A "Cure" For Type II Diabetes? YES!!

YES!  An actual cure for diabetes.

When looking at the typical bariatric surgeries there are many benefits to a Type II diabetic but one stands out above and beyond the rest!

Duodenal Switch.

Lap bands have an extremely high failure rate, I sincerely wish the FDA would take them off the market. Bands have been around since the 1970s and the stats are no better today with new technology than they were in the 70s. Diabetes remission is going to be temporary due to faulty bands needing to be removed.

Sleeves, diabetes usually improves drastically by about 10 days to 2 months post op, (my experience with patients). Again, remission but not a cure.

RNY- A Welsh study that came out about 5 years ago or so shows that diabetes goes into remission in 80+% of patients within 10 days of surgery. It is due to the change in the hormonal chain reaction in the gut due to surgery. However, with bypass diabetes comes back in 1/3 of bypass folks.

Duodenal Switch, whole different ballgame. 98.9% of patients experience a cure before they ever leave the hospital. Not remission, a cure.

Check it out:

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Diabetes Cure with Duodenal Switch

Obesity is the leading cause of Type II diabetes mellitus (adult onset diabetes) in the United States. With sufficient weight loss, diabetes will in most cases improve or resolve. Walter Poires, M.D. published in 2004 a study outlining the improvement in Type II diabetes after Roux-En-Y gastric bypass. Since we began performing the Duodenal Switch (DS) in 1993, we have observed that the majority of our patients following their DS for their morbid obesity have had their diabetes cured immediately following the surgery. In fact, we have seen a remarkable 97% recovery rate for our patients with diabetes. Many of our patients discontinue their insulin and/or oral hypoglycemic medications prior to their hospital discharge.

This phenomenon of immediate cure of the diabetes following the DS is, in large part, due to the intestinal rearrangement that is a component of the procedure. We have found that the improvement in and cure of Type II diabetes mellitus following weight loss surgery is, by far, most dramatic following the Duodenal Switch. We routinely perform the DS laparoscopically (LapDS) since we pioneered this minimally invasive approach in 1999.

Below is a chart outlining the differences following weight loss surgery in the cure and or reduction of diabetes and other serious morbid obesity related diseases reported by Harvey Buchwald, M.D. in his meta analysis published in 2004. In this study over 20,000 postoperative bariatric patients were followed for up to 13 years.

Obesity Related Illnesses that Improved/Resolved Following Weight Loss Surgery:

Diabetes Mellitus :
Gastric Band 47.9% 
RnY (gastric bypass) 83.7% 
Duodenal Switch 98.9%

Buchwald, H. Bariatric Surgery, A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA, October 13, 2004-Vol 292, No. 14
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One interesting issue to note, when people have bypass (RNY) only 80+% go into "remission" and diabetes comes back with or without regain in 33%.

However, with DS.... regain or no regain it's a "cure" 98.9% of the time.

This is why DS is being tested in Europe on normal size BMI folks with out of control diabetes. Insulin is no longer effective for this population.

Stem Cell therapy is also proving to be an amazing thing for Type I and Type II diabetics. Within a couple of months of the first treatment many Type I diabetics have a drastically lower dose of insulin and with a 2nd treatment many are off all medications completely for diabetes. For the first time since childhood these people are off insulin completely.

There are a couple of downsides to stem cell treatments. Much research still needs to be done. If someone has any tumors (cancer) existing the stem cells will go to the tumors instead of the pancreas and help the tumors grow like crazy. Also, stem cells only last about 2 years or so for diabetes and must be repeated. But stem cell therapy is the only known treatment for pancreatic disease causing diabetes and DS is the only known cure for Type II.