Bariatric Surgery
The term bariatric comes from the Greek root ‘baros’, or weight, and suffix’-atri’ or treatment of. It describes the field of medicine or surgery that deals with obesity and its complications. It’s the surgery that promotes weight loss by altering the anatomy of the digestive system, limiting the amount of food that can be ingested and digested.
Metabolic Surgery
Alteration of the gastrointestinal tract that affects cellular and molecular signaling leading to a physiologic improvement in energy balance, nutrient utilization and metabolic disorders. There is an increase in hormones such as GLP -1 and PYY and decrease in ghrelin, these cause a decrease in appetite, weight loss and increase sensibility to the body´s own insulin.
These are two terms that relate to each other and are used to describe the sleeve and gastric bypass and their effects on weight and problems associated with obesity.
It´s important to understand that these surgeries have a restrictive and malabsorptive component together with hormonal changes. It’s the combination of these effects that cause the patient to lose weight and an improvement in their health problems.
These surgeries also increase circulating bile acids and change the gut flora and these contribute also to their metabolic effects.