Obesity is not a death sentence: the Shalimov Center successfully uses modern surgery to combat excess weight
Kyiv • UNN
Surgical methods are effectively used in Ukraine for long-term weight loss, especially in morbid obesity. The Shalimov Center uses bariatric surgery and balloon implantation.
Obesity is recognized as a chronic disease that progresses and is accompanied by a number of dangerous complications. Despite common diets and physical activity, most patients regain the excess weight they lost within a few years. In Ukraine today, modern surgical methods are effectively used, which give a chance for long-term weight loss even in morbid obesity. This was reported by the Shalimov Center, reports UNN.
Obesity is a chronic metabolic disease characterized by excessive development of adipose tissue, which is progressive, and has a certain range of complications and a high probability of recurrence after the end of the course of treatment
The main criterion for diagnosing obesity is an excess of total body weight relative to the norm. It is he who determines the severity of the disease.
According to the criteria developed by the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute of the United States, overweight "corresponds to a body mass index (BMI) range of 25 to 29.9, and obesity - when BMI is more than 30 kg/m2".
According to the Shalimov Center, in Eastern and Central Europe, 130 million people are overweight, and 30 million have morbid obesity. People suffering from obesity have a shorter life expectancy and a 12-fold increase in mortality rates before the age of 40.
Conservative methods of treating obesity (diet, drug therapy, physical activity) allow to achieve an effect only in 5-10% of patients. More than 95% of patients not only regain their initial weight within a few years after conservative treatment, but also increase it
Surgical treatment of obesity is currently developed in Ukraine, in particular bariatric surgery, which has two directions.
The first is related to reducing the absorption surface of the small intestine and creating conditions for unsatisfactory digestion of food and incomplete absorption (malabsorption). Such surgical interventions are called malabsorptive.
The second is to reduce the volume of the stomach and, as a result, limit the amount of food - gastrorestrictive operations.
In addition, there are combined methods of treatment of this pathology:
- biliopancreatic and distal gastric bypass, which combine the principles of restrictive and malabsorptive techniques;
- gastric bypass in various variants, including mini bypass and gastric bypass with one anastomosis (has a number of advantages due to minimally invasiveness, which allows to reduce the patient's stay in the hospital and obtain a good cosmetic effect);
- sleeve gastrectomy.
The most effective doctors call implantation of intragastric balloons. A foreign body - a balloon filled with liquid (up to 700 ml) - is introduced into the stomach cavity, which is installed under the control of an endoscope for up to 6 months. This method can be used as an independent one for initial forms of obesity or to prepare for bariatric surgery. It allows to achieve a decrease in body weight by 10-15 kg, and in some patients up to 20-30 kg.
