If you are 100 pounds overweight — or significantly overwieight with other medical conditions, weight-loss surgery is available to help improve your health, reduce your risk of developing associated diseases, and enhance your quality of life.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Denton offers many solutions to help you lose weight. The Bariatric Surgery program performs Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (Lap-Band)© and revisional surgery for patients who've had complications or weight regain from past weight-loss surgery.

Our Bariatric Surgery program focuses on patient education, healthy eating, fitness habits, and continuing physician visits.

In-Take Sessions for new patients are conducted twice a month. Follow this link to learn more and get registration information.

Lap-Band Seminars are offered on the last Tuesday of every other month. Follow this link to register.

For more information on Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, Lap-Band, and revisional surgery for patients with complications or weight regain from past weight-loss surgery, please call 1-888-715-4330 or 940-323-3450.

For more information on the Lap-Band program, please call 940-898-7333.

Local Bariatric Surgeon Has National Teaching Presence

Note: This information appeared as part of Texas Health Today, a special advertising supplement to The Dallas Morning News.

As obesity rates continue to rise in the U.S., a growing number of doctors are training to perform a laparoscopic procedure to implant an adjustable gastric band. And many of them are learning the Lap-Band procedure from David Provost, M.D., a bariatric surgeon on the medical staff at Texas Health Denton.

Provost was one of the first surgeons in North Texas to perform the Lap-Band procedure, and now he's training the next generation of surgeons through live, televised procedures broadcast to training facilities nationwide. A recent two-day workshop, sponsored by Lap-Band maker Allergan, drew about 100 participants.

"Lap-Band surgery in particular has grown in popularity since it first became available in the U.S. in 2001 and makes up a third of the weight loss surgeries performed here," Provost says. "The procedure involves fastening a silicone band around the upper portion of the stomach to restrict food intake.

"The Lap-Band is lined with a balloon that is filled with saline solution to tighten the band like a belt. Patients who undergo the procedure eat less because they feel full faster."

The procedure, combined with a healthy diet and regular exercise, can help patients lose more than 100 pounds of excess weight, with improvement or cure of health conditions associated with obesity, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol levels, which can lead to stroke and heart disease.

After a surgeon takes the required course, Provost or another Lap-Band proctor observes the surgeon perform two Lap-Band procedures. Provost has been performing televised operations and lecturing for nearly 10 years.

Bariatric surgery is considered the "gold standard" of care for morbid obesity treatment, he says, and laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding is the safest surgical option because it's less invasive than gastric bypass, has a quicker recovery time and can easily be undone if complications develop.