Surgery Helps Diabetes but Doesn't Cure It

[Cowboyjim]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121126142957.htm

Sorry folks, some not so good news today!

ScienceDaily (Nov. 26, 2012) — After gastric bypass surgery, diabetes goes away for some people -- often even before they lose much weight. So does that mean gastric surgery "cures" diabetes? Not necessarily, according to the largest community-based study of long-term diabetes outcomes after bariatric surgery. For most people in the study, e-published in advance of print in Obesity Surgery, diabetes either never remitted after gastric surgery or relapsed within five years.

more cheer here...
""Prevention is by far the best medicine for diabetes," Dr. Arterburn said. "Once you have diabetes, it's really hard to get rid of. Attempts to treat it with intensive lifestyle changes and medical management have been disappointing." For instance, the National Institutes of Health recently halted the Look AHEAD study of intensive lifestyle changes for people with diabetes. "

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11695-012-0802-1

 

[Indy51]

I find it really amusing that they call the AHEAD study "intensive lifestyle intervention" when it was nothing of the kind, LOL. It was just more of the tired "conventional wisdom" approach to diabetes.

I would really like to see more studies of the Newcastle Diet because it seems to offer real hope for both diabetes and obesity - without resorting to surgery.

Thanks for the article, Cowboyjim - you do a stirling job finding this info for us :thumbup:

 

[Cowboyjim]

Thanks Indy hope all is well "down under"... yuck weather here in the UK as no doubt you may have seen on TV...

We can only find these things "amusing" for to do otherwise might send us completely round the bend... 8)

Surgery is expensive and maybe OK for the US where in my view the reasoning for it is not quite the same as elsewhere, cosmetic surgery for example. But then it is still the pro's who guide the patient through the options that may be the ones who need to take a broader view.

That said I have the suspicion that most if they could would get a fix that meant you could become "normal" again able to indulge in all and anything that takes our fancy, let alone the warm feeling of having vanquished the evil plague that is DM. But personally I would take my chances with lifestyle changes and a few pills rather than going under the knife... but then maybe that is what life is about, choice... but this approach has now become less attractive and that is worrying. 8)

 

[BaliRob]

It's very much like that that was said by a visiting American Specialist to my man at BIMC Bali yesterday when trying to decide what's wrong with me - "Yes, it's ok doing all these tests but what are you going to do with the results when you get them?"

His meaning, of course, that the results may mean experimenting in certain directions or operating without forgone conclusive results. Many invasive operations prove to be without benefit - we just hear the success stories.

In many cases we are victims of the present decline and status quo in our physical state or at the mercy of the onset of old age (yes you have guessed it - I am in my seventies) and we have to come to terms with, at best, palliative care.

 

[Cowboyjim]

The rationale of all this is fascinating in a morbid way. And more so when it is one of us that is the subject of the scrutiny of supposed experts/consultants/specialists. The human frame is fantastically complex but we exist in a world where generalities have to hold sway. DM is a case in point, the numbers are such that it can only be "treated" this way imho.

No doubt we all have first or second-hand experience of such situations where standard procedure is inappropriate or falls short. It involves much stress and cost. Thus we have to approach it confident of the outcome. Sadly that is not always the case nor will it ever be.

No expert is in reality an all seeing god let alone magician. They are human too and the only thing that separates us "the patients" from them is years of training and experience. Those two things and good judgement are what we rely on. Often it works, but not every time.

Until humans are made like machines with parts of predictable "mean time between failure" and "programmed maintenance" I suspect it will always be so. 8)