Using anti-obesity instead of weight control surgery?

Obesity surgery begins with a simple premise: If you make the patient's stomach smaller, he or she will eat less, so they will lose weight.

But in recent years, surgical methods of treating obesity have yielded positive results, researchers are tracing back to scientific clues, to find out what's going on.

Their findings are beginning to uncover a much more complex picture of weight: how the diet is and how much exercise is actually needed to really change your body weight. It turns out, a variety of hormones from the gut, and their communication with the brain, play an important role in how the body maintains and loses weight .

Doctor Sunil Bhoyrul

Exactly, the analysis of the treatment results of surgical obesity has brought new insights into the treatment of human weight loss and the mechanism of appetite, according to researchers. .

" Based on the analysis of the results of weight loss through surgery, we have begun to understand the physiological mechanism of weight loss better than the knowledge we once understood ," according to Sunil Bhoyrul. , a weight loss surgeon, at Olde Del Mar Surgical, in La Jolla, California, USA.

The results of the study are money to discover the mechanism to control body weight, without requiring patients to undergo surgery.

There are several different types of weight loss surgery (also known as slimming surgery), including: stomach tightening (size reduction) and gastric bypass (altered metabolism and reduced absorption), but all both involve making the stomach smaller.

Patients can take up to 60% to 80% of the body's excess weight over a period of 1 to 4 years, after surgery, and have more time to control their body weight, over diet, Dr. Bhoyrul said. However, up to one third of obese patients who have undergone slimming surgery, are obese again, gaining weight before their surgery after 10 years, Bhoyrul noted.

On the other hand, researchers found that weight loss after surgery is fundamentally different from weight loss achieved by proper diet.

The key factor in this difference is the hormone ghrelin , which stimulates appetite. When we diet, increasing ghrelin levels in the body makes us feel hungry. We can lose weight, but ghrelin levels are still high, and we will continue to feel hungry even after eating. The concentration of Ghrelin drops only when we regain weight, according to Robin Blackstone, a slimming surgeon at Scottsdale Slimming Center, in Arizona, USA.

" Many people are trying to lose weight, they struggle fiercely with cravings, to keep their body weight at an ideal level, " said Dr. Miguel Burch, deputy director of general surgery and invasive surgery. minimal encroachment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, in Los Angeles, USA.

But after these patients had gastric surgery, the levels of Ghrelin in their bodies dropped significantly, Burch said.

" They lost more weight than before and even without feeling hungry, they still have to try to eat more ," Burch said. This explains why patients after slimming surgery can control their weight, Burch added.

The concentration of Ghrelin in the body, may be just the tip of the iceberg about hormonal changes. There may be many other hormones, which are able to influence the patient to lose more weight, after the fat reduction surgery that we don't know yet, Burch said.

The link between the brain and stomach : The results of surgery to reduce fat have also emphasized the role of the brain in controlling weight. The brain plays an important role in managing your stomach and waist.

" Previously, we did not realize that the brain plays a very important role in weight control ," Bhoyrul said. " We think the mind will simply tell people to eat less to lose weight. It turns out the brain also handles many problems related to body weight control ," Bhoyrul said.

The brain acts as the body's temperature and energy regulator. The brain controls how you use energy, and determines when to store and use energy. There is an ongoing conversation between the gut and the brain that takes place through hormones, according to Bhoyrul.

Decoding this conversation can help researchers understand the best way to lose weight, Bhoyrul said.

Recent findings emphasize that more research is needed to understand the relationship and connection between the stomach and the brain. Ghrelin hormone levels have not decreased, in patients who have undergone gastric strip surgery, anti-obesity, even though they no longer feel hungry. Dr. Emma Patterson, a slimming surgeon in Portland, Oreon, USA: may be because hormones ghrelin communicate with the brain differently, after this surgery occurs, Patterson said.

There will be an equally effective anti-obesity drug without surgery. " If we can understand how the body works effectively after expensive surgeries . we can put anything into it inside a pill ," Patterson said.

One of the possible goals is to create enzymes involved in the production of hormones Ghrelin , Burch said.

Currently, researchers are seeking to develop an anti-obesity vaccine that prevents hormone production . However, some argue that, because many hormones are related to weight loss, targeting only one goal cannot help with weight loss.

Most of us are skeptical: whether " turning off the switch of ghrelin hormone maker " may be the universal answer for all.