Getting Sleeved When You’re Not Morbidly Obese


Why would you elect to have gastric sleeve surgery when you’re not overweight or experiencing weight related illnesses?

Sounds crazy doesn’t it?

Yet, the procedure is helping those who have had it done live a normal healthy life again.

For the last 11 years I’ve been educating the public on the health benefits of the vertical sleeve gastrectomy (VSG) or in laymen’s terms the gastric sleeve surgery. And in that time I’ve helped almost 11,000 patients become thinner and healthier.

But, lately I’ve been seeing a new trend…using the gastric sleeve as a treatment to help cure or control certain genetic diseases such as Type 2 diabetes and gastroparesis.

You might be asking why does the gastric sleeve have an impact on these diseases?

Well, the explanation may surprise you. I’ve talked about this before in numerous articles and shared the answer on The #AskDrA Show several times. But, for those that are new and haven’t read the articles or watched the show, I’ll share again.

It’s all about hormone control!

Those hormones regulate what happens in your body. When your body isn’t delivering enough hormones, crazy things will happen. And those crazy things aren’t good.

For those suffering from Type 2 diabetes and gastroparesis it means something went wrong in the delivery of those hormones and now your body can’t produce insulin or breakdown food in the stomach. And now the patient requires insulin or medication to be able to function throughout the day.

Let’s talk about the surgery!

During a typical VSG procedure roughly 80% of the stomach is removed and the remaining portion is stapled together, then sutured to resemble a sleeve. Now with a smaller stomach the patient will learn to consume better food choices, which includes more proteins and produce.

Because the stomach is now smaller, the body is resetting the way it responds to stimuli and that in turn means balancing the hormones that are produced. Patients with health issues are discovering that the gastric sleeve has given them the ability to cut back or even eliminate the medications they were taking. So although these patients weren’t chronically over weight or suffering from obesity related illnesses, they did have issues that prevented them from enjoying life to the fullest.

If you could reduce the medications you’re taking and feel better wouldn’t you want to explore all the options?

If you would like to learn more about the gastric sleeve surgery and how it can benefit your health, I would encourage you to read as much as you can, especially the articles on the Endobariatric blog, and watch all the episodes of The #AskDrA Show. The show answers hundreds of patient submitted questions that cover a wide range of topics.

I would also suggest visiting our website and discovering what others are saying about us, viewing the hundreds of before and after pictures and reading about the Endobariatric difference.

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