Surgeons sharpening their scalpels—and licking their chops
Just when I think I've heard it all, along comes the latest "surgical miracle" designed to cut out our bad habits.
To add to a roster that includes such miracles as gastric bypass, various "enhancement" and "removal" options, and the good old-fashioned "let us take a knife to your back" surgeries, you can now turn to the surgeon to take care of that pesky type-2 diabetes for you as well.
If only it were as easy as a nip-and-tuck to remove it.
News from what is described as the "emerging field of diabetes surgery" shows experts aiming for your small bowel as a cure for blood sugar regulation. What it boils down to is a new twist on the gastric-bypass favorite. In gastric bypass, the drastic-gastric banding cuts the stomach down to a tiny size, which restricts the patient's ability to eat. These experts are arguing that diabetes goes into remission, regardless of weight loss.
According to their prior research, the duodenum and jejunum (located in the upper region of the small intestine) that are bypassed in gastric surgery may be where diabetes begins. The research team now thinks that gastrointestinal hormones, called incretins, are responsible for getting type-2 diabetes rolling. These incretins are produced when nutrients are traveling through the upper intestine, and they help boost insulin production. There are also anti-incretins that work in conjunction with them by lowering the secretion of insulin, helping to maintain an overall balance.
But in diabetics, this section of the upper intestine may be producing too much anti-incretin, allowing type-2 diabetes to gain a foothold, according to this theory. Based on this sketchy reasoning, surgeons are banking on cutting out this section of the intestines and all of your problems will be solved.
Great work, if you can get it—and they potentially will. A combination of the nutrition-less Standard American Diet along with the aging population, these guys will be working overtime booking people in droves into OR's across the country.
Look, the epidemic of diabetes is not due to a recent shift in our genetic makeup, nor is it due to a drug deficiency in the body. It's due primarily to changes in our national diet—which have been very clearly tracked and verified—and the effect these changes have on our body, that are very clearly understood by scientists. To offer a surgical solution to a problem that is clearly dietary is the next closest thing to insane! Not to mention costly and dangerous.
I can't help but get a picture of the wolf licking its chops outside of house just ripe for a big huff and a puff. Surgery is quite the profitable endeavor for these docs. But it seems like this offer is one risky venture—especially since diet and exercise can accomplish the same thing—without all the known (and unknown) risks of surgery.
