Jeff Haaga doesn’t need a study to confirm what he knows to be true.
The day before his weight loss surgery in January 2010, he weighed 409 pounds. He was pre-diabetic, had sleep apnea, painful swelling in his ankles and was taking medicines for high cholesterol and heartburn.
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Hear more from Darren King
Darren King is making YouTube videos documenting his experience, talking candidly about his fears.
He records them in his car, in part because he feels uncomfortable talking about his weight in front of his family.
See the videos at:
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Obesity in Utah
More than half, 60 percent, of Utah adults are overweight or obese
Over one in three of those Utah adults at an unhealthy weight are obese (24.0 percent Utah BRFSS* 2008).
The percentage of obese adults in Utah has more than doubled (a 128 percent increase) since 1989.
Significantly more men (67.5 percent) were overweight or obese in Utah than women (52.4 percent, Utah BRFSS 2008).
Source: Utah Department of Health
* Centers for Disease Control’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System
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Since then, he’s shed 190 pounds and all his health problems.
“I’m off my meds,” he said. “I even got a letter from the CEO of my insurance company, SelectHealth, congratulating me for my normal blood sugar levels.”
Two studies last month in the New England Journal of Medicine showed surgery can reverse Type 2 diabetes and is better at controlling the disease than conventional therapies, including medication. Prescribed for the morbidly obese for decades, weight loss surgery is now more commonly used to reverse diabetes in patients who are also overweight or obese.
Such studies, on the heels of others showing the diabetes remains reversed for several years, could encourage insurance companies to cover the surgeries sooner and not as a last resort.
“I believe insurance companies really do look carefully at the [studies],” said Ted D. Adams, lead researcher on the Utah Obesity Study, which has followed obese patients after their gastric bypass surgeries for almost 10 years.
“They’re expensive procedures and insurance companies want to know, is this treatment effective? More and more insurance companies are choosing to cover bariatric surgery for the severely obese population.”
There are signs that the surgery itself and not just the weight loss helps reverse diabetes.
Steven Simper, a vascular surgeon at St. Mark’s Hospital who operated on Haaga, said about two-thirds of his bariatric patients are cured of their diabetes almost immediately after surgery. They leave the hospital without their diabetes medications. “The question is why?” he said.
Doctors have come to realize the surgery speeds up metabolism and promotes hormone changes that help fight diabetes, he said.
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Preventive surgery? » Haaga, a Salt Lake City native, started gaining weight as a young adult. Despite an underactive thyroid gland, he had success with diets. “I’ve lost hundreds and hundreds of pounds,” he says. “Like most overweight people, I’m an expert dieter.”
But he always gained the weight back, and then some, until surgery.
To celebrate his weight loss, he participated in two 100-mile bike rides last year, including the Tour de Cure, which he’s riding in again this year. And he joined the board of directors at the Salt Lake chapter of the Weight Loss Surgery Foundation of America, which raises money to fund bariatric surgeries.
Haaga says about half of Utah’s private insurers offer plans covering bariatric surgery. Medicare, Medicaid and Utah’s Public Employee Health Plan cover it, but with lots of restrictions attached.
Studies show insurers recoup the costs of weight loss surgery in two to four years as patients shed weight and associated health problems, said Simper.
Patients can regain weight years after surgery. But data from the Utah Obesity Study show 80 percent of patients remain diabetes-free two years later. Six years after surgery, the number falls to 60 percent.
Even the 40 percent who aren’t cured are able to keep their blood sugar levels in control, Simper said.
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