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The Realize Gastric Band

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The Realize Gastric Band

In the past few years, weight loss surgery has gained popularity at an astonishing rate. It’s not surprising – many of the new weight loss products that have emerged over the years have promised to revolutionize the weight loss surgery industry, resulting in national, even international attention. This is what happened with the Realize Band, which is manufactured by Johnson and Johnson. So far, the Realize Gastric Band has been used as a weight loss approach by more than 100,000 people.

The Realize Band is a type of adjustable gastric band developed by Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc., a Johnson and Johnson company. The Realize Band works in the same way that other gastric banding products do: It is inserted around the upper portion of the stomach using laparoscopic techniques, which are minimally invasive and can lead to a much shorter recovery period than the procedures used in other types of weight loss surgery.

For the past decade, the Realize Band has been available outside of the U.S. Internationally, it was known as the Swedish Adjustable Gastric Band (SAGB).

FDA Approval Given to the Realize Band

The Realize Band did not have FDA approval until recently. In September 2007, the Realize Band was granted FDA approval to be used in the United States for medical procedures. 

The Realize Band is comprises of a silicon band, tubing, and a port for injection. Like devices used in other forms of weight loss surgery, this band is surgically implanted in the upper part of the stomach to facilitate rapid weight loss in people who are diagnosed as obese.

Here’s how it works.

For this surgical procedure, the Realize Band is inserted around the upper portion of the stomach, to make a smaller pouch that is able to hold only small amounts of food. Patients who have this surgery will learn to eat less because their stomach is limiting the amount of food that their body can take in. Also, the digestion period is increased for the food that the patient does eat. If necessary, the band can be adjusted by your surgeon by adding or removing fluid that is inside the band. This is done through the tubing and the injection port.  

The Realize Band creates two chambers in the stomach – the small upper part that has a narrow opening, which leads to the lower stomach. The upper chamber can hold about four ounces of food, meaning that the patient will eat a small amount of food and still not be hungry, and also will feel full much faster than they ever did prior to the surgery. The Realize Band also slows digestion, which contributes to weight loss.