Weight Loss Surgery Saves Diabetics

Recently, the Journal of the American Medical Association has published the results of a new study examining the effects of bariatric surgery on obese people with Type 2 diabetes. According to the study, about 75 percent of obese diabetics can be cured by means of weight loss surgery. Some experts say that this new finding may become a scientific breakthrough in halting the epidemic of obesity and diabetes, which is currently sweeping throughout all industrialized world.

Severely overweight Type 2 diabetic patients were able to lose considerable amounts of weight and get off insulin and other glucose-lowering drugs following a successful bariatric surgery. Almost three fourth of obese participants from among those who underwent gastric bypass or related weight loss surgical procedures reported a complete cure from Type 2 diabetes. In comparison, in the control group of grossly overweight diabetic patients who used conventional weight loss measures, such as drugs, exercise and dieting, only about one tenth reported significant improvement in both their Body Mass Index and carbohydrate metabolism.

It is estimated the obesity-induced diabetes is number five leading cause of death in the US and Canada, with more than 20 million Americans currently suffering from the disease. In fact, over the past two decades the incidence of both diabetes and related to it mortality has more than doubled in the developed countries.

In the US, bariatric surgeries become more and more popular, especially among morbidly obese people who are unable to lose weight and improve their health by using dieting and other conventional types of treatment. Patients can choose from among different types of weight loss surgeries, which vary from restrictive operations, such as gastric bypass or laparoscopic gastric banding, to malabsorptive procedures, such as duodenal switch or bilio pancreatic diversion.

The most commonly performed weight loss operation, laparoscopic gastric bypass, is the least invasive type of bariatric surgery which is performed through a small incision into the stomach of a patient. Gastric bypass works to shrink the stomach space and re-arrange parts of small intestine so that most food can pass indigested from the stomach to the intestines. The most damaging weight loss operation, bilio pancreatic diversion, calls for the removal of three thirds of the stomach so that nutrients, especially carbohydrates and fats, cannot be absorbed.

Although most weight loss surgeries are invasive, damaging and irreversible, and their impact of the future health of the patient is questionable, for some severely obese diabetics they can become life-saving.

Tim Ford