Should I Consider Gastric Bypass Surgery to Cure My Type 2 Diabetes?

I’m 36 and at my 7 year mark now after being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and I’m considering getting gastric bypass surgery. There are studies that support gastric bypass weight loss surgery to stop the use of diabetes medications for type 2 diabetics. As I cut down on my daily intake of food I don’t see any big changes in my blood sugars or weight. I do exercise 2 or 3 times a week but obviously it’s not enough.

The exact cause of type 2 diabetes is still unknown. Many doctors subscribe to the “lipocentric hypothesis,” which pins the blame on extra pounds. Even if the body makes lots of insulin to process or store blood sugars, the theory goes, the extra weight overwhelms it. “The fat in your belly is very insulin-resistant,” says George Fielding, a bariatric surgeon at New York University. “So as that fat increases, the insulin in the body just isn’t strong enough to work against it, and the person gets diabetes.”

That explanation, however doesn’t work for everyone, because it fails to account for the 20 percent of type 2 diabetes patients who aren’t overweight. I can’t say I’m one of them but for what I eat and the amount I exercise now. I shouldn’t be this big and my blood sugars shouldn’t ever be above 200.

“They’re very active, and they eat properly,” says Paul Robertson, a prominent diabetes researcher in Seattle. As for what could be causing the illness in those cases, says Robertson, “we’re left scratching our heads.”

I’m just not at the point right now where I can put in a WHOLE LOT of time into this although it is my health.

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.

Something that seems very positive is that the medications for type 2 diabetes in 10 out of 11 obese adolescents treated with the procedure have stopped taking their meds all together.

I’d really like to hear from you and your thoughts on whether this is my solution or do I go on fighting diabetes the rest of my life.