The Roux-en-Y laparoscopic gastric bypass can help many people who are severely overweight (100 pounds or more) lose their excess weight, maintain their weight loss and enjoy a dramatic increase in quality of life.

The Roux-en-Y procedure reduces the size of the stomach by using a staple line to partition the stomach into two parts, with a very small "pouch" above the staple line. This tiny pouch can hold about 1 ounce, about the size of your thumb. The pouch is then hooked up to a segment of small intestine.

Why you lose weight

After surgery, food will travel down your throat and enter the small pouch. The food exits a small opening into the small intestine. The food travels down this new pathway and eventually enters the large intestine. This may give patients control over their hunger so that they're satisfied with a small amount of food. In addition, they should be free from hunger in between meals.

An alternative now offered

While the Roux en-Y procedure for gastric bypass surgery is considered the gold standard in the bariatric industry, the LAP-BAND® gives morbidly obese patients a choice when considering their options to dramatically improve their health.

The LAP-BAND® System is an adjustable gastric band designed to help you lose excess body weight. It reduces the stomach capacity and restricts the amount of food that can be consumed at one time.

The LAP-BAND® procedure doesn't require stomach cutting and stapling or gastrointestinal re-routing to bypass normal digestion. During the procedure, a silicone ring is placed around the upper part of the stomach and filled with saline in its inner surface. This creates a new, smaller stomach pouch that can hold only a small amount of food, so the food storage area in the stomach is reduced. The band also controls the stoma between the new upper pouch and the lower part of the stomach.

Once in place, an access port fixed beneath the skin of your abdomen allows LAP-BAND®-certified physicians to change the stoma size by adding or subtracting saline. The diameter of the band can be modified to meet individual needs.