for Weight-Loss Surgery

Your body weight and your health conditions could mean that you’re a candidate for surgical treatment for obesity

BY DR. MAZEN ISKANDAR, DR. TIMOTHY KELLY, AND DR. WATSON ROYE, WEIGHT-LOSS SURGEONS AT TEXAS SURGICAL SPECIALISTS

If you’re overweight or obese, you may wonder if weightloss surgery could help you lose excess pounds and improve your health. Whether or not you might qualify depends on a few considerations. According to the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS), three main factors play a part in the decision.

1. YOUR BODY MASS INDEX (BMI)

To qualify for weight-loss surgery, in most cases, you need to have a BMI of 40 or more. “Your BMI is calculated from your height and weight, and for most people, being 100 or more pounds overweight means your BMI is 40 or more,” said weight-loss surgeon Timothy Kelly, MD. You can calculate your BMI on the ASMBS website at asmbs.org/patients/bmicalculator.

2. YOUR OTHER HEALTH CONDITIONS

“It’s common for people who are overweight or obese to have other chronic health conditions,” said weightloss surgeon Watson Roye, MD. So, you may qualify for weight-loss surgery if you have a BMI of 35 or more, plus at least one of these other diseases or conditions:

• Type 2 diabetes

• High blood pressure

• Sleep apnea or other breathing disorders

• Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

• Osteoar thritis

• Abnormal cholesterol levels

• Cer tain gastrointestinal disorders

• Hear t disease

3. YOUR ATTEMPTS AT LOSING WEIGHT

To qualify for weight-loss surgery, you need to have tried other methods for losing weight. “If dieting, exercise, medication, or other weight loss strategies haven’t been successful for you, you may be a candidate,” said weightloss surgeon Mazen Iskandar, MD. If you’ve been able to lose weight in the past but you’ve regained the weight, you could still qualify for surgery.

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU QUALIFY?

If you meet these requirements, you can likely start down the path toward weight-loss surgery. But you’ll need to take some additional steps to ensure that you’re likely to succeed. You’ll need a psychological evaluation to make sure any mental health conditions are under control or being treated. You’ll talk to a nutritionist, so you understand the changes you’ll need to make in your diet. You may need to start losing weight before you have surgery. And you’ll need to have your medical and surgical history and your lab tests evaluated, to make sure any other health conditions won’t adversely affect your outcomes.

Most private insurance plans and Medicare cover weightloss surgery. If you’re a candidate, you’ll want to find out if your insurance company has additional requirements. For example, they might need you to have your surgery performed at a center that includes a team of experts along with your surgeon, such as a nutritionist, an exercise specialist, and a mental health professional. And they may want you to have your surgery at a facility that meets certain standards for quality. If you don’t have insurance coverage, you can still qualify for weight-loss surgery, but you would need to pay for it out of pocket.

If you’re struggling to manage your weight, it’s worth finding out if you qualify for weight-loss surgery. If you do, you can learn more about the process and determine whether it’s a good option for you.

For ten years in a row Andrew and I spent a week in the California wine country. We knew our way around Napa Valley pretty well, driving above the fog up Spring Mountain Road to Cain Vineyards and through the forests of Mt. Veeder to the beautiful Hess Winery. Other days we traveled along Napa’s Silverado Trail sampling from the barrels of Stags Leap, Silverado and Clos Du Val. After a couple of days we would venture over to the laidback County of Sonoma and wind our way through the Russian River Valley, and the off-beat roads of Dry Creek. We brought home award winning wines for under $20 per bottle back then, building a nice collection with big bold cabernets, crisp chardonnays, and jammy zinfandels. Then, as quickly as Napa started producing world class wines, they began building lavish new wineries and charging a fee in their ritzy tasting rooms. Don’t get me wrong, we love visiting Napa, but it seemed as if it was becoming a Vegas style destination, instead of the quaint relaxed valley we had grown to love. We worried the Sonoma winemakers would soon follow suit.

We stopped going to the wine country and started exploring the well priced wines of Spain, Chilean Malbecs, and Australian Shiraz, but when American Airlines offered flights to San Francisco for $200, we decided to head back and see if Sonoma was staying true to its roots.

After a Sunday morning drive over San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, we sat down to a wonderful brunch at The Girl & the Figin in Sonoma Plaza in just over one hour. Before we left, our waiter wrapped up several selections of local artisan cheese for us. We grabbed a baguette in the bakery a few doors down and headed up Highway 12 for an afternoon of wine tasting at B. R. Cohn, Valley of the Moon, and Kenwood. You get the sense that in Sonoma, life is being lived