Organic Living and Lifestyle Blog

Outrage Over Diabetes Surgery Cure

January 23rd, 2008

I’m outraged over today’s news that surgery for obesity can cure diabetes.

Here’s part of the article:

“CHICAGO - A new study gives the strongest evidence yet that obesity surgery can cure diabetes.

Patients who had surgery to reduce the size of their stomachs were five times more likely to see their diabetes disappear over the next two years than were patients who had standard diabetes care, according to Australian researchers.

Most of the surgery patients were able to stop taking diabetes drugs and achieve normal blood tests.” The article continues that obesity surgery is “achieving remission in a matter of days or a month“.

“We have traditionally considered diabetes to be a chronic, progressive disease,” said Cummings of the University of Washington in Seattle. “But these operations really do represent a realistic hope for curing most patients.”

For the rest of the story visit: http://health.yahoo.com/news/ap/diabetes_obesity_surgery.html

So what’s the cure? Go have surgery?! And this quick fix is from Australian researchers. Now I’m not only outraged, I’m ashamed that my own country would propose this sort of instant solution. Really guys, you should be ashamed of yourselves. I’m so disappointed.

The silver lining is that it’s now made even more obvious that obesity is the major cause of diabetes.  That’s right, for many people, diabetes is a self inflicted disease.

Making such a drastic decision to have the surgery for obesity surgery should never be a first option.

First of all people need to be educated so that they see their eating habits caused this disease and just as they created it, they can cure it.  I’m scared that if we see surgery as a first solution to this problem that we’re not addressing the cause. It’s a short term solution with an extremely high chance that unless their lifestyle changes, they will again be in the same situation.

Sure, a small proportion of the chronically overweight population are in such a desperate situation that surgery is the last resort but surgery is never the first way to reduce weight.

Recently I was at a party talking to a woman who had surgery just before Chrismas to insert a band reducing the size of her stomach. She was thrilled at the weight she was losing. She explained to us that she had to limit her food intake to half a cup of food because that was all her stomach could hold and that she was skipping the bread sticks and crackers because they filled her up too fast. I was thinking, that’s good because those white bread products can be really fattening but I was horrified when she shared she couldn’t drink a full glass of water (or anything else) because her stomach literally could not hold more than half a cup!

This lady knew full well what she was getting herself into and was fully committed. After all, she did it just before Christmas! In my book that shows top marks for determination.

Obesity is a battle with emotions. There is no quick fix. I feel so sad for people who are constantly struggling with their weight because I know it’s just a matter of changing habits.  Changing your habits and moving your emotions to where you want them to be is not easy, in fact for many people it’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do, your Mount Everest. But truly, it’s the most rewarding victory you’ll ever have: to feel good and look good.

If you want to know smart, powerful strategies to help make losing weight simpler write me a comment and I’ll reply personally. (I’m not selling anything, I just know ways that make it an awful lot simpler.)

Technorati Tags: diabetes, surgery, obesity, losing weight, gastric, band, stomach, stapling

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Entry Filed under: News