Treatment Options in Morbid Obesity

*Tülay Diken Allahverdi*

## **Abstract**

Obesity has become the most common fatal and the second most common preventable epidemic disease after smoking in the world. Although it causes many morbidities, the psychosocial challenges it creates in the patients and the huge financial burden for its treatment are the main problems. Medical treatment for weight loss is usually inadequate, and surgery has become a major part of morbid obesity treatment. Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB), sleeve gastrectomy (SG), adjustable gastric band (AGB), and biliopancreatic diversion (BPD) are the most common current surgical procedures, and all can be performed laparoscopically. Eating less and early satiety due to the reduction of gastric volume with surgery and the disruption of absorption as a result of the bypass lead to significant weight loss.

**Keywords:** morbid obesity, surgical treatment, laparoscopy

## **1. Introduction**

Obesity is a chronic disease and is the result of the energy obtained from food being higher than the energy consumed and is characterized by an increase in the body's fat mass compared to the lean mass. Obesity is an important health problem that can cause various problems and even death by affecting all organs and systems of the body and especially the cardiovascular and endocrine systems. Obesity is accepted as one of the ten most risky diseases by the World Health Organization (WHO), which has also found it to be closely associated with cancer in recent studies. The prevalence of obesity and being overweight has been increasing in many industrial countries and is now creating a difficult problem for many populations [1]. There has been no other problem affecting humanity that is as common as obesity. Obesity develops by a mechanism that depends on many factors such as eating habits, toxic chemicals, and lifestyle unlike diseases caused by an infectious agent such as the plague, tuberculosis, or AIDS. What this mechanism is or whether obesity is really a disease is not yet clear.

The surgical treatment of obesity is named bariatric surgery. Long-term permanent weight loss is provided, many comorbid diseases are prevented, and survival is increased by decreasing the metabolic effects of obesity as a result of bariatric surgery. Sustainable weight loss can only be achieved by bariatric surgery, and it decreases the excess weight by 50% [2]. Patients scheduled to undergo surgery should be clearly informed on the expected benefit, risk and long-term outcomes of surgery, and the requirement for lifelong nutritional counseling and biochemical follow-up.
