Downsides of Gastric Bypass (as cure for diabetes)

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Buffalo

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When I read this article titled "Gastric Bypass Surgery Explored as Cure for Type 2 Diabetes" at medscape.com (please use the search engine to get to the link as I have problems putting the link in here), I was shocked to hear of a cure for type 2 diabetes. The trouble is they won't consider gastric bypass unless your BMI is at least 35. I don't know if they will change that in case of diabetes yet. Not every kind of gastric bypass will cure the diabetes, just the ones that bypass the small intestine like RYGB.

What I want to know is what are the downside of RYGB. I hope that there are few so the tradeoff would be good if a diabetic person opt for RYGB.

Sorry, I meant to add a question mark to the subject line but I am not able to edit that.
 
There will always be risks with any type of gastric bypass surgery.
 
I know that there are risks to any surgery. I just hope that there are less health problems with gastric bypass than health problems with diabetes. That is why I want to know what are the problems after a RYGB.
 
Buffalo said:
I know that there are risks to any surgery. I just hope that there are less health problems with gastric bypass than health problems with diabetes. That is why I want to know what are the problems after a RYGB.
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It varies on the individual. I don't know much about it, but I've read/seen stories where different people suffer different side effects.

There was one show I saw where this woman couldn't eat more than 1/4th a plate and would easily vomit regardless of how small she ate. She had to eat very small bites in order for the food to go down. It was like eating like a baby all over again. She was getting sick easily due to the fact that her body wasn't getting the nutrition it normally would get.

The common part of the surgery is to reduce the intake of your food.

Let's suppose you are big and your stomach is big. Your stomach is designed for a big person like you. If they were to reduce your stomach to the size of a regular person, you would possibly lose weight... but at a very slow rate. In order to make it very successful, they have to reduce the size to a point where your stomach is of a kid. Now, you will lose weight greatly... but you're getting the nutrition of a kid and not of an adult. So, your body will develop differently and you could end up being weak.

I think that this kind of surgery is too much for anyone.

Have you made a comparison list between the costs of living the life with diabetes and living the life after surgery?
 
I doubt there's a cure for diabetes type 2, once you have diabetes, you will have it for the rest of your life, there is no cure for diabetes, gastic bypass is going to make you lose weight but it is not going to cure it
 
Buffalo said:
I know that there are risks to any surgery. I just hope that there are less health problems with gastric bypass than health problems with diabetes. That is why I want to know what are the problems after a RYGB.
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I had a friend who died from complications with gastric bypass surgery several years ago, and currently know a student that has been hospitalized 17 times over the past year with complications from gastric bypass surgery she had last year. It certainly isn's a decision one should take lightly, IMO.
 
DVDFreaker said:
I doubt there's a cure for diabetes type 2, once you have diabetes, you will have it for the rest of your life, there is no cure for diabetes, gastic bypass is going to make you lose weight but it is not going to cure it
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This is true. Weight loss will make the diabetes easier to manage, but it certainly won't make the body start producing insulin again. Damage to the pancreas is lasting.
 
Excuse me, DVDFreaker and Jillio - If you read the article Diabetes In Control - Gastric Bypass Surgery Explored as Cure for Type 2 Diabetes and you will come across this:
A bariatric surgery procedure used for treating severe obesity is now being explored as a cure for type 2 diabetes mellitus in normal-weight and moderately overweight patients with diabetes.
......When used as a last resort for weight management, certain gastric bypass procedures have been known to completely reverse, or at least mitigate, type 2 diabetes. Until recently, researchers had assumed that weight loss alone was somehow responsible for this benefit. However, new research in rodents and very preliminary work in humans suggest that hormonal and metabolic changes caused by the surgery must be responsible, not simple weight loss, said Karen Foster-Schubert, MD, acting instructor at the University of Washington in Seattle.
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I hope they would consider doing the RYGB on those who are in the normal range to solve the diabetes problem. I wonder if they would leave the stomach alone (not cutting it down to small pouch) in those who are in normal range. My BMI is 23 so no RYGB for me unless they change their mind or modify it for people like me.
 
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