It may come as a bit of a surprise, but stomach surgery or weight loss surgery or Gastric Bypass surgery is a topic that is quite hot at the moment. It was stirred on with the publishing of a Los Angeles Times article entitled “Gastric Bypass: Is it a Diabetes Fix?” The title is certainly provocative, but I suppose good journalism is about attracting the reader as well as delivering quality content (sounds a bit like Hubpages :-)). The article makes the case that medical research has establised a strong relational link between successful gastric bypass surgery and a reduction in Type 2 Diabetes.

Diabetes

Diabetes is a disease caused by an imbalance in blood glucose levels. It is a common secondary condition for overweight and obese people. The incidence of diabetes has been steadily increasing in the western world, as food patterns change and exercise levels change. In fact is is very much a disease of the modern lifestyle with a diet high in refined foods and sugars and little exercise the chief culprits. The change in incidence in diabetes closely mimics the change in incidence of obesity. Where there is obesity, there is diabetes.

So if there is talk about the possibility of a "cure" for diabetes, it certainly raises eyebrows. It would gather significant interest from not only to the medical community, but tfrom the millions of diabetics, and their families around the world.

This article reports on a recently published study from the American Journal of Medicine that looked at the correlation between weight loss surgery and improvements in the symptoms of Type 2 Diabetes. The study involved reviewing the results of 19 other studies and reviewing the data. It found that 86% of obese people who underwent weight loss surgery (gastric bypass surgery) reported that their diabetes had either completely gone or was now much easier to control. This is pretty astounding.

The report does not draw a conclusion as to how or why this occurs, and this certainly leaves room for a lot for medical conjecture. The surgeons will be on to it, the renal physicians will take a steady as she goes approach. Doctors report that the evidence is compelling, but that a rush to surgery should be avoided. Conventional methods to manage lifestyle causative factors such as diet and exercise should be pursued vigourously before surgery is even considered. Gastric bypass surgery is quite invasice and contains quite significant risks, and a death rate of 1 in 200.

So surgery is not the answer, except for the few extreme cases. But this research has sparked a debate on whether surgery can be used on non-obese people with Type 2 diabetes.

More information about the source article can be found here.