Gastric Bypass Surgery makes People Sensitive to Alcohol

A study conducted by researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine has found that people who undergo gastric bypass, get drunk faster and take longer time to get sober. The reason scientists attach to this discovery is that the surgery cuts the amount of alcohol metabolized by the stomach.

Gastric bypass surgery (GBS) is a group of analogous operative procedures used to treat morose chubbiness, a condition which arises from severe gathering of surplus weight as fatty tissue, and the follow-on health problems which occur. Bariatric surgery is the surgical treatment of morbid obesity, and includes the gastric bypass procedures as one of numerous classes of operations.

"At the end of the day, this is the only enduring and effective intervention for morbid obesity," stressed study senior author Dr. John Morton, director of bariatric surgery at Stanford Hospitals and Clinics. "We don't want to deny them, but we want to make sure they are fully prepared to meet these challenges after surgery."

"This might let folks know to be a little more careful if they have a drink," added Dr. Joaquin Rodriguez, assistant professor of surgery at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and chief of minimally invasive surgery at Scott & White Hospital in Temple. "They need just to be aware that the same amount of alcohol may affect them differently than someone who hasn't had a gastric bypass," said Rodriguez, who was not involved in the research.

The study was presented by lead author Judith Hagedorn, a medical student at Stanford University on June 14th at the annual meeting of the American Society for Bariatric Surgery, in San Diego.

The research is not entirely new flanged, as in October 2006; Oprah Winfrey had talked about a link between bypass surgery and faster alcohol absorption.

After the Oprah episode, Morton, who has performed about 1,000 such surgeries, was snowed under with questions from patients. "This prompted me to dig a little deeper to find data and, much to my surprise, I didn't find a whole lot of data," he said.

Rodriguez said, "There are a couple of other reports that have shown similar things, but it's mostly anecdotal. Patients come in and say they had wine or a margarita and got drunk really fast."

Due to the complaints, Morton undertook the study to collect appropriate data. 19 people who had got gastric bypass surgery done were made to drink red wine, and the effects were compared with 17 control subjects, who had no such history.

All participants then underwent an alcohol breath analysis every five minutes until the levels reached zero.

Morton held that bypass patients had a crest alcohol level of 0.08% whereas, the controlled subjects had a level of just 0.05%.

He also said that the bypass patients took longer to sober down. While the controlled subjects took an average of 72 minutes, the former took 108 minutes to get back to zero.

The bypass surgery is also infected with a number of other side effects. Although, the surgery guarantees 60-85% loss in body weight, it causes complications like anastamotic leakage, anastamotic stricture, dumping syndrome and nutritional deficiencies like Hypoparathyroidism, beri beri, etc.

The current health study indirectly throws light on the fact that obesity is one of the major reasons for public health crises in the industrialized world. More than 60% of adult Americans are overweight, 23.9% are obese and 3% are extremely obese. Being overweight can lead to a heap of acute problems, including diabetes, heart disease and cancer, which can even be life threatening.

The study will be published in the journal of the American Society for Bariatric Surgery, SOARD (Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases).