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Sherman Oaks, California 91403

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Medication Absorption After Weight Loss Surgery

March 30, 2020 8:01 am

Weight loss surgical procedures, in one form or another, achieve the desired effect of weight loss by altering absorption of fat, protein, and carbohydrates. This results in decreased total absorption of required calories.

An unintended consequence is the altered absorption of medications. Frequently I am asked about the specific medication. Usually the answer is vague since the information is limited on specific medications. If the desired effect is not achieved, then it is probably  not being absorbed well. Specially, if the same dose of the same medication working well before surgery.

There is a summary article about the Theoretical absorption pattern of different weight loss surgical procedures.

Osteoporosis Medications

March 28, 2020 7:22 pm

There are a number of lectures, posting that we have done over the years on this topic. However the questions of osteoporosis medications and their benefits and risks comes up often.

The links are attached:

Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis Medications, Action and Side Effects

Here is an updated list of medication that I had previously published. I made some clarification to explain how the medications work. There are different classes of medications and the detail of the action and soda effects were described earlier at a blog post.

List of medications that effect bone health.

The table is obtained from https://www.nof.org site.

 

Pregnancy File

March 28, 2020 9:08 am

Pregnancy is not advisable until 18-24 months post surgery and your weight and laboratory studies have stabilized for at least 3-6 months. Two forms of non-hormonal birth control should be utilized during this time. No pills. The following information is not to be considered medical advice nor a replacement for medical advice from your medical team. Follow your surgeon’s and medical team’s advice. Article: “Infants Born Soon After Mother’s Bariatric Surgery Face Increased Risks” 
Pregnancy increases protein, vitamin and mineral needs for the developing fetus. Take your vitamins for you and add additional vitamins for the growing fetus.
If you do become pregnant please contact your surgeon and medical team immediately. Vitamins, protein, hydration and monitoring laboratory values are extremely important during post WLS pregnancy. Please be sure to involve your DS surgeon and OB in your care. It is also important that your OB have a clear understanding of the DS anatomy and malabsorption. Please also give your body, nutrition and lab values time to recover between pregnancies. Normal anatomy post pregnancy recovery is up to a year.
DS Surgeon’s blog on pregnancy: https://www.dssurgery.com/pregnancy…
Clinical Considerations for Pregnancy after WLS: https://bariatrictimes.com/clinical-…

Other Pregnancy Info:

DS surgeon Pregnancy after DS: https://www.dssurgery.com/newsletter…

Research regarding pregnancy after WLS:

Article on Pregnancy and Fertility after WLS: https://jama.jamanetwork.com/article…
Improvement of Infertility & Pregnancy Outcome after WLS: https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc…
Mixed Outcomes in Pregnancy after WLS: https://www.medpagetoday.com/Endocri…

PCOS, Fertility and WLS:

Vitamin D Metabolism and Deficiency file

March 28, 2020 8:17 am

It’s important to understand Vitamin D metabolism and deficiency potential following weight loss surgery Vitamins after DS need to be followed via laboratory blood studies. There are basic vitamin needs but individual needs should be based on medical history, genetics, alimentary limb length, common channel length and other surgical and physiologic determinations. Vitamins after DS are a life long commitment as well as protein needs and hydration. Duodenal Switch is a malabsorptive procedure which requires at least yearly laboratory blood studies, daily vitamins/minerals, daily high protein and daily hydration intake. There is not an all in one vitamin that is adequate for a DS patient or tailored to your individual needs. (example: you may need more Vitamin D and less Vitamin A if you are taking a all-in-one vitamin you can’t get more of one and less of another vitamin)

DS patients are recommended to take Dry forms (water miscible form) of Vitamin A, D3, E, K due to the fat malabsorption after DS. Dry formulations by Biotech are processed so they can be absorbed by a water soluble method after the DS procedure. Vitamin D seems to be the vitamin that can become deficient the easiest, followed by Vitamin A. Take these vitamins away from dietary fat.

In some cases, patients may need injectable Vitamin A or D to improve vitamin levels.

Click the links to view the information below and within the comments of this file:
Vitamin D3 50 by Biotech:  Amazon
directly from BioTech:

Many DS surgeon’s do not recommend Children’s vitamins or chewable vitamins unless there is a specific reason or need for them.
DS Surgeon Blog on Vitamin D:
Webinar on Vitamin D metabolism:
Medications that effect Bone health:
This does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis or prescribing. It is simply a compiled list of gathered information. If you are in doubt or have questions please contact your medical healthcare professional.

Articles

March 22, 2020 6:57 pm

We have added a new section of compiled articles to our website. This page will allow us to compile sicentific articles all in one place for easy reference. The page allows the reader to search for articles based on the subject matter. We will continue to add to this list of article as new ones become available.

Length of Bowel : Hess or No Hess

March 22, 2020 5:58 pm

“…What is the length of my common channel” is probably one of the frequently asked questions about the duodenal switch operation in the office. This usually comes up at the initial consult when patients repost credible sources such as Dr. Google and Dr. Facebook for patient with different bowel length have done well or not so after duodenal switch operation. Dr. Hess described the Duodenal Switch by using total bowel length measurements and creating the common channel as a percentage of the total small bowel length.  However, it seems that this is being done less and less.

This leads to my explanation that is on the website

Hess calculator : Bowel Length Calculator

How the actual measurements matters: Bowel length video link

In 2019, Bekheit et.al published a very interesting study comparing total small bowel length (TSBL) to a number of variables such as height, weight, sex and BMI. They identified a few loose correlations. Male patient have longer TBSL than females. There was correlation between TSBL and height stronger in males than females but not statistically significant.

In Conclusion they reported ” Despite statistical significance of the correlation between the TSBL and the height and weight of the included participants, the correlation seems to have no clinical meaning since the effect size is negligible. ”

As I have previously discussed this  Making the common and alimentary length standard for every duodenal switch patient will make some loose too much and other not enough weight.

Figure 1 shows TSBL on the horizontal axis, and height, weight, BMI and Age on the vertical axis. For the most part what they all show is that one can not predict how long a patients bowel is by any of the measures that we take in the office as a part of the routine exam.

This raises, the concerns  that I had raised previously. How could two similar patients who have the same weight, age, sex and BMI have the same surgery and expect the same result if one of them has TSBL of 400 cm and the other one 800cm?


If both of the patients get the same “cookie cutter” duodenal switch with the same lengths, then the patient with TSBL of 400 will have much longer common channel if the surgeon does not customize the length of the bowel. This is an example of many patients whom we have revised over the years where they had a duodenal switch done with the “standard” 125cm common channel and when we measured the total length the patient had 500 cm TSBL.

Additional Links here.

Potential Treatment for Coronavirus-19

March 15, 2020 7:34 pm

There are a number of possible medications (Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin) being reported in the literature. They are mostly small series and not proven scientifically. Some of the medications that are being discussed in the media in fact have significant and deadly side effects. The use of these medications should be avoided until and unless some preliminary data shows any improvement. There are numerous pathways and approaches being considered for both vaccines and medications for the treatment of Coronavirus-19. One of the approaches is to try to minimize and mute the inflammation that is caused by the virus entering the lung cells leading to destructive damage of the lung tissue. There are a number of medications in this class, however, most of them have significant side effects. Baricitinib, a medication currently available for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis may be such a molecule.