Frank who posts as "Jefferson" on alt.support.diabetes, posted the description of the clinical trial now underway to test whether gastric bypass cures Type 2 diabetes in people as well as in mice.
Here is the protocol from the NIH Clinical Trials web site:
Study of Duodenal-Jejunal Bypass as a Potential Cure for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus
What immediately leaps out of the description of the protocol is this statement:
The clinical resolution of T2DM is defined as independence of all anti-diabetic medications and maintaining a HbA1c less than 6.0.
This should raise huge red flags in all of us, because by this definition all of the many hundreds of members of the 5% Club who have lowered their A1cs by cutting down on their carbs have already "cured" their diabetes. You can read reports from members of the 5% Club HERE.
I immediately ask myself, why didn't 60 Minutes run a story about how cutting back on carbs can "cure diabetes?"
But of course, no one makes $25,000 selling low carb diets to people with diabetes, while that is the usual tab for Gastric Bypass surgery.
And as all of us who have lowered our A1cs to the normal range know very well, Diabetes is not "cured" when you lower your A1c to 5.9%. You've cut way down on your chances of developing complications, but the underlying problem still remains. And whether attaining the lower A1cs by crippling your digestive system will produce permanent normal blood sugars in people for whom the bypass does not cause permanent malnutrition syndrome is very questionable.
When gastric bypass is successful for weight loss and does not produce complications that destroy the gut and produce malnutrition syndromes it often works onlyfor a few years and then fails--often leading to weight regain.
So for all of those who have been hailing this radical surgery as a cure for diabetes there already IS a "cure" for diabetes that does not require you to risk your life. It's called carbohydrate restriction and it works very well.
To learn how to "cure" your diabetes follow the technique explained here:
http://alt-support-diabetes.org/newlydiagnosed.htm
(Note: The Jennifer who wrote this wonderful advice is another person, not me!)
April 25, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I love how someone can be eating a diabetic (low carb or otherwise adjusted) diet, be on diabetes medications, testing their sugars to maintain their levels, and then be told 'You don't have diabetes!'.
As long as a PWD has to adjust their lifestyle, they are not cured. Surgery is a very drastic adjustment, and I don't know that there are a lot of long-term studies identifying if this is a sustainable 'cure'. If you could limit your food intake without surgery, you'd see the same results.
You would hope that the people taking these surgeries would have been directed to try non invasive techniques as part of the preparation, but that just doesn't seem to be the case.
Wow, I guess my Type 1 must be clinically resolved. I must be cured! Better stop taking insulin....*just kidding*
Note also, they are only following these people for a year, so the results will not include most nutritional problems and long term effects!
Sad thing is, they will have people lined up trying to get approved for this surgery!
Last night I saw a TV commercial for lap band surgery that included better fitting clothes as a reason!
Jeeze!
Excellent and sadly true ... the only reason malabsorptive surgery works for weight loss or diabetes is because it basically makes it impossible to take in a high glycemic load meal. Whatever food is eaten, is poorly absorbed. At first.
In the long run the digestive track adapts and people start to regain weight (and assume they also lose control of diabetes again).
I belong to an online message group for people who've lost weight after morbid obesity and have had reconstructive surgery. I had a body lift last year after losing 160 pounds. All of the people on this groups except one have lost weight through gastric bypass type surgeries. Guess what? Weight regain is a big issue, and it's pretty much concluded that they are all regaining some of their weight a few years later. With low carb and watching calories I've kept off my weight for 4 years now.
SUrgeries do poorly what low carb does better: reduce blood sugar and insulin response to meals. Why not just skip surgeries and focus on low carb?
It's unfortunate but I suspect there would be a lot more people successfully low carbing if there was the same widespread social support for low carb as there is for surgery and drugs. Money, not theraputic effects, reigns.
Post a Comment