Gastric bypass operation patients have reported that a side effect of the said procedure was a tendency to be addicted to alcohol. To test whether or not these reports had any medical basis, a clinical study was conducted by Dr. John Morton, the director of Bariatric Surgery at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Clinical Trial

In order to test whether or not undergoing bariatric surgery or gastric bypass had any effect on the metabolism of alcohol in the body, one study examined two sets of subjects who were made to take five ounces of red wine, one group being the gastric bypass group while the other group did not undergo said surgery. 

Both groups were made to undergo an alcohol breath analysis test to record their peak alcohol breath levels, which in turn would determine their alcohol metabolism. The results of the study showed that the gastric bypass group had significantly higher peak alcohol breath levels than that of the non-gastric bypass group.

The results also showed that it took it took the gastric bypass group an average of thirty-six minutes longer to metabolize the alcohol and thus have their alcohol breath levels return to zero.

Implications

What do the results of this study mean? First, it tells us that your blood alcohol concentration after taking in alcohol will be higher as post-gastric bypass patient than those who did not undergo gastric bypass.  Second, the results show that the effects of alcohol intake may be prolonged as a result of undergoing gastric bypass surgery.

Thus, this implies that alcohol intake after a gastric bypass operation must be limited and even avoided within a year following the operation.

Other Side Effects of Gastric Bypass Surgery

Apart from reports of having alcohol addictions after undergoing gastric bypass surgery, there have been other reports of patients having addictions to gambling, compulsive shopping and other similar addictive behaviors. There are however, no medical studies as of yet to prove these reports.