Is It True that Bariatric Surgery Cures Diabetes?
Today, diabetes affects over 150 million people around the world – a number that’s quickly increasing. More than 80% of the people with this disease have the “type 2” strain, which is associated with overweight and obese individuals. Unlike type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes patients produce enough insulin, but cannot use that insulin effectively.
Bariatric surgery is a form of treatment designed to treat obesity. Today, it’s currently being explored as a cure for people with type 2 diabetes too – not just in people with weight problems, but also in those with normal weight. One study on over 20,000 patients found that 84% of the individuals who underwent gastric bypass procedures noticed a complete reversal of diabetic symptoms.
Although we need to conduct more studies to discover if bariatric surgery cures diabetes for good, it seems as though this could be a new and effective solution for people who want to overcome diabetes without reliance on insulin.
Why Bariatric Surgery Cures Diabetes
The evidence suggests that bariatric surgery cures diabetes by reversing the symptoms completely in some cases. However, most people simply don’t understand how this works. Often, when you’re diagnosed with diabetes, you’re told that it will be a lifelong condition. But this might not be the case anymore.
After a gastric bypass, the small intestine begins to produce a molecule called GLUT-1 which is particularly useful at helping the body to process glucose. The amazing thing to note about this is that the substance isn’t always present in the small intestine of adults. Instead, it’s more common within the fetus.
Although weight loss and improved symptoms regarding diabetes will generally go hand in hand, research suggests that gastric bypass surgery helps to resolve problems with the disease before weight loss can even begin.
Bypassing the Bypass
With additional research into the way bariatric surgery cures diabetes, some scientists believe that they might be able to give sufferers the same results as a bypass, without the actual bypass. This would simply involve finding a way to trigger the production of GLUT-1 without the need for a surgical procedure.
According to some scientists, it may be possible to use certain drugs to mimic the effect of using undigested food in the body to induce the metabolism of glucose in the intestine, without surgery. If such a procedure becomes available, this could create a revolution in the way that we treat diabetes, and it may mean that there are options available for treating type 1 as well as type 2.
The key to success for the future of this procedure is figuring out why the gastric bypass surgery given to obese patients can cause the small intestine to produce GLUT-1.
For now, it seems that people who want to overcome diabetes could have more options available to them when addressing the management of insulin. However, it may be difficult to convince a doctor to give you bariatric surgery if you don’t weigh a specific amount, or you haven’t been classified as obese. After all, this type of procedure is still used most commonly for people with weight problems.
