Benefits of Weight Loss Surgery for Diabetics Diminish Over Time

Health Wellness

Image result for overweight workout

Type 2 diabetes has been directly linked to obesity, among several other factors. Quite often, this type of diabetes can be controlled by diet and exercise, without medication and in some cases, it can even be reversed if the person not only watches their diet and exercises, but if they lose weight and get back down close to a normal or healthy weight.

I can testify to this in part. Over a year and a half ago, I weighed in at 309 pounds, and standing only 5 feet 10 and half inches, I was morbidly obese. I wasn’t watching my diet, nor was I exercising and I ended up in the hospital with dangerously high blood sugar and blood pressure levels. My A1C level was 11.5, which is also dangerously high. My doctor more or less ordered – more like a very strong recommendation – me to lose weight. I placed myself on a strict diet, limiting my total intake to no more than 1,200 calories a day (many days it was only 600-800 calories) and I began exercising daily. I lost over 80 pounds and not only were my daily blood sugar and blood pressure readings down to acceptable readings, by A1C had dropped to 5.2 (6.0 and above is considered diabetic). If I am able to maintain this level, I may eventually be able to stop taking any medications.

I know of other people who say that dieting and exercise is too difficult as they have little to no self-control that’s needed to maintain a long-term regime of diet and exercise. They opt for surgical methods to lose weight. One the most popular forms of surgery is gastric bypass, especially older folks who may not only have difficulty in controlling their diet, but may also have other health reasons that make it difficult to exercise or lose weight by conventional mean.

There are two parts of gastric bypass surgery:

Part one is where the surgeon divides the stomach into two sections, a large and a small pouch. The small pouch, which only holds about 1 cup of food at a time, is ‘stapled’ off from the larger portion. The new smaller stomach makes the person feel full quicker, thus they eat less and loose weight.

Part two is where the surgeon disconnects the new smaller pouch which is removed from the rest of the stomach and from where the stomach attaches to the small intestine. The new smaller pouched stomach is then reconnected to a section of the small intestine further down the intestine. This form of surgery is referred to as Roux-en-Y.

A number of obese diabetics undergo gastric bypass to help them lose weight and consequently also helps to lower their blood sugar and blood pressure. Sounds good, except for the long-term effects.

Not only do many patients who undergo gastric bypass have complications, but the beneficial effects of gastric bypass surgery for diabetics appears to diminish over time. According to a recent study:

“In the relative short-run, weight-loss surgery helped obese people struggling with type 2 diabetes experience marked improvement in diabetes-related health issues, new research reports.”

“But, their ability to control blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol levels diminished over time, the study found. That raises questions as to how long the benefits can be maintained further down the road.”

“‘We found that adding gastric bypass [weight-loss surgery] did provide significant benefit at five years after surgery,’ said study author Dr. Charles Billington. ‘But the size of the benefit declined substantially from the first to the fifth year’…”

“After a year, 50 percent of the 60 participants who’d had weight-loss surgery had reached targeted blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol levels associated with diabetes control. However, ‘the slide in achievement of the triple endpoint target among the gastric bypass group was from 50 percent at one year to 23 percent at five years,’ Billington said.”

The older we get, the harder it is to lose weight. I won’t tell anyone not to undergo gastric bypass surgery, but I do offer a word of caution. The surgery may help short-term, but the long-term benefits may not be as great as hoped for. Additionally, I would recommend looking at the possible complications.

diabetes Losing Weight Obesity

Related Posts