Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
How you prepare
By Mayo Clinic staffBefore you have gastric bypass surgery, you'll go through an extensive screening process. Not everyone who wants gastric bypass is psychologically or medically ready for the surgical procedure.
A team of professionals, including a physician, dietitian, psychologist and surgeon, advise whether the surgery is appropriate for you. This involves identifying which aspects of your health would be expected to improve after surgery, as well as what pre-existing conditions you have that might make gastric bypass surgery a risky option. Surgery is recommended when the perceived benefits of surgery outweigh the recognized risks.
Your willingness and ability to follow through with the recommendations made by your health care team and to carry out prescribed changes in your diet and exercise routine also help determine if gastric bypass surgery is right for you. The surgery may not be recommended or may be postponed if there's any sign that you aren't psychologically or medically ready for surgery.
It's important to follow your doctor's directions in preparing for gastric bypass surgery. This includes restrictions on eating and drinking, starting a program of physical activity, and stopping the use of cigarettes.
- American Gastroenterological Association. American Gastroenterological Association medical position statement on obesity. Gastroenterology. 2002;123:879.
- Bariatric surgery for severe obesity. National Institute on Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. http://win.niddk.nih.gov/publications/PDFs/gasurg12.04bw.pdf. Accessed Aug. 10, 2009.
- Mun EC, et al. Surgical management of severe obesity. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Aug. 10, 2009.
- Angrisiani L, et al. Laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding versus Roux-en-Y gastric bypass: 5-year results of a prospective randomized trial. Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases. 2007;3:127.
- Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery (LABS) Consortium. Perioperative safety in the longitudinal assessment of bariatric surgery. New England Journal of Medicine. 2009;361:445.
- Suter M, et al. Results of Roux-en-Y gastric bypass in morbidly obese vs superobese patients: Similar body weight loss, correction of comorbidities, and improvement of quality of life. Archives of Surgery. 2009;144:312.
- Cottam D, et al. Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy as an initial weight-loss procedure for high-risk patients with morbid obesity. Surgical Endoscopy. 2006;20:859.
- Mun EC, et al. Complications of bariatric surgery. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Aug. 10, 2009.
