Could Gastric Bypass Surgery Help To Cure Type 2 Diabetes?

Everyone knows about the obvious health benefits associated with gastric bypass surgery. Those who have weight-related health concerns may find that these wellness issues simply disappear when the weight starts to fall off after the surgery. But one area of their wellbeing that they may not have considered is the impact that gastric bypass surgery can have on type 2 diabetes.

 

In fact, gastric bypass surgery can actually improve the symptoms of type 2 diabetes before the weight loss even starts. Scientists have found that the secret to this lies in the workings of the intestines. After a gastric bypass, the intestines become more prominent in the process of glucose use and this helps to decrease the levels of sugar in the blood. Doctors are now hopeful that they can find a way to reproduce this process to help improve the outcomes for those with type 2 diabetes, without actually having to undergo the surgery.

 

After surgery, the small intestines spontaneously begin to produce a molecule which is known as GLUT-1, and this molecule helps the body to use up glucose. Amazingly, this molecule is not normally present inside the small intestines of adult humans, only in foetuses. Researchers think that this probably happens because the intestine has a much harder job to do after the surgery, in order to absorb nutrients or move food further down the digestive track. As the stomach is bypassed, food is ‘dumped’ straight into the intestine, which may put extra stress on it and contribute to these changes occurring.

 

Weight loss and diabetes improvement have always gone hand in hand, but this is the first time that it has been shown that the symptoms of diabetes actually start to improve before any weight loss has taken place. Before, it had just naturally been assumed to be a side effect of the gradual lowering of body fat that occurs after a gastric bypass.

Categories: bypass, bypass surgery, Diabetes, Gastric, Gastric Bypass, small intestines, surgery, Weight Loss

Follow-Up Confirms “Amazing” Results for Weight Loss Surgery

Gastric bypass surgery can have a lasting wellness effect in reversing the pancreas damage brought about by your type 2 diabetes. This is according to a new study in the journal Diabetes Care, which provides further evidence that diabetes medication alone cannot meet the dramatic results of weight loss surgery.

A year ago, Cleveland Clinic researchers examined the treatment of 150 patients who weren’t adequately controlling their diabetes. With the view to lower blood sugar to below normal levels, one-third of the patients underwent gastric bypass, one-third were given a device similar to a lap band that reduces stomach volume, and the rest received the best drug therapies. At the time, bariatric surgeon Dr. Philip Schauer of the Cleveland Clinic commented, ‘It’s pretty amazing. Many of our patients, even within hours of the operation, their blood sugar becomes normal … even before they’ve lost any weight at all.’ But the big question was, would the results last?

Now, a one-year follow-up study has confirmed the “amazing” results that Schauer was so thrilled about. The researchers reported that the surgery appears to have stopped damage to the pancreas, which reverses the cause of diabetes as well as alleviating the symptoms. Dr Sangeeta Kashyap, an endocrinologist with the Cleveland Clinic, said in a statement; ‘Gastric bypass surgery seems to uniquely restore pancreatic beta-cell function, presumably by targeting belly fat and modifying the hormones in the gastrointestinal tract. Gastric bypass remarkably targets belly fat where hormones that are toxic to the body develop.’

When it’s working properly, your pancreas makes insulin which helps to control your blood sugar. However, when you have diabetes, this doesn’t happen, and the excess sugar that occurs in your blood as a result damages your organs, especially your eyes and kidneys. Yet, in patients who had the surgery, Kashyap said that their pancreas was working again.

‘This is something that is very novel and something we don’t see with medications or with insulin,’ she noted. Before they are sure they have a cure, the Cleveland Clinic doctors aim to treat more patients. However, Kashyap said studies show that by bypassing the intestine, which is what the surgery allows, has powerful benefits on peoples’ diabetes and metabolism.

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Follow-Up Confirms “Amazing” Results for Weight Loss Surgery

Categories: Diabetes, Gastric Bypass, Research