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Many of us would love to lose all our extra weight. But many of us need to do so, or we risk such dreadful weight-related problems as heart disease, heart failure, even death. So people who are obese (and 100 pounds or more overweight) have been given a more intense option than dieting and exercising-which have for them failed. They have been using weight loss surgery, which has become a successful treatment for obese people who suffer or might soon suffer many problems from the added pounds.
The most popular weight loss surgery of the late sixties (done first in 1954) was a bypass method known as JIB, or the Jejuno-Ilieal Bypass. However, this method-involving a joining of the small intestine parts to bypass the small bowel-was rife with bad side effects and complications despite the patients' permanently losing weight.
An alternative to JIB yielded another bypass style of weight loss surgery, the gastric bypass (more formerly called BPD-Biliopancreatic Diversion). This method removed apart of the gastric pouch, which limited food intake and affected food absorption. But again, malabsorption components of this surgery caused complications and another surgery was waiting in the wings.
This time, the weight loss surgery was a combo-method, taking the benefits of BPD and leaving (or remedying) the problems by adding a Duodenal switch. But a complicated procedure-even in the postmodern eighties with postmodern technology in full swing--has inherent risks, so the weight loss surgery would have to evolve into yet another way to treat obesity.
So in 1994, Dr. Kuzmak devised an adjustable band that is attached around the stoma opening to reduce the stomach to a half-ounce pouch, to obviously limit the amount of food it would hold. While a predecessor to this VBG (Vertical Banded Gastroplasty) was a gastric band that also included staples and brought with it the same list of complications as early types of weight loss surgery the AGB (Adjustable Gastric Banding) method has of now only a short list of less severe problems. Obese people who have nothing to lose but weight are still quite positive about the results, and have been heard to remark that it has been the only thing so far that has worked for them-when every other effort has failed. This certainly convinces them they are not and never were the cause of the failure to reduce to begin with.
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