Many patients who undergo bariatric surgery will later discover that many experts recommend bariatric vitamins as a post-procedure supplement. But what are these vitamins in the first place, and who needs to take them?

We will do our best to answer these questions here in this article. But please note, we are educational publishers — and not doctors — so please read this article on bariatric vitamins with that in mind.

The following is a summary of everything we could find about the need for vitamins after bariatric surgery (at least, it’s everything we find without making a trip to the library).

Why Take Vitamins After Surgery?

Many physicians recommend vitamins after a bariatric weight-loss surgery procedure. This is especially true for the gastric bypass surgery. When you consider what takes place, you have to admit that a gastric bypass is pretty brutal on the body. Essentially, the stomach is sectioned off into a smaller upper area and a lower area. The upper area is the only usable part, which is what leads to decreased eating and (by extension) weight loss.

Here’s where bariatric vitamins come into the picture. As part of the gastric bypass procedure, the patient’s small intestine is rerouted to the newly created upper portion of the stomach (the smaller section). This is what leads to malabsorption problems. From a bariatric perspective, malabsorption basically means that your body is not absorbing nutrients and vitamins as well as it did before surgery.

The Medical Advantage of Bariatric Vitamins

So now you can probably see the advantage to taking certain vitamins after a bariatric procedure. If your post-surgery body cannot absorb certain nutrients and vitamins from the foods you eat, then you’ll have to get those essential nutrients by way of supplementation (mainly by taking vitamin supplements).

Calcium and iron are two of the essential items that patients not absorb as well after bariatric surgery. So when health experts recommend vitamin supplementation after a bariatric procedure, these two items are usually high on the list.

Deficiencies in vitamins A, D, E and K are also reported in a lot of post-surgery patients. This is why many nutritionists recommend a good multivitamin for people who under go a gastric bypass surgery.

Obviously, these are not things you want your body to lack. A deficiency of vitamin D, for example, can lead to osteoporosis later on down the road. And a severe lack of vitamin A can negatively affect your vision.

So the primary advantage of taking bariatric vitamins is that your body gets what it needs!

Our Recommendation - Bariatric Choice

There are plenty of places to go online when searching for bariatric foods, vitamins and the like. But for the simplicity of the online ordering process, and the wide variety of vitamin products available, we recommend Bariatric Choice as a supplier.