Lap-band Surgery May Beat Type 2 Diabetes

Filed in archive Treatment on May 8, 2007

Lap-band surgery - a procedure conducted to restrict the appetite in the clinically severely obese - will clear three out of four type 2 diabetics of their condition after two years.

Such were being suggested by the preliminary results of an unpublished study recently presented at a medical conference in Melbourne, Australia.

...patients with a body mass index higher than 30 were able to lose 20 per cent of their weight with the surgery.

About 73 per cent went into diabetes remission, meaning they no longer required drugs to manage their condition.

In contrast, obese patients who had standard medication and lifestyle changes had less than 2 per cent weight loss and only a 13 per cent remission rate.

Already established as a safe and effective treatment for obesity, lap-band surgery is a procedure wherein a rubber band is surgically wrapped around the stomach to induce weight loss by restricting the amount of food taken.

However, the benefits of this procedure on diabetes have not been well-understood.

In Australia, 30% are both diabetic and obese (diabesity) and lap-band surgery is presenting a potential solution to the problem.

What do you think? Could this work? Aren't there complications to lap-band surgery?

And I guess not all diabetics are qualified to undergo this procedure...unless clinically obese as well?

According to Prof O'Brien, who has performed 2000 lap-band surgeries at the Alfred Hospital:

"The diabetics who would benefit most from the procedure were those with a BMI over 30 who had failed to improve their condition using drugs, low-calorie diets or exercise."

There you go!

Read the full report.