Gastric sleeve surgery is a procedure that prevents you from overeating and actually decreases the size of your stomach. Dr. Choi explains the science behind the gastric sleeve and what makes it so effective for patients that have already undergone the surgery.
How Does the Gastric Sleeve Work?
In the United States the most popular surgery right now is the gastric sleeve. What is the gastric sleeve? the gastric sleeve is when you cut 70 to 80% of the stomach and make it look like a banana. Some of the patients have stated “oh my God you’re cutting 70 to 80% of my stomach out Dr. Choi why is that?” Because within that portion of the stomach that I take out there’s a hormone here called ghrelin and that is responsible for hunger. So my patients tell me after the surgery “Dr. Choi I’m not as hungry anymore or I don’t look for food as I did prior to the surgery” and that is the most foreign thing about having gastric sleeve surgery. In addition to that as I stated that your stomach now looks like a banana or is in the shape of a banana, it’s not as big as the stomach, so why is that important? Because you’re not going to be able to eat as much food as you did in the in the past. Therefore you might eat like two or three bites or you might not eat as a full hamburger as you did before, but maybe you’ll eat a half or a quarter. That’s why it’s called a restrictive process so gastric sleeve not only is a restrictive process but also it prevents you from being hungry because of the ghrelin portion that’s removed by the greater portion of the stomach.
