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- 71
- Type of diabetes
- Type 2
- Dislikes
- loathe cheese and yoghurt, spinach, rhubarb and apricots
This was copied and pasted from an article in yesterdays Daily Mail
A 'bin liner' that sits inside the gut and stops it absorbing calories from food could be a radical new treatment for diabetes.
The 2ft-long plastic sheath acts as a barrier between food and the lining of the small intestine.
This stops enzymes in the intestine wall mopping up fats, sugar and nutrients from food as it passes through.
bypass surgery for those needing to shed large amounts of weight.
Now doctors have discovered it can also have a dramatic effect on blood sugar levels.
In a small trial involving 12 patients, the 'bin liner' therapy was shown to be as good as existing prescription drugs at lowering blood sugar levels.
And it took just six months to get them down to a 'healthy' level - less than half the time it can take for drugs to have the same effect.
Diabetes affects at least two million people in Britain. The condition develops when the pancreas stops producing insulin altogether or the body becomes resistant to its effect.
The body needs insulin to help muscle cells absorb glucose from our diets and use it as fuel for energy.
Without the right levels of insulin, glucose levels can build up - a condition called hyperglycaemia. This can cause long-term irreversible damage to the kidneys, eyes, nerves, heart and major arteries.
Type 1 diabetes tends to affect young people, who often end up needing daily insulin jabs every day for the rest of their lives.
Type 2 usually affects people from middle-age onwards and can often be controlled through diet, exercise and tablets to lower blood sugar.
Some experts fear Britain faces an epidemic of type 2 diabetes due to rising obesity levels. It's thought people with type 2 could benefit from the sheath.
One of the most recent - and successful - ways of treating type 2 diabetes is gastric bypass surgery.
In this procedure, surgeons cut the oesophagus, or food pipe, where it enters the small intestine and reattach it about 2ft further down.
This means food spends less time passing slowly through the narrow small intestine and instead passes straight into the large intestine.
As a result, the gut has less opportunity to soak up calories.
Studies show that obese patients with type 2 diabetes experience a sharp drop in glucose levels after a gastric bypass.
But it is a major operation which involves a long recovery period. The EndoBarrier, developed by a U.S. firm called GI Dynamics, could be a cheap and easy alternative.
The patient is given a general anaesthetic and the 2ft plastic liner is inserted through the mouth using a thin tube called a catheter.
Once it is in position, it is gradually unravelled until it lines most of the small intestine.
The surgeon then secures it in place using tiny titanium anchors that hook into soft tissue at the entrance to the intestine. The whole procedure takes around 30 minutes.
In the latest study, 12 patients with type 2 diabetes were fitted with the plastic liner.
The results, presented at a diabetes conference in New York, showed that after three months the patients' glucose levels dropped so much that some patients were able to stop taking medication completely.
Dr Christopher Sorli, who tested the Endo-Barrier at Billings Clinic in Montana, U.S., said: 'It can take up to two years on aggressive therapies to see the kind of drop that we are seeing in just 30 weeks with the Endo-Barrier.'
A 'bin liner' that sits inside the gut and stops it absorbing calories from food could be a radical new treatment for diabetes.
The 2ft-long plastic sheath acts as a barrier between food and the lining of the small intestine.
This stops enzymes in the intestine wall mopping up fats, sugar and nutrients from food as it passes through.
bypass surgery for those needing to shed large amounts of weight.
Now doctors have discovered it can also have a dramatic effect on blood sugar levels.
In a small trial involving 12 patients, the 'bin liner' therapy was shown to be as good as existing prescription drugs at lowering blood sugar levels.
And it took just six months to get them down to a 'healthy' level - less than half the time it can take for drugs to have the same effect.
Diabetes affects at least two million people in Britain. The condition develops when the pancreas stops producing insulin altogether or the body becomes resistant to its effect.
The body needs insulin to help muscle cells absorb glucose from our diets and use it as fuel for energy.
Without the right levels of insulin, glucose levels can build up - a condition called hyperglycaemia. This can cause long-term irreversible damage to the kidneys, eyes, nerves, heart and major arteries.
Type 1 diabetes tends to affect young people, who often end up needing daily insulin jabs every day for the rest of their lives.
Type 2 usually affects people from middle-age onwards and can often be controlled through diet, exercise and tablets to lower blood sugar.
Some experts fear Britain faces an epidemic of type 2 diabetes due to rising obesity levels. It's thought people with type 2 could benefit from the sheath.
One of the most recent - and successful - ways of treating type 2 diabetes is gastric bypass surgery.
In this procedure, surgeons cut the oesophagus, or food pipe, where it enters the small intestine and reattach it about 2ft further down.
This means food spends less time passing slowly through the narrow small intestine and instead passes straight into the large intestine.
As a result, the gut has less opportunity to soak up calories.
Studies show that obese patients with type 2 diabetes experience a sharp drop in glucose levels after a gastric bypass.
But it is a major operation which involves a long recovery period. The EndoBarrier, developed by a U.S. firm called GI Dynamics, could be a cheap and easy alternative.
The patient is given a general anaesthetic and the 2ft plastic liner is inserted through the mouth using a thin tube called a catheter.
Once it is in position, it is gradually unravelled until it lines most of the small intestine.
The surgeon then secures it in place using tiny titanium anchors that hook into soft tissue at the entrance to the intestine. The whole procedure takes around 30 minutes.
In the latest study, 12 patients with type 2 diabetes were fitted with the plastic liner.
The results, presented at a diabetes conference in New York, showed that after three months the patients' glucose levels dropped so much that some patients were able to stop taking medication completely.
Dr Christopher Sorli, who tested the Endo-Barrier at Billings Clinic in Montana, U.S., said: 'It can take up to two years on aggressive therapies to see the kind of drop that we are seeing in just 30 weeks with the Endo-Barrier.'