Hershey Medical Center. This is Ask Us Anything About... Surgical Weight Loss,
I'm Scott Gilbert. You've probably heard the statistics and alarming 160 million
Americans, if not more, are categorized as either overweight or obese. That raises
the obvious question, what can be done to try to reverse this problem for some?
Diet and exercise may be the best option. For others, surgical weight loss may be
the best option. Here today to talk with us about that is Dr. Anne Rogers. She is
Director of Penn State Surgical Weight Loss. Thanks for being here today!
It's great to be here. Thank you! So some people watching might be asking that
question I'm sure you get all the time, How do I know if surgical weight loss is
for me? What are some of the things that make someone a good candidate?
So a lot of people feel alone in the world but they're not. 5% of all humans qualify
for surgical weight loss. We tell by body mass index, which is a comparison of
height and weight. In simple terms if you weigh approximately a hundred pounds
more than you should, You would qualify. And when it comes to diet and exercise,
I mentioned before those are options for some people but how do you know whether
you've done that long enough and need to explore another option. Well, all of our
patients have tried every kind of diet in the world prior to coming to our
program so many of our patients have been dieting since they were little
children. Most people want to try diet and exercise first and you know eating
right and exercising are important even if you're going to have surgery. But it's
reasonable to try that first. And in terms of the demographics of people
having surgery, it's not just for adults there are some adolescents for whom it's
a good choice. Absolutely, we're one of the few accredited adolescent
weight-loss centers in the state so we accept patients who are of adult size
starting around age 15. You're watching, Ask Us Anything About...
Surgical Weight Loss from penn state health, i'm Scott Gilbert along with Dr.,
excuse me, Dr. Ann Rodgers and we welcome your questions and comments.
You can enter them right in the comment field below this Facebook post and we'll
pose them to Dr. Rogers, whether you're watching this live or even if you're
watching on playback. We'll make sure we get an answer for you. You know, from the
time they first express interest , what then happens? What's that series of
events that happens in terms of screening somebody and making sure
that they are a good candidate? So we have live information
seminars that patients can attend given by a surgeon and they can ask their
questions and learn about the program. And what we do. We also have an online
seminar that patients can visit to view anytime take a little short quiz to show
that they watched it and then there's some paperwork we ask patients to submit
one or two pages and once we've had a chance to look over the paperwork we
call patients and get them right into the program. The program consists of
visits with our dieticians to get nutritional education there's also a
visit with our psychologists, some testing and evaluation to make sure patients are
safe and stable. And then how long they remain in the program is mostly driven
by insurance. Some insurers require three months and others require six. Dr. Rogers
mentioned a video will post that link along with this Facebook post and also
for more information the number about to call about those seminars is
717-531-7260 again that seven one seven five three
one seven two six zero. There are various types of bariatric surgery and
procedures that can be done. Can you walk me through those? Sure! The procedure
almost everybody is heard of is the gastric bypass. At one time that was the
most common operation for weight. Currently, the most common operation in
the whole world is something called sleeve gastrectomy. And that's most of
what we do. We still do the gastric bypass and we're one of the few centers
in the state that offers something called the duodenal switch procedure. So
three different procedures, How do you determine which one is for an
individual patient? Well, we ask patients to listen and learn
about all the kinds of procedures while they're in the program and then when
they meet with the surgeon, based on their medical issues and their lifestyle
we agree together on what would be the best option for them. And given that it's
not perhaps as common as the others, can you explain the duodenal switch and
what that involves? The duodenal switch includes having a sleeve gastrectomy
where you make a narrow tube out of the stomach and remove the big stretchy part
and then it also includes a bypass the intestines . So it's really the
only operation we have that can help really big folks get to an ideal body
weight but it's really intended for people in the higher ranges of body mass
index. You're watching Ask Us Anything About
Surgical Weight Loss from Penn State Health. This is Dr. Anne Rogers, Director
of the Penn State Surgical Weight Loss Program and she welcomes your questions.
Here again, whether you're watching this live or on playback and of course we
encourage you to share this information too. Share this post if you find this
information helpful as you hopefully do. One of the questions I'm sure you get
from a lot of patients up front is well obviously I have a certain target weight
I'd love to get down to but how much weight will I lose with this procedure?
So we tell people, on average with common operations like the sleeve or the bypass,
they're likely to lose about a third of their weight. Some people lose more some
may lose a little less. In some ways it has to do with how you use the procedure.
Whether you're eating right and exercising, whether you still have a
metabolic rate and you can still burn calories. Things like that. I was going to
ask you about that, after the procedure, how important is it
that people take care of themselves after the procedure and don't just
expect the surgery to solve other problems? Yeah,
the surgery is in no way magic and it's really not the easy way out and some
people tell our patients they're taking the easy way out. It's not. It's a total
lifestyle change and if they don't incorporate eating right and exercising
the operation won't be as effective. Is that part of that screening beforehand
to see what the likelihood is that they'll stick with that program after
the fact? To some extent, yeah we educate patients as much as possible about how
important their own lifestyle changes are going to be. It's a pretty major
procedure any the ones you mentioned so as with as with any surgery there's a
risk of complications. Can you talk about how you try to mitigate those. Well, the
great thing is that since about the year 2000 most bariatric procedures have been
done laparoscopically meaning through very small incisions. So since that
changeover, it's gotten to be extremely safe in fact the complication rate of
bariatric surgery is lower than that of things like hernia and gallbladder
surgeries so the old horror stories people used to tell just are
not true anymore. You're watching Ask Us Anything About... Surgical Weight Loss from
Penn State Health. I'm Scott Gilbert alongside Dr. Ann Rodgers, she's
Director of Penn State Surgical Weight Loss. You know, I was reading in the news
that there was a study out of Cleveland Clinic recently that explored the
benefits of surgical weight loss, specifically those who have uncontrolled
diabetes and he surprised they're on now it's not just it didn't just seem to
have improvements in their weight but also in dealing with a very serious
disease? Well there was no surprise for me but I think there were many surprises
for the general public and for a lot of our internal medicine doctors to see
that this is not just a valid option for the treatment of diabetes, it may be a
preferred option for a lot of patients with diabetes and the study basically
showed that gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy were both far more effective
at reversing or at least controlling diabetes compared to intensive medical
management. So those conditions brought on by weight. And there are some
other conditions it helps with to, correct? Many, many... A lot of those weight
associated conditions like sleep apnea, high blood pressure, high cholesterol,
joint pains, there are many weight associated
problems that tend to get better after the surgery. You've been watching, Ask Us
Anything About Surgical Weight Loss from Penn State Health. Again, we encourage you
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