Stomach-Bypass Surgery Cures Diabetes in Rats

Tue January 27, 2004 05:24 PM ET

By Karla Gale

link to article

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In rats, a weight loss operation, called gastrojejunal bypass, can cure a type of diabetes often associated with obesity, French researchers report. The operation works even in animals that aren't fat.

Exactly why the surgery cures diabetes is a mystery. "If we understand why the operation works, we might understand better the cause of the disease," co-investigator Dr. Francesco Rubino told Reuters Health. "Our ultimate goal is to develop a more targeted approach to treatment of diabetes."

In obese patients with diabetes, gastrojejunal bypass is associated with improved sugar control, "long before significant weight loss" occurs, Rubino and Dr. Jacques Marescaus point out in the Annals of Surgery. They theorize that changes in how the gut interacts with insulin might explain the surgery's direct anti-diabetic effect.

To investigate this possibility, the surgeons, both at Louis Pasteur University in Strasbourg, performed gastrojejunal bypass or a fake operation in non-obese rats with diabetes.

After surgery, the two groups had the same average daily food intake and similar weight gain profiles. In animals that underwent bypass, sugar and insulin control improved dramatically. In contrast, no such effects were observed in rats treated with the fake operation.

In fact, bypass surgery was more effective than certain drugs or food restriction at controlling sugar levels.

"The operation by itself is anti-diabetic," Rubino said. "The result is not a secondary outcome of weight loss or decreased food intake."

He said he believes that in the future, the indication for bypass surgery will be widened to include patients whose diabetes is not easily controlled with diet or drugs, even if they are not obese.

SOURCE: Annals of Surgery, January 2004.

i have a feeling that "food restriction" means limiting sugar, not limiting carbs over all.

Doesn't this just indicate malabsorption of carbohydrates? If the stomach isn't absorbing food, then blood sugar won't go up, and the pancreas won't release insulin. So it's sort of like slow starvation, isn't it? I'd hesitate to call that "a cure."

exactly... this opperation creates a small stomach that can only hold an ounce of food at a time. it does not physically allow a person to eat a lot of any food at once, so carbohydrates are taken in more balanaced and even throughout the day, keeping blood sugar stable. you physically are incapable of eating 100 carbs in one sitting and spiking your blood sugar. it is no more complex than that.