One-time diabetes operation instead of lifelong medication intake
The fact that a gastric bypass is a proven method when it comes to weight loss in extremely overweight patients is not new. However, this also makes it possible to cure type 2 diabetes. Years of experience and observations by surgeons and doctors show that this operation also improves blood sugar levels and has a positive influence on sugar metabolism.
No more insulin
Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes. In most cases, the disease is initially treated with tablets, but later patients have to inject insulin. As a rule, this must be remembered at every meal, unless long-term insulin is injected once a day. This is not only annoying and interferes massively in everyday life, but is often even relatively ineffective. Many patients need more and more units per day, but for some it is never enough to get their blood sugar levels under control, so that they are permanently getting worse and worse. In order to avoid all these inconveniences, one can nowadays fall back on diabetes surgery. This endoscopic procedure only takes one and a half hours and results in massive improvements in 75 to 95 percent of all cases. This ensures that patients either have to inject less insulin permanently or even no insulin at all.
Gastric bypass for diabetes
During the operation, the duodenum is excluded from the passage of food and the chyme reaches the lower intestinal area more quickly. This has the effect that regulating hormones are released faster and more strongly. In the long term, the weight loss caused by the operation also reduces diabetes.
Although specialists have known for many years that blood sugar levels are favorably influenced by this operation, gastric bypass has so far only been used in obese patients for faster and more stable weight loss. Nowadays it is also a proven diabetes surgery, which is applied with diabetes type 2, and already obtained many positive results.
Statistics and studies
Long-term results are still rare, since the first large evaluation of data is only 22 years old. However, medium-term studies from the USA and Italy show that, depending on the surgical procedure, 40 to 65 percent of patients need no more medication or insulin five years after the operation. Others have to take far less than before the procedure.
