• Why Gastric Bypass Surgery Cures Diabetes

    Posted June 25, 2012: by Bill Sardi

    Strikingly, a report published in The New England Journal of Medicine indicates a significant number of obese patients undergoing gastric bypass surgery are free of diabetes a year following their operation.

    Another recent study reveals gastric bypass surgery surprisingly prolongs remission from diabetes. Better than 4 of 10 patients undergoing gastric bypass had no need for anti-diabetic medication and exhibited improved blood sugar control numbers (hemoglobin A1c under 5.7% and fasting blood sugar under 100 milligrams per deciliter of blood) over a year after surgery.

    An article posted at Forbes.com asks: “Is diabetes a surgically modifiable disease?” The unequivocal answer is yes! However, physicians are perplexed as to the mechanisms behind this phenomenon. It has remained unexplained, till now.

    It turns out that gastric bypass surgery involves blood loss. Anemia is common following the operation. One study shows that hemoglobin (an iron transport protein) decreased from an average of 13.4 to 12.8 grams per deciliter of blood and ferritin (an iron storage protein) dropped from an average of 87.5 to 55.4 nanograms per milliliter of blood following gastric bypass surgery.

    It was Dr. Francesco Facchini, then working at University of California San Francisco General Hospital, who first reported in 2002 that depletion of iron stores via blood letting among diabetic patients, to the point of near anemia (ferritin level 20.0), dramatically improves elevated insulin and blood sugar levels.

    In the bizarre healthcare world, where the most expensive therapies become the most employed, where pools of healthcare insurance dollars are being depleted rapidly, and where modern medicine is about to price itself out of existence, it would not be surprising to see gluttonous obese patients opt for insurance-paid gastric bypass surgery over having to adhere to low-iron diets and undergo blood letting sessions over a period of 12-24 months to reduce iron levels. The average cost for the gastric bypass procedure ranges from $18,000 to $35,000. That’s quite an expensive fix, even though it produces some prolonged weight loss and resolution of diabetes.

    One might ask, how did Americans go from being lean to obese beginning in the early 1980s? Whatever is the cause of the diabesity epidemic, it has to something that changed in the entire population as a whole. It appears the American populace lost ability to control portion sizes of food in lock step. I talk about this at length in my book DOWNSIZING YOUR BODY: How the Industrial Food Complex Breeds Fat Americans. Iron fortified foods, particularly breakfast cereals, are to blame for the diabesity epidemic. A low-iron diet (limited red meat in particular) combined with judicious use of a novel dietary supplement (IP6 rice bran extract) is proposed as a home remedy for adult weight control.

    Marion Nestle, noted dietician, says unless Big Food and Big Government change course, there will be no resolution to the ongoing diabesity epidemic that grips America. Snack foods designed to be eaten to the bottom of the bag are prominent on store shelves. Over-eating is the objective of the food companies. The diabesity epidemic did not originate with a giant collective loss of portion control but rather changes in the food chain (cheaper, more processed, less nutritious foods in large portions), says Nestle. Wouldn’t you know it – big government is behind this whole mess. And America is exporting its foods overseas and spreading the diabesity epidemic around the globe.

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