Weight loss surgery can alter your brain by reducing your obsessive urge to eat: Study

A team of researchers has found that a weight loss surgery can not only make your stomach smaller but can also reduce your obsessive urge to eat.

Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital in the U.S. found that after Gastric surgery, the cravings for a slice of rich chocolate cake and ice cream disappeared and caused surprising changes in the taste of things as it alters the activity of thousands of genes as there is a complex relationship between the gut and the brain.

The findings indicate that weight loss operations can also cause profound changes in the rest of the body, reports The Mirror.

Furthermore, the surgery may not just change the body but also the lives of patients in terms of how they see ­themselves and how they relate to partners, colleagues and families.

"Are you sure they didn't operate on my brain? Food does not call out to me anymore," said Dr Lee Kaplan.

Another patient, who used to seek fatty and sugary foods, said, "I crave salads now."

They put about 100 bariatric surgery patients, a year after their operation, into small focus groups to ask about their new lives.

In gastric surgery, doctors reduce the stomach to a pouch the size of an egg and the small intestine is attached to the stomach pouch.

The results suggested that the patients reported that they were not particularly hungry anymore and their obsessive urge to eat had vanished.

Even more surprising, their taste in food had often changed.

After the gastric bypass operation, some patients were unable to absorb some vitamins and minerals.

They therefore need to take supplements every day for the rest of their lives.

Dumping syndrome can be a problem too as the rearranged digestive tract can dump sugar into the bloodstream too quickly, causing vomiting, sweating and shakiness.

But the patients loved the new energy and stamina and that joint and back pain had gone.

They were thrilled that no longer they need to take pills for diabetes or blood pressure.