southernfa
Well-Known Member
I know this can be a touchy subject but don't have an opinion on the issue either way and thought the information might be useful to some people...
Down here in NZ, there is world-class research being done in type-2 diabetes, mainly because there is a large population of obese polynesians with the disease resulting from frightening diets, sedentary lifestyle etc.
A couple of nights ago, a local news show did a slot on some weird stuff they have been finding out about bariatric surgery (stomach stapling etc).
To wit, 80% of post-op patients recover from type-2 diabetes completely and within weeks. For what it's worth, they didn't say remission, they said recover. Life expectancy and quality of life were dramatically improved as you would expect.
They also reported that somehow the bariatric surgery breaks the "set-point" phenomena that makes it so hard for people to lose weight once they pass a certain point. From memory, the specialist's opinion was that 150kg (~330lb) was commonly 'it'.
The experts interviewed freely admitted that they didn't know why or how these effects were happening, only that statistically they were.
The leading surgeon was also very candid in describing the risks (including death on the table) and stressed that it was very much a last resort for intractable cases. The patients interviewed were all middle-aged and had been given short life expectancies pre-op. Rather frustratingly perhaps, one had mortgaged her house to have the operation done privately, but had no intention of changing her traditional diet that would stop a horse in its tracks...
Nonetheless, the NZ Health Department has cottoned on to the idea that a $20,000 operation could save them up to $200,000/patient in type-2 diabetes care and have increased funding from 70 operations/year to some hundreds.
Down here in NZ, there is world-class research being done in type-2 diabetes, mainly because there is a large population of obese polynesians with the disease resulting from frightening diets, sedentary lifestyle etc.
A couple of nights ago, a local news show did a slot on some weird stuff they have been finding out about bariatric surgery (stomach stapling etc).
To wit, 80% of post-op patients recover from type-2 diabetes completely and within weeks. For what it's worth, they didn't say remission, they said recover. Life expectancy and quality of life were dramatically improved as you would expect.
They also reported that somehow the bariatric surgery breaks the "set-point" phenomena that makes it so hard for people to lose weight once they pass a certain point. From memory, the specialist's opinion was that 150kg (~330lb) was commonly 'it'.
The experts interviewed freely admitted that they didn't know why or how these effects were happening, only that statistically they were.
The leading surgeon was also very candid in describing the risks (including death on the table) and stressed that it was very much a last resort for intractable cases. The patients interviewed were all middle-aged and had been given short life expectancies pre-op. Rather frustratingly perhaps, one had mortgaged her house to have the operation done privately, but had no intention of changing her traditional diet that would stop a horse in its tracks...
Nonetheless, the NZ Health Department has cottoned on to the idea that a $20,000 operation could save them up to $200,000/patient in type-2 diabetes care and have increased funding from 70 operations/year to some hundreds.
