“Often, the pancreatic cells that produce the insulin have become damaged, either from attack by the immune system or from chronic overtaxing because of poor diet. “
Then how do they explain the virtually immediate remission of diabetes — within days — after gastric bypass surgery. It’s not the weight reduction, their diabetes disappears before they lose any weight.
I think the current theories on diabetes could be completely wrong.
Diabetes May Be Disorder Of Upper Intestine: Surgery May Correct It
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080305113659.htm
Growing evidence shows that surgery may effectively cure Type 2 diabetes - an approach that not only may change the way the disease is treated, but that introduces a new way of thinking about diabetes.
Clinical studies have shown that procedures that simply restrict the stomach’s size (i.e., gastric banding) improve diabetes only by inducing massive weight loss. By studying diabetes in animals, Dr. Rubino was the first to provide scientific evidence that gastrointestinal bypass operations involving rerouting the gastrointestinal tract (i.e., gastric bypass) can cause diabetes remission independently of any weight loss, and even in subjects that are not obese.
Dr. Rubino’s prior research has shown that the primary mechanisms by which gastrointestinal bypass procedures control diabetes specifically rely on the bypass of the upper small intestine - the duodenum and jejunum. This is a key finding that may point to the origins of diabetes.
In fact, bypass of the upper small intestine does not improve the ability of the body to regulate blood sugar levels. “When performed in subjects who are not diabetic, the bypass of the upper intestine may even impair the mechanisms that regulate blood levels of glucose,” says Dr. Rubino. In striking contrast, when nutrients’ passage is diverted from the upper intestine of diabetic patients, diabetes resolves.
This, he explains, implies that the upper intestine of diabetic patients may be the site where an abnormal signal is produced, causing, or at least favoring, the development of the disease.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. Gastric banding or bypass won’t do anything for it. Those patients must get insulin.
Your analysis of the general consensus on gastric bypass and t2 diabetes is generally correct. The actual fact situation may be somewhat different. T2 diabetes is multi-factorial: shortage of trace metals that operate like insulin mimetics, hyperaminoacidemia, saturated fatty acid saturation, disrupted insulin signaling, phospholipid imbalances in cell membranes & insufficient insulin. Does it seem likely that all of these underlying conditions are permanently resolved with a gastric bypass?
T2 diabetics have different flora in the upper intestine and are able to uptake higher ratios of glucose at a higher rate of absorption than normal metabolic humans. Much of the immediate benefit of the gastric bypass may involve the avoidance/elimination of the extra efficient glucose processing of their unique upper intestinal flora.
The benefits of the gastric bypass may also be limited to those indviduals whose energy consumption levels have actually been dramatically reduced by the gastric bypass procedure. Some individuals are going to drink alcohol and drink other dense materials in pursuit of satiation which will reduce the effectiveness of the gastric bypass on a long term basis.
The really good news about the gastric bypass is the insight it provides into the relationship between starvation and the reduction of t2 diabetic symptoms.
I would speculate that 30% of the weight lost from gastric bypass efforts is actually lean muscle. If you extend that line far enough it goes straight to the graveyard.
The bariatric doctor I go to (I had gastric bypass 6 years ago, but didn’t have diabetes) says that this procedure is the ONLY cure that he knows of for Type II Diabetes. I personally know 3 people who had gastric bypass that are off ALL of their diabetic meds, and are no longer considered diabetic. There have been studies, and it appears that those with a milder form of diabetes as well as those with greater weight loss benefit the most. http://www.annalsofsurgery.com/pt/re/annos/abstract.00000658-200310000-00003.htm;jsessionid=LdpHpkv7hqyvrxhgnMfqlnnQdM3DCyL5t5XL84wM6gQC8GL7tp6l!2016747336!181195628!8091!-1