Gastric surgery is surgery performed on the stomach. There are many types of gastric surgery, most of which are considered major or serious operations. While many types of gastric surgery are performed "laparascopically," there are still many others performed "the old-fashioned way" by cutting through the abdominal wall (the bell) and actually opening up the stomach.

In years gone by, one of the most common reasons for gastric surgery was to stop the bleeding from a bleeding ulcer. In this type of gastric surgery, the abdomen was cut open and the stomach exposed. The surgeon performing the gastric surgery would look for a bleeding artery and "tie it off." Then he would cut the nerves leading to the stomach, nerves that signalled the stomach to produce the offensive acid that led to the ulcer boring through the artery wall in the first place.

Another common gastric surgery has been the excision of a gastric carcinoma, or cancer of the stomach. This type of gastric surgery has always been performed in an "open" manner, as well, to remove a tumor.

Nowadays, however, with the rampant epidemic of obesity gripping much of the western world, notably the United States, gastric surgery has come to be understood to be "some sort of stomach stapling surgery." This is, indeed, the fastest growing type of gastric surgery performed in the United States.

What has come to be defined in the popular culture as "gastric surgery" includes any of the surgical techniques used to encourage weight loss by changing the size and configuration of the stomach. Most commonly, gastric surgery is understood to imply "stomach stapling" in which most of the stomach is (literally) stapled off from a small pouch (an ounce or so - now that's small!) that remains available to receive and process food. In another type of gastric surgery, called "lap banding", the stomach is squeezed by a band wrapped around it; the band similarly divides the stomach so that only a smaller, upper portion remains available to accept food from a meal.

Either of these types of gastric surgery promotes weight loss by physically limiting the size of meal an overweight person may consume before, to put it politely, giving the rest of it back.