A few years ago, proponents of weight loss surgery (WLS) toted that it cured diabetes.
Other research has found that bariatric surgery cures Type 2 diabetes in a majority of patients studied...
Said a 2009 article in the Los Angeles Times.
Of course the same author wrote another article that gave these stats:
As many as 86% of obese people with Type 2 diabetes find their diabetes is gone or much easier to control within days of having weight-loss surgery, according to a meta-analysis of 19 studies published earlier this year in the American Journal of Medicine (78% of patients with a remission of diabetes and 86.6% with remission or improvement). But experts still aren't sure why obesity surgery helps resolve Type 2 diabetes or how long the effect might last. And they disagree on how big a role surgery should take in treating the illness.
Remission is the absence of disease symptoms but does not mean cure. WLS can put your diabetes into remission.
But how?
Some suggests it is the extremely low calorie diet WLS forces you to do. Type 2 Diabetes is based on insulin. When you eat a normal diet you release insulin. If you don't eat enough, you don't release insulin and diabetes can "go away." In fact just six weeks of starvation may put diabetes into remission. (btw starvation isn't healthy. A recent study showed it doesn't extend life in monkeys.)
For the eight week study - published in the June 24 issue of "Diabetologia"- researchers tracked the insulin levels of the diabetics as they ate an extreme 600-calorie-a-day diet consisting solely of diet shakes and non-starchy vegetables. After one week on the diet, the diabetics' blood sugar levels were no longer elevated. After eight weeks on the diet, their bodies' regained the ability to make insulin, essentially curing them of diabetes.
Laurie Klipfel a diabetes educator and nurse who is pro-HAES points out in a blog post:
The immediate drop in calories (more so with Roux En-Y due to both decrease in food eaten and food absorbed) significantly decreases demand of insulin (less insulin is needed for less calories.) Depending on the supply and demand, this decreased demand may now make the difference between making budget or not. Therefore there are times the surgery appears to have ‘cured’ diabetes even before weight loss has occurred. Reducing calories in general such as in garden variety weight loss will produce the same effect and look like it “cures” diabetes, when in actuality it too just decreases demand. Usually with weight loss diets, the drop in calories is not as sudden and drastic and usually weight is lost before benefit is seen.
A study recently came out that while WLS has put diabetes into remission for some but not for others, the Mayo clinic estimates (based on a small sample of only 72 patients) that 21% of those who diabetes go into remission get it back between 3-5 years.
There are other less extreme ways than mangling your stomach to help type 2 diabetes. Diet (Not a weight loss one, but one related to diabetes), exercise, and stress reduction.
"Curing" diabetes with WLS seems to me the same as cutting off a broken leg.
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