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Can Weight-Loss Surgery Reverse Diabetes? Diabetes, or sometimes referred to as diabetes mellitus, is a medical condition in which the person with diabetes has high blood sugar. People with diabetes will usually experience frequent urination and they tend to become increasingly thirsty and hungry. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 26 million people in the United States have Type-2 diabetes, which accounts for almost 90 percent and is the most common kind of diabetes. The number is expected to grow. Being a leading cause of heart disease and stroke, Type-2 diabetes is also the 7th leading cause of death in the United States. As indicated by the American Diabetes Association, Americans spend nearly $250 billion in 2012 on diabetes along. The figure was 40 percent higher than that in 2007. Besides Type-2, there are also Type-1 (about 10 percent) and gestational diabetes (very small percent). For people with Type-1 diabetes, their body does not produce insulin, and gestational diabetes occurs in female during pregnancy. For Type-2 diabetics, their bodies either do not produce enough insulin or the cells ignore the insulin, though human body requires insulin to use glucose for energy. When a person eat food, the body breaks down all of the sugars and starches into glucose that is the basic fuel for the cells in the body. Insulin then takes the sugar from the blood into the cells. When glucose builds up in the blood instead of going into the cells, it can cause 2 problems: the cells might be starved for energy and the high glucose level in the blood might hurt the eye, kidneys, nerve or even heart.
People who are overweight and obese have a much higher chance of getting Type-2 diabetes, compared to those with a healthy weight. A paper published online March 31, 2014 in the ‘New England Journal of Medicine’ argued that performing weight-loss surgery on obese patients with Type-2 diabetes could effectively reverse the disease, allowing most of them to stop using insulin and many to stop diabetes medication 3 years later. Researchers from Cleveland Clinic and other institutions also indicated in the paper that patients who had surgery were able to feel less body pain, and they were more functional and had a better quality of life. In short, they were happier and healthier as a result of having the bariatric surgery. Patients who received gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy weight-loss operations were also found to have reduced need for drugs to control high blood pressure and high cholesterol, compared to patients who received only medical weight-loss therapy alone. The study followed 3 groups of patients who had poorly controlled diabetes and received gastric bypass surgery, sleeve gastrectomy, or intensive medical therapy. After 3 years, more than a third of people who received gastric bypass surgery no longer required diabetes medicine, and almost a quarter of those in the sleeve gastrectomy group were also able to stop taking insulin or oral medications. Almost all of the surgery patients who had taken insulin could stop. Only 5 to 10 percent of them were using insulin at the 3-year mark, compared with 55 percent of those in the medical therapy group that had only 5 percent of patients who could have normal glucose control despite taking more medication. Patients who got the weight-loss surgery lost an average of 50 to 55 pounds (almost quarter of their body weight) at the 3-year mark. Those who had gastric bypass surgery fared better than those in the sleeve gastrectomy group, but both groups had 5 to 6 times more weight loss than in the medical therapy group. While the findings seem impressive, other health experts felt that weight-loss surgery should still be used as the last resort for patients who are not controlling their diabetes and responding to medical treatment. This is because the surgery cost is extremely expensive, about $50,000, and it does fail in many cases. More importantly, there is a risk of complication including death.
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