Did you know that many people are advised to have bariatric surgery for high blood pressure? It is true, and bariatric surgery for high cholesterol is also often recommended by doctors.
Obesity affects millions of people in the United States, and currently, one out of every three American adults is considered obese according to the standard BMI scale. Sadly, this is more than just an issue of carrying excess weight; obesity throws your entire body off balance and increases the risk for developing serious health conditions like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. Conditions like these are directly related to obesity and are the second most common causes of preventable premature death in the country. (Smoking is first).
For decades, if someone needed medical intervention for obesity, their only option was bariatric surgery. These surgeries help individuals lose a large amount of weight by changing the size and shape of their stomach and sometimes altering their digestive system.
Today we are going to talk about what bariatric surgery involves, why bariatric surgery helps with hypertension, high cholesterol, and other metabolic conditions, and discuss an endoscopic option that can promote weight loss, similar to surgery, that can reduce or eliminate the risk for these dangerous metabolic complications.
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What is Bariatric Surgery?
Bariatric surgery helps people lose weight by reducing the size of their stomach and also may involve altering their digestive system to reroute the food that is consumed so it skips a large portion of the digestive process. The two most common surgeries done are the gastric sleeve and gastric bypass.
During gastric sleeve surgery (also called sleeve gastrectomy), the surgeon removes about 75 to 85 percent of the patient’s stomach. What is left behind is shaped and stapled into a narrow, tube-like pouch, which becomes their new stomach. The surgery and new stomach pouch can only hold a very small amount of food and help them eat smaller portions, feel full much sooner, and experience fewer hunger signals.
Gastric bypass surgery goes a few steps further and involves reducing the size of the stomach and then creating a small pouch at the top of the stomach and connecting it directly to the lower portion of the small intestine. This means food completely bypasses part of the digestive system, so fewer calories and nutrients are absorbed by the body, and it can lead to significant weight loss.
Both of these surgeries can help people lose a substantial amount of weight by limiting how much they can eat and changing how their body digests and uses the calories from the food they consume.
Does Bariatric Surgery Help With Hypertension?
Research has shown that losing even as little as 5% to 10% of your current body weight can significantly improve metabolic conditions and reduce the risk of other serious health conditions.
Losing a significant amount of weight reduces the strain on your heart, helps reduce inflammation so blood vessels open wider, improves how your body uses insulin, impacts hormones that help with weight management, and improves your cholesterol levels.
Bariatric surgery may be a good option for some people combating obesity, but what we want to make perfectly clear is that the surgery is not what improves conditions like high blood pressure or high cholesterol. Losing weight and reducing BMI are the reasons behind these metabolic improvements.
How Weight Loss Helps High Blood Pressure
A common side effect of obesity is high blood pressure (hypertension), and today in the United States alone, there are approximately 60 million people who suffer from obesity and also have high blood pressure. When someone is carrying too much extra weight, their heart has to work harder to pump blood. Excess fat also produces hormones and chemicals that make the blood vessels tighten and raise the pressure inside the arteries.
It is not having bariatric surgery that can improve high blood pressure, but the resulting weight loss that reduces the strain on their heart, lowers inflammation, and helps their body use insulin more effectively. When someone loses weight, often these issues resolve enough that their blood pressure improves organically, and some are even able to stop taking their blood pressure medicine completely.
How Weight Loss Helps High Cholesterol
Obesity can raise your unhealthy cholesterol levels significantly, and people with excess weight often have higher levels of LDL (which is known as “bad” cholesterol) and triglycerides, which are fats found in the blood. Excess fat lowers your levels of “good” cholesterol (HDL) that helps to protect your heart health. This is a dangerous combination and creates a higher risk of clogged arteries, heart attack, and stroke.
Losing weight can reduce your LDL and triglyceride levels and increase your level of HDL. The more weight that is lost, the more improvement there is in these critical cholesterol levels, which is why weight loss is considered one of the most effective ways to improve cholesterol without having to use medication.
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What Surgery Helps With High Blood Pressure And Lowering Cholesterol?
Many people undergo bariatric surgery for high cholesterol or high blood pressure because they have been unable to lose weight with just diet and exercise alone. This is often an effective solution, and sometimes the only option due to their circumstances, but today there is an alternative to surgery that can help lower blood pressure and improve cholesterol levels.
What Is Suture Sculpt ESG?
Suture Sculpt ESG (endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty) has been proven to be a safe and effective alternative to gastric sleeve bariatric surgery and offers the potential for significant weight loss. Batash Endoscopic Weight Loss Center offers ESG in NYC and has numerous patients who have experienced amazing weight loss results after undergoing the procedure.
Suture Sculpt ESG is a newer weight loss procedure that is done without surgery or incisions, and everything is done from the inside using the mouth and throat to gain access to the stomach.
ESG is done with a medical device called an endoscope that looks like a hollow, flexible hose and is outfitted with a powerful camera that transmits a live video feed onto a monitor during the procedures.
The endoscope is lowered through the mouth into the stomach, and then using a special suturing device, stitches are strategically placed inside the stomach to make it smaller and reshape it into a tube-like pouch. It is done as an outpatient, so there is no hospital stay involved, and the recovery is usually only around three days, which is significantly faster than after traditional surgery.
Just like with bariatric surgery, Suture Sculpt ESG helps people lose a significant amount of weight, which can lead to major improvements in blood pressure, healthier cholesterol levels, and a lower risk of developing other serious metabolic conditions, heart disease, or stroke.
Want To Learn More About Avoiding Bariatric Surgery For Hypertension and High Cholesterol?
Obesity can lead to serious health issues, but losing weight can help get metabolic issues like blood pressure and high cholesterol under control. Historically, bariatric surgery has helped many people reach a healthier weight, but non-surgical Suture Sculpt ESG offers similar benefits without going under the knife.
Losing weight is the element that drives these metabolic improvements and not the method used to accomplish it. If you are struggling with weight loss to improve hypertension or cholesterol issues, contact us to learn more about Suture Sculpt ESG.
Set up a consultation and find out how non-surgical, outpatient Suture Sculpt ESG can help you lose weight and improve your health. You will be back to your normal routine in a matter of days, and your Batash Endoscopic Weight Loss team will be by your side helping to guide you through the process. We invite you to listen to some patient testimonials and see the results they achieved for yourself. Make your appointment to learn more today!
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