If you’ve been considering a bariatric surgery procedure, and you live in the San Antonio area of Texas, you have a new option to consider. According to the San Antonio Business Journal, a pair of bariatric surgeons have teamed up to open a new practice.
Doctors Terive Duperier and Michael Seger have set up shop in the San Antonio Medical Center, where they will perform bariatric surgeries including gastric bypass, sleeve gastrectomy and a variety of laparoscopic procedures for surgical weight loss.
Duperier attended the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine and is a member of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. Seger got his M.D. from the University of Texas Health Science Center and is also a member of the ASMBS.
If you have questions about this new San Antonio practice or the bariatric surgeons behind it, please visit www.bmioftexas.com.
Related articles on this topic:
Bariatric Doctors and How to Find Them
In this article, you’ll learn some useful techniques for locating a weight loss surgeon in your area, and how to research them once you do find them. It’s worth a read if you plan to have bariatric surgery in the near future and need to locate a qualified surgeon to perform it.
21 Questions About Bariatric Surgery
If you’ve never perused this article on our website (or elsewhere on the web), now is the time to do it. We consider this required reading for anyone considering a surgical procedure for weight loss, whether it’s in San Antonio or anywhere else in the U.S.
On numerous occasions in the past, we have written about the relationship between bariatric surgery and diabetes — particularly, how such surgeries can reduce the effects of diabetes.
Now there is new data that supports this finding, particularly in the case of obese teenagers who undergo gastric bypass surgery. Dr. Thomas Inge, from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, was the head researcher on this study. According to Inge, this was the first study that looked at adolescents with type 2 diabetes. Previous studies have had success with diabetes remission in adults, but until now teens have been left out of such research.
Type 2 diabetes is often associated with obesity, and therein lies the connection between bariatric weight-loss surgery and the elimination of diabetes. According to Inge: “Our study found that, in most cases, teens can lose one-third of their weight and come off diabetes medications with remission of their diabetes one year after bypass surgery.”
The study was conducted in a typical A/B fashion, where one group undergoes a certain type of treatment, and another group experiences a different kind of treatment. In all, the researchers looked at 78 teenagers with type 2 diabetes. Eleven of them had gastric bypass surgery, while the remaining 67 teens got the usual treatment for their diabetes.
The group that underwent gastric bypass surgery lost, on average, 34 percent of their body weight. But what’s more surprising is the fact that their diabetes went into remission as well, while the other teens (who did not have the surgery) had to continue with their diabetes meds.
The full study was published in the January issue of Pediatrics magazine.
What you do after bariatric surgery may be just as important as the surgery itself.
We have written about this before, but a new survey underscores the importance of proper follow-care after a bariatric weight-loss procedure.
The survey was conducted by Harris Interactive, a research company, on behalf of the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS). The group surveyed 208 patients who underwent gastric bypass and 201 who had some kind of gastric banding surgery.
The results should noted by anyone who is planning to have a bariatric procedure. The patients who followed the doctors guidelines after bariatric surgery lost 35 percent more weight during the first year following their procedure. They also tended to keep the weight off after a period of several years.
What does this mean? Well, according to this one particular survey, you will likely loose more weight after your bariatric procedure if you closely follow your surgeon’s advice. This includes follow-visits, your diet after surgery, proper exercise, etc.
Regular exercise and improved eating habits are two of the most important changes bariatric patients have to make after their weight-loss surgery procedures. These are also two of the areas surgeons say their patients struggle with. A lack of exercise and bad eating habits are typically what lead to the weight problems in the first place, so it can be difficult for some patients to change these habits — but it’s critical that they do.
One of the recommendations mentioned in the press release associated with this survey is to standardize the type of care given to patients after bariatric surgery. According to Alan Wittgrove, a former president of the aforementioned ASMBS: “[Patient] follow-up care tends to vary from bariatric program to bariatric program … there is a need to standardize follow-up care so patients achieve the best outcomes.” Sound like a good idea to me.
Related article: Life After Weight Loss Surgery
Surgery Centers | Senior Editor | 
January 23, 2009 8:16 am | 
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