Today obesity is probably the leading health problem in the Western world and in the USA alone approximately 60 percent of people are overweight, with nearly 24 percent being obese and 3 percent severely obese. Now 3 percent might not seem like a big figure but when you consider that it is more than 9 million extremely obese individuals this is a fairly major problem.

In spite of the fact that attention is increasingly being turned towards the problem of obesity and its treatment, it is surprising just how much we still have to learn about the condition, including the affects of alcohol on people who have undergone weight loss surgery.

For some considerable time now there has been a reasonable amount of anecdotal evidence to suggest that people who have had gastric bypass surgery are more susceptible to the affects of alcohol than others but it was not until late in 2006 that any real attempt was made to look at the extent of the problem.

In a reasonably small-scale study the affects of alcohol on 19 people who had undergone gastric bypass surgery was compared to the affects on 17 control subjects. The individuals in the study were each given a small 5 ounce glass of red wine and their breath alcohol level was then analyzed until it fell back to zero.

The study revelaed that alcohol levels reached a higher level in the gastric bypass patients and also that they took far longer to return to zero. But, most interestingly, the study also demonstrated that just }a single|one} small glass of wine was sufficient to put the breath alcohol level in a number of gastric bypass surgery patients above the legal alcohol level for driving in several US states.

The explanation for the raised affects of alcohol on gastric bypass surgery patients is not difficult to understand as surgery both reduces the volume of the stomach and bypasses a section of the intestine, both areas of the body which play a significant role in breaking down alcohol before it gets into the bloodstream.

So precisely what does this mean for gastric bypass surgery patients?

Well, apart from the obvious need to be careful and most definitely to refrain from driving after drinking even small quantities of alcohol, the implications for gastric bypass surgery patients do in fact go a little wider.

One major problem is that alcohol acts as a relaxant and this can result in difficulties when it comes to post-surgical weight loss and to maintaining weight loss. Because alcohol relaxes the stomach, which includes the lower esophageal sphincter, and the intestine, patients who enjoy alcohol are able to eat more and the presence of alcohol effectively counteracts the affects of surgery. As if this was not bad enough a significant number of people are more active socially after surgery and this generally means an increasing intake of alcohol.

There will still need to be considerably more research carried out of course but, at the end of the day, the fact is that people who have undergone weight loss surgery need to be aware of the possible risks of alcohol and adjust their lifestyle accordingly.