Sunday, April 01, 2012

Stage 2 Diabetes and Bariatric Surgery

Two small headline-generating studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine on March 26, 2012 found that, “In obese patients with uncontrolled type 2 diabetes, 12 months of medical therapy plus bariatric (weight loss) surgery achieved glycemic (blood sugar) control in significantly more patients than medical therapy alone.” And “In severely obese patients with type 2 diabetes, bariatric surgery resulted in better glucose control than did medical therapy.”

Comments: These two studies confirmed the obvious: Major surgery, designed to damage the functional capacity of a person’s stomach and intestines, results in sufficient malnourishment to cause the patient to lose large amounts of weight. With weight loss, type 2 diabetes is almost always cured. These findings will be viewed by patients and doctors alike as legitimate medical therapies, and will be paid for by your insurance companies, your employers, and your tax dollars. The suffering and side effects of these surgeries are often incapacitating and permanent.

What kind of society do we live in where we are purposefully harming a patients’ body in order to cure them of their gluttony, without first offering them an opportunity to learn the cause of their obesity and to then make simple dietary corrections?

-from Dr. McDougall's most recent newsletter.

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