“Dieting? Can’t endure it! Exercising? Can’t handle it! Medication? Will bounce back! Surgery? Afraid of trauma!”
A 30-year-old man, Xiao Huang, has reached a weight of 200 pounds, and various health indicators have also become abnormal. Despite trying various weight loss methods, he has met with repeated failures. Is he to simply “give up”?
Not long ago, he underwent a brand new interventional weight loss therapy at the Tenth Hospital of Shanghai—an endoscopic gastric bypass stent placement. By placing a 60-centimeter long impermeable tube, a “breakwater” is built at the duodenum, allowing the food slurry in the stomach to “short-circuit” through the duodenum, reducing digestion and absorption of food, thereby achieving weight loss. The placement procedure is performed under painless gastroscopy and takes only 20 minutes. Now, almost a month after the successful surgery, Xiao Huang’s weight is steadily declining, and various physiological and biochemical indicators are gradually improving, showing the dawn of healthy weight loss.
Weight loss has always been a topic of public concern. In recent years, surgical weight loss methods such as gastric volume reduction surgery have increasingly come into public view. However, surgeries can cause trauma, and there are also strict indications and contraindications, which limits their clinical application. The introduction of gastric bypass stent placement at the Tenth Hospital of Shanghai has opened up a new path for interventional weight loss methods.
The gastric bypass stent system is an innovative medical product approved by China’s National Medical Products Administration this year and is included in Shanghai’s class A medical insurance. The gastric bypass stent system consists of a nickel-titanium anchoring component and a 60-centimeter impermeable tube made of fluoropolymer. The former is used to fix the stent system at the ampulla of the duodenum, while the latter lines the inner wall of the duodenum, isolating digestive fluids from food, thereby reducing digestion and absorption of food to achieve weight loss.
Director Liu Feng of the endoscopy center at the hospital stated that the gastric bypass stent achieves weight loss and improves metabolism by reducing absorption rates, which is fundamentally different from traditional methods of “eating less” and “dieting.” After three months of placement, significant weight loss can generally be achieved, and the stent can be easily removed through painless gastroscopy. The bypass stent not only reduces the intestine’s absorption of carbohydrates and fats but also helps patients establish healthy eating habits and lifestyles, leading to sustained and stable weight loss.
“This is a weight loss method that does not require surgery, filling the gap between drug therapy and surgical treatment, offering a new option for patients who have poor results with drug weight loss treatments or experience rebound and do not wish to undergo weight loss surgery or do not meet the surgical indications,” Liu Feng said.
Reporter Gao Yang from Xinmin Evening News
