By Dave Lucas
Albany, NY – A type of weight-loss surgery is being touted as having the potential to "cure" diabetes in certain patients. Capital District Bureau Chief Dave Lucas reports.
The "Lap Band" commercial promoting weight loss via stomach surgery has been flickering across local TV the past several days and coincidentally a new study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (and written about in the New York Times) sees the medical community adding credibility to the product and the procedure. Greg Gerety, chief of Endocrinology at St. Peter's Hospital in Albany, says in this country it is now considered the NORM to be overweight or obese.
Australian researchers looked at 60 clinically obese patients recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Half underwent stomach-banding surgery while the other half continued on with conventional diabetes treatment. Over the 2-year study there was significantly more weight loss in the group that underwent surgery: meaning all signs of the disease went away. The remission rate was just 13 percent in those given conventional treatment, which entailed a regimen of diet and exercise along with diabetes medicines when needed.
The new study represents the first effort to scientifically determine how weight-loss surgery measures up against medical treatment in similar groups of patients with the disease. Gerety says it's quite remarkable to see patients who have had this surgery come off their medicine or need far less medicine.
The average cost for stomach banding in the United States is $17,000 while the other bariatric operations average $25,000.
Dr. Francesco Rubino, director of the metabolic surgery program at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, tells the New York Times that the criteria for stomach-banding surgery should be changed so that it could be offered to diabetes patients early enough to reverse the disease.