably do only 1% of the gastric bypass surgeries we should do."  ~Dr. Oz

USA Today and Prevention magazine both quote Dr. Oz as having  no qualms recommending  gastric bypass surgery, a procedure he considers essential in the fight against obesity.

Dr. Oz points out that a 50-year old with a BMI of more than 40 (the medical definition for obesity, usually constituting more than 100 lbs of excess weight) has the same mortality rate as a cancer patient.  Most would not hesitate to operate for cancer, and the same should be true of obesity, says Dr. Oz.

“You have to do it with counseling and full awareness of what you're doing, of course. But if you get people to start losing 5% of their excess body weight, you're really taking a big whack out of the two-thirds of Americans."

Lifestyle Changes After  Gastric Bypass

Full awareness of what you’re doing includes, of course, the permanent limitations patients face post-RNY gastric bypass, which are substantial:

·         You can eat only a few ounces of food at a time.

·         You must eat very slowly and  thoroughly or risk the vomiting and pain of food getting ‘stuck

·         No room at the inn – you will not be able to drink before, during or after meals

·         A lifetime of vitamins and supplements to prevent bone and hair loss (due to malabsorption of nutrients caused by intestinal re-routing)

·         Avoiding simple sugars – candy, soft drinks, ketchup, etc – which move quickly through the stomach and intestines to cause dumping syndrome. 

Gastric Bypass Cost
The bad news: for many patients, gastric bypass is financially out of reach: the cost of gastric bypass in the US is typically more than $30,000, rarely covered by insurance or Medicare.  However, the globalization of medical care offers patients an opportunity to get the gastric bypass procedure with the world's most experienced obesity surgical teams, at a state-of-the-art hospital, for only a fraction of the US cost.

Gastric bypass medical travel programs through Health Travel Guides are all-inclusive, with prices starting at $10,215.  Work with surgeons that have performed thousands of gastric bypass procedures on US health travelers demanding more value for their health dollar. Submit a secure online medical profile; the results go directly to a top obesity surgical team for review, and a Health Travel Guide will contact you to answer any questions.

Related Resources:

• Green Zone Lap-Band resulting in faster, sooner weight loss  
• Is Weight Loss Surgery a Drastic Solution to the Problem of Childhood Obesity? 
• Gastric Plication: Is This Evolution of Reflux Surgery a Revolution in Weight Loss Surgery?

Laureli (Laureli@HealthTravelGuides.com / 866.978.2573 x121) has lost 80 lbs since having Lap-Band.

Is Green the New Black? Green Hornet, Green Lantern, Now Even Green Zone LAP-BAND

Allergan, makers of LAP-BAND, reports that more than 350,000 people around the world have had the LAP-BAND stomach restriction procedure for weight loss. Recently, the FDAapproved relaxed requirements for LAP-BAND, with millions more meeting the qualifying requirement of BMI > 30.

• QUIZ: Not just for soccer moms! What NFL lineman - and coach- had LAP-BAND?

The FDA change is just in time for more patients to take advantage of the latest innovation in non-invasive stomach restriction procedures: the Green Zone  LAP-BAND.  This evolution of the non-invasive procedure will help patients lose post-op weight faster than before, thanks to an FDA-approved medical device by Crospon called the  Endolumenal Functional Lumen Imaging Probe- or EndoFLIP.

Recently I watched a demonstration of the EndoFLIP, which allows the gastroenterologist surgeon to take multiple (up to 16) real-time images of the bariatric patient's gastroesophogeal tract, enabling very precise placement of the LAP-BAND so the patient feels a restriction that is not too loose (not enough weight loss) and not too tight (leading to nausea or reflux, and discomfort during and after eating), but just right for optimized weight loss.

Most importantly, the EndoFLIP enables the surgeon to perform the first fill of the LAP-BAND interoperatively - so patients leave the hospital with a 'jump start' to their LAP-BAND.  Most patients won't need their next fill for 5 or more months, a significant savings on hassle and cost compared to the regular LAP-BAND, which requires the first fill to take place within 4-6 weeks of band placement, and at least another band fill in the first six months. 

 

 Medical Travel Talk radio recently hosted Health Travel Guides on its show to learn about Green Zone LAP-BAND - case manager Leslie McDeavitt has worked with thousands of LAP-BAND patients having their procedure with the top Allergan-certified  obesity surgical team at the Weight Loss Surgery Center at Hospital Angeles in Tijuana Mexico, just 20 minutes from downtown San Diego, where more than 5,000 US patients have had their LAP-BAND placed by Dr. Juan Lopez Corvala.  

Thanks to a special arrangement with Irish medical device maker Crospon, the Green Zone LAP-BAND is available exclusively at Hospital Angeles, a super state-of-the-art facility in a gated medical campus that is the shining star of Mexico's largest private hospital network.

The all-inclusive Green Zone LAP-BAND medical travel program is offered at $5,950 including 2 nights at the hospital and all associated pre-op tests, doctor, surgeon, and medical fees.  Patients are also enrolled in a one-year follow-up program and receive one year of free fills   from Hosptal Angeles.

• read about other medical device manufacturers going abroad

Thanks to Leslie for providing the following information: to find out if you’re a candidate for Green Zone LAP-BAND and learn more about the medical travel process: 

•  click here to email  Leslie 

• call toll free 866.978.2573 x 119

•  securely submit you  personal medical history online (under age 18 use this form) 

  Related Articles:

  • FDA Approves Relaxed Requirements for LAP-BAND
  • VIDEO: This US Doctor Had His LAP-BAND in Mexico