A Drink Or Two And Gastric Bypass Surgery Could Be A Dangerous Mix

After many years of argument we are at last coming around to the unavoidable conclusion that surgery is the only really successful and lasting answer to the problem of severe obesity. And not before time!

Today obesity is probably the leading health problem in the Western world and in the United States alone some 60 percent of people are overweight, with close to 24 percent being obese and 3 percent extremely obese. Now 3 percent may not seem like a large figure but when you realize that it is more than 9 million severely obese individuals this is a pretty major problem.

In spite of the fact that attention is increasingly being turned towards the problem of obesity and its treatment, it is surprising just how much we still have to learn about the condition, including the affect that alcohol can have on people who have undergone obesity surgery.

For a time now there has been some anecdotal evidence that people who have undergone weight loss surgery are affected more by alcohol but it was not until October 2006 that any attempt was made to look at the extent of the problem.

In a quite small-scale study the affects of alcohol on 19 people who had weight loss surgery was compared to the affects on 17 control subjects. The individuals taking part in the study each drank a small 5 ounce glass of red wine and their breath alcohol was then measured until it fell back to zero.

The study showed that alcohol levels reached a higher level in the weight loss patients and also took much longer to fall back to zero. However, most interestingly, the study also found that just }a single|one} small glass of wine was sufficient to push the breath alcohol level in several weight loss surgery patients over the legal limit for driving in several states.

The reason for the heightened affects of alcohol on weight loss surgery patients is not difficult to understand as surgery both reduces the size of the stomach and bypasses a section of the intestine, both areas of the body which play a key role in breaking down alcohol before it finds its way into the bloodstream.

So precisely what does this mean for weight loss surgery patients?

Well, apart from the obvious need to be careful and most definitely to refrain from driving after drinking even very small amounts of alcohol, the implications for weight loss surgery patients do in fact go a bit wider.

A major problem is that alcohol acts as a relaxant and this causes problems with post-surgical weight loss and to the maintenance of weight loss. As alcohol relaxes the stomach, including the lower esophageal sphincter, together with the intestine, patients who enjoy a drink can eat more and the presence of alcohol effectively counters the affects of surgery. As if this were not bad enough a lot of people become more socially active after surgery and this frequently means an increased consumption of alcohol.

There will still need to be a great deal more research carried out but, in the end, the simple fact is that people who have obesity surgery must be aware of the risks of alcohol and adjust their lifestyle accordingly.

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