How does weight gain happen in those who had bariatric surgery?

461 views

My understanding was that since the stomach is a lot smaller, you can only handle small portion sizes and that’s how you end up losing weight and having it stay off. I do coding for a medical clinic and I see a fair amount of chart notes of people who had the procedure done (and not the temporary one where they can remove the band, either), and they end up gaining a ton of weight back a few years later.

How/why does that happen? Is it the body adjusting somehow?

In: 26

12 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Don’t treat this like a simple plumbing problem.

The success of these surgeries fall across a bell curve. Those who gain weight often figure out they just need to eat smaller portions all the time to overcome the reduced stomach volume.

Patient factors are also important. If you look at the longitudinal studies on Roen-en-Y bypass surgeries, almost everyone slowly gains weight long-term after the initial weight loss, and that initial weight loss only happened in 70% and only about 50% ever reach their target weight.

Demographically, those who had higher BMI and lower education gained the weight back faster, while those with lower BMI and higher education or got a tummy tuck kept it off or gained it back relatively slower.

You are viewing 1 out of 12 answers, click here to view all answers.