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Diet, exercise, behavioral therapy, and anti-obesity drugs are the first line of treatment for obese patients; however, medical therapy for severe obesity has only limited short-term success and nearly non-existent long-term success. As a result, bariatric surgery has become a popular method of treatment for the condition of obesity. These procedures, also called weight loss surgeries or obesity surgeries, often result in greater weight loss than conventional treatments, and lead to an improvement of the quality of life for many patients, in addition to reducing the effects of obesity-related diseases such as hypertension and diabetes.

Before a patient will be considered as a candidate for bariatric surgery, certain criteria must be met. The basic criteria are:

1. A body mass index (BMI) of 40 or more, which is about 100 pounds or 45 kilograms overweight for men and 80 pounds or 35 kilograms for women.
2. A BMI between 35 and 39.9 and a serious obesity-related health problem such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, or severe sleep apnea (when breathing stops for shorts periods during sleep).
3. An understanding of the operation and the lifestyle changes the patient will need to make.

Past studies found that 10 percent to 20 percent of bariatric surgery patients had complications while they were in the hospital. In 2006, federal researchers found that 39.6 percent of patients had complications within 180 days of the surgery. The most common complications are:

1. A composite of gastrointestinal symptoms including vomiting, diarrhea, dysphagia, and reflux (20%)
2. Anastomotic leaking (at the surgical connections between the stomach and the intestine) (12%)
3. Abdominal hernia (7%)
4. Infections (6%)

Approximately 7% of patients were readmitted into the hospital within 6 months to treat complications specific to the surgical procedure. Six-month mortality was 0.2%.

In 2003-2004, the prevalence of extreme obesity in the United States was 2.8% in men and 6.9% in women, which suggests that millions of Americans are in the weight range for potential treatment through bariatric surgery and/or obesity therapy. Laparoscopic surgery has become an important addition to this field of surgical medicine and, regardless of answered scientific and ethical questions, demand for bariatric surgery still soars. The number of Americans having these procedures quadrupled between 1998 and 2002 – from 13,386 in 1998 to 71,733 in 2002 – according to a study conducted by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.