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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