Gastric bypass is a surgical procedure designed to limit the amount of food you can eat. While it is meant to be permanent, gastric bypass can be reversed.
Your surgeon will take several steps during the operation:
Divide and staple the stomach to create a new pouch. The pouch, or “new stomach,” is about 90% smaller than your original stomach (the size of a golf ball, compared to a normal stomach, which is about the size of a football).
Create an opening, called a stoma, that connects the pouch to the small intestine. The stoma is very small - about the size of a dime - so that food leaves the stomach slowly.
Leave the rest of your original stomach intact. The bottom part of the stomach - the part not included in the new pouch - continues to secrete gastric juices that empty into the small intestine to mix with food and aid with digestion.