Adjustable Gastric Band, How Does It Promote Weight Loss? - Dr. DeBarros

Dr. DeBarros:
How the band works, and that is sort of a difficult question to come into play because that’s still sort of a work-in-progress of exactly how the band works. How it’s described to work is we place full fluid into a reservoir and the reservoir typically is on your left hand side and it is placed underneath the skin; there is no part of an instrumentation hanging out of the patient or anything like that. Everything is concealed under the skin.

The actual band itself is placed around the upper portion of the stomach. It is not placed around the esophagus. It is not placed in any place that will be a danger to the patient. It is placed around the upper portion of the stomach and then we suture it into place to prevent any movement or slippage. That is connected to some tubing; the tubing is connected to a port; the port is placed on the left hand side.

Now when a patient comes into an office typically, that port is accessed with a small needle and it is a special type of needle that we use for both of these bands, okay? That is access there and then saline is placed within the device and it fills a small balloon here inside the band and the balloon will constrict the stomach, which will create a small gastric pouch here at the top of the stomach, okay?

So, the theory is, when someone eats, it will go into this pouch and then over a certain period of time, trickle through, which has a couple of different effects – A, because of the nerves are being stretched here you will have satiety, which means you will want to stop eating pretty quickly because the nerves and the sensation is being stretched there.

Also there’s an effect where it sort of trickles in over time and how fast it trickles in sort of is controversial. Some people say it’s very quick; some people say it’s not quick. There’s been only one study that I have seen that showed that it went through in a relatively quick period of time, but in either event it slows down the patient’s eating, okay? And since we are slowing down the eating and we are getting more satiety the patients eat less and, combined with an exercise regimen because no matter what bariatric procedure you do, gastric bypass, LAP-BAND®, gastric sleeve, it still need an exercise regimen and that’s why programs are very important. That will also decrease the amount of hunger a patient has. So typically we would see a patient go from an 1800 to 2000 calorie diet a day down to about 1100 to 1200 calories a day.

About Dr. John J. DeBarros, M.D., F.A.C.S.:
Dr. John DeBarros is an experienced surgeon and board certified by the American Board of Surgery and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He is a member of The American Society of Bariatric and Metabolic Surgeons, The American College of Surgeons, The Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons and the Maricopa Medical Society.

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