When Weight Loss Surgery Releases Other Addictions

What would it be like, to be able to control an obsession for chocolate? Take it up a notch and think about people seeking to control full-scale eating disorders, drug addiction, gambling, smoking, drinking...even compulsive shopping!

When "food becomes my comfort" and someone crushes the bathroom scales at morbidly obese levels, body image goals and eating disorders can easily morph into a full flowering of addictive compulsions. This person is psychologically armed and dangerous to themselves. The question is what can they do to regain control over these impulse disorders?

Filling an inner void typically involves the steady build-up of an obsessive compulsive drive. Self worth, body image and any number of ego-enhancing drives push a person into ritualized behavior, most of which aggravates rather than soothes the soul.

Weight loss surgery, bariatric surgery where up to 90% of the stomach is surgically tied off in order to limit food intake, would seem to be all about excess food and binge eating resulting in at-risk obesity. Yet, gastric bypass surgery is purely "mechanical" and doesn't deal with underlying neurological dependence issues.

However, deeper down in psychological space, other factors are at play, as new research into addictive behavior suggests. Thinking that their days of body image phobia and obesity are now over following weight loss surgery, perhaps 30% or more of men and women increasingly discover that something deeper remains, namely the drive towards any-and-all addictions. What's next? Drug abuse, alcoholism, gambling, over-the-top consumerism and compulsive shopping behavior.

Addiction Transfer - Where Eating Disorder Morphs Into Another Obsession. In the psychiatric theory spectrum with genetics (nature) on one end and behavior-reinforcement (nurture) on the other end, latest research news is that people with an "addictive" tendency keep it, re-dress it, but never entirely place it under wraps.

Weight loss surgery produces profound body shaping and body image transformations, yet "window dress" your body and the mind continues to seek other avenues for obsessive compulsive focus. In the case of bariatric surgery getting thin only creates a "re-direct" of the baseline impulse-control disorder into new areas where new urges and craving take over. Think of it. A person loses 200 pounds of built-up weight, then turns to drinking two bottles of whiskey a day!

Remedies Research - Altering Brain Neurology. Unlike shrimp and bovine cattle, humans possess nature's state-of-art brain. 4 million miles of nerve fibers and neurological horsepower to drive over 10 billion brain cells, each with as much as 25,000 synapse-connection to other cells. And so, what about gaining control over addictions, whether eating disorders like binge eating and anorexia, or gambling, or drug abuse?

* Bio-Chemical Intervention. Some research already reveals that certain classes of obsessive behavior, like binge eating disorders, associate with depressed levels of the regulating brain hormones serotonin and neuroepinephrine and dopamine. Increasing these hormones acts on the brain's neurological structure, effectively blocking certain receptor sites, altering bio-chemical messaging. Result? You get an immediate uptick in "feel good" sensations.

* Drug Addiction - Blocking Receptor Sites. When "addiction transfer" takes a person from body image obsessions to drug abuse, there's a risk of falling into equally life threatening addiction as with opiates. Fortunately, these addictions are being attacked using new neural receptor-blocking drugs such as suboxane. How does it work? The neural pathways associated with 'drug craving and pleasure' are traced by suboxone, which occupies these neural receptor sites, thus silencing the addictive craving, and bio-chemically road-blocking the site so that heroin cannot enter, thus renders it useless.

Treating Underlying Anxiety And Depression. Other mood altering drug classes are known as benzodiazepines, and are offered under brands including Xanax or Valium. For 70% of the population, these powerful drug mediators work to slow the drive towards addiction relief.

Explore additional weight loss surgery, binge eating disorder therapies, as well as natural options for managing brain health and moods while promoting natural rest and life cycles.

Natural Nutrients To Treat Eating Disorder: http://www.wise4living.com/hfvit-dir/

Weight Loss Surgery Explained: http://www.beauty2morrow.com/body/stomach-reduce.htm

Author Robin Derry is publisher for http://www.wise4living.com/ a specialty information site that gives solutions to health, household, sport, travel and legal needs.


By Robin J. Derry

Common Pitfalls Of Plastic Surgery

Common pitfalls of plastic surgery are those involving before and after pictures with photographic tricks or attractive models instead of the surgeon's patients, that are publicly displayed in printed ads, online advertisement or broadcasted by TV,audio-visual or specific tele-shopping and infomercials.

Before and after pictures are useful to help you make the decision to have cosmetic surgery when they are real, but not advisable as criteria to select a surgeon, since no ethical surgeon can guarantee results this way, but if so, be sure to get his promises in writing.

Fake testimonials implying that anyone can get these results of people sharing their experiences may only be a marketing plan whether viewed on TV, through the internet, heard on the radio or at the surgeon's office; they have a powerful influence in the patient's final decision. Pitfalls can not be easily detected due to the impossibility to verify the authenticity of any given testimonial or the identity of the "happy patients".

Because the purpose of testimonials are considered to be a way to solicit patients, most professional societies and State medical boards prohibit the use of testimonials to advertise Plastic Surgery. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) considers this marketing tool a violation to the code of ethics of 97% of certified surgeons certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, members of ASPS.

Impressive sounding surgeon's credentials or a plastic surgery procedure that does not name the surgeon may be listed as pitfalls of plastic surgery. While it is obvious to expect that a surgeon has the proper training, credentials and experience to provide the plastic surgery procedure or service you are seeking, remember that many physicians may call themselves plastic surgeons or cosmetic surgeons with training. In fact, in most states any physician may perform any procedure without peer scrutiny and no training requirements.

Since there are no requirements that the physician be is a trained surgeon, anyone may claim to be a board-certified surgeon simply by joining a sound-a-like organization, but the true meaning is that The American Society of Plastic Surgeons enforces one of the most rigorous ethical codes in the medical profession, so the best way to find out a surgeon's facts is consulting only surgeons certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery.

Other pitfalls of plastic surgery are those offering dramatic results with superficial treatments, minimal or non-invasive procedures, no risk or little risk and downtime as well as a variety of products, procedures or manipulations without mention of the doctor's qualification, board certification or his/her specialty. These promises are designed more for marketing reasons than a real therapeutic value.

These individual procedures may be inexpensive, but offers only little or temporal improvement, so it is necessary for multiple sessions before seeing positive results, raising in the mean time the costs, often comparable to the total cost of the plastic surgery. Non surgical procedures with high tech names suggest new approaches to youthful appearance and the expectation of major effectiveness.

All these issues make it difficult for patients to separate plastic surgery hype from reality.

Matthew Leo is the publisher of http://www.CosmeticEnhancement.info, http://www.AcneMedicine.info and http://www.ADietGuide.com websites.


By Matthew Leo