New weight loss procedure

AUBURN - Erasing 25 percent of your body is not a procedure to be taken lightly, no matter how eager you are to wave goodbye to that weight.

At Auburn Memorial Hospital, the sole surgical means of making that body mass disappear has been gastric bypass surgery, in which staples partition a small pouch in the upper stomach that redirects food along a shortened gastrointestinal tract.

But the hospital's Fingerlakes Weight Loss Program will soon add an adjustable gastric band procedure to its surgical palette.