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By Mayo Clinic Staff

Weight-loss surgery changes the shape of the digestive system and how it works. This surgery may help you lose weight and manage weight-related health conditions. These conditions include diabetes, high blood pressure and obstructive sleep apnea. It also can help you manage risk factors for heart disease, stroke and some cancers.

Weight-loss surgery also is called bariatric surgery or metabolic surgery. There are different types of surgeries that help you lose weight in many ways such as:

• Making it harder for the body to process nutrients from food, called malabsorption.
• Changing the size and shape of the stomach so that it can't store as much food, called restriction.
• A combination of both malabsorption and restriction.

Some weight-loss surgeries also change the hormones that control your sense of hunger and when you feel full. These changes help you lose weight.

In the U.S., the two most common weight-loss surgeries are sleeve gastrectomy and gastric bypass, also called Roux-en-Y gastric bypass.

• During the sleeve gastrectomy procedure, the surgeon removes a large portion of the stomach to create a smaller tubelike sleeve.
• In the Roux-en-Y (roo-en-wy) gastric bypass procedure, the surgeon creates a small pouch from the stomach and connects the newly created pouch directly to the small intestine.

Weight-loss surgery is only one part of an overall treatment plan. Your treatment also will include nutrition guidelines, exercise and mental healthcare. You'll need to be willing and able to follow this long-term plan to meet your weight-loss goals.

If you're thinking about weight-loss surgery, you will need to meet with many specialists to help you decide if weight-loss surgery is an option for you.