Weight Loss Surgery News Blog

Link: http://www.robertorizzi.com/qualification.htm

The CBS 60 minutes website posted an article and video resulting in multiple hits on our website and we already received multiple requests. Dr. Rizzi takes the war against Diabetes type 2 serious. Visit also his website in Brazil for his comments on Diabetes 2.

Highlights from CBS article:
It's pretty well known to doctors that the most successful treatment for obesity is surgery, especially the gastric bypass operation. But here's something the medical world is just realizing: that the gastric bypass operation has other even more dramatic effects. It can force type 2 diabetes into almost instant remission and it appears to reduce the risk of cancer.

Surgeons have been performing bariatric, or weight loss operations since the 1950s, but they're much safer than they used to be. They're typically done laparoscopically now, where doctors use tiny surgical tools and video cameras instead of making big, deep incisions.

Despite the increase in obesity, only a small number of people have had the gastric bypass operation.

This spontaneous remission puzzled Italian surgeon Francesco Rubino, now at New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center. "We wanted to know what is making diabetes remit. We thought it could have been something to do with the small bowel," Dr. Rubino says.

So he began performing the bypass on diabetic rats, and realized that when he disconnected the top of the small intestine, an area called the duodenum, the diabetes disappeared. Then, he reversed the operation.

When he reattached it, the diabetes came back.

Dr. Rubino says this operation has been performed on humans.

60 Minutes joined him in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where clinical trials have begun on diabetics who are not obese, to determine if the "diabetes surgery" is safe and effective.

As of now, if you have diabetes and are not obese you can't have the bypass surgery. Under guidelines written by the National Institutes of Health 17 years ago in 1991, only the severely or morbidly obese are eligible for any bariatric operation. If you're just mildly obese, you can't get it.

"And a lot has changed since 1991," Dr. Hutcher remarks. "I would like to see them change their guidelines, especially for the diabetics. I think we have clear cut evidence that we can do terrific things for diabetes."

Here is the link to the CBS article and video:
The Bypass Effect On Diabetes, Cancer
Surgery Can Send Diabetes Into Remission, And May Reduce Risk Of Certain Cancers.

Link: http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c86870

Research and Markets has announced the addition of “Production & Market of Stevia & Stevioside in China” to their offering.

Stevioside, the main sweet component in the leaves of the Stevia plant, tastes about 300 times sweeter than table sugar. It has numerous benefits as a sweetener: it is 100% natural, stable, contains no calories and promotes good dental health by reducing sugar intake. It can be used by diabetics, obese persons and patients suffering from phenylketonuria, an illness which requires a strict diet without artificial sweeteners such as aspartame.

As the incidence of type-2 diabetes and obesity is sharply increasing, stevioside is an excellent substitute for sugar.

Stevia and stevioside have been permitted as food additives in Brazil, Korea, Japan and China. In the United States, they are permitted as a dietary supplement. Recently, large company groups, such as Cargil and Coco Cola have been making effort to widening the market of the United States, and the market potential for stevioside would be great, with the gradual opening of the US market.

China has been the largest stevioside supplier in the world in recent years, though its domestic stevioside market is relatively small. In 2007, about 81% of China’s stevioside is exported.

Link: http://www.robertorizzi.com/obesity-surgery.htm

Published in the April issue of Preventing Chronic Disease, a medical journal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the study found that “the citywide weight gain totaled more than 10 million pounds in just two years,” between 2002 and 2004.

Obesity increased by 20 percent among whites and by 14 percent among Hispanics in New York City compared with 7 percent nationally. Foreign-born New Yorkers experienced the sharpest increase in obesity at 33% since 2002, meaning that 22.4% of that population is obese.

The number of diabetes diagnosis also jumped 17 percent in New York, while the rate in the rest of the country stayed the same.

Another study on obesity that is being published in The Journal of Urban Health blames the consumption of soda and sugary drinks for the excessive weight gain and diabetes.

The study found that 27 percent of the New Yorkers drink nearly two sodas a day, which means almost 300 nutrition-free calories.

Both studies were based on data from the Community Health Survey, a telephone survey of approximately 10,000 New York City adults and from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a similar nationwide survey.

Link: http://www.robertorizzi.com/qualification.htm

Gastric bypass surgery is the cure for people who have Type 2 diabetes, for Type 2 diabetes, the best medicine is weight loss.

More than 1.2 billion people in the world are now officially classified as overweight, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Diabetes mellitus Type 2 affects more than 150 million people worldwide. Although the incidence of complications of Type 2 diabetes can be reduced with tight control of hyperglycemia, current therapies do not achieve a cure.

Patients with Type 2 diabetes have a six-fold increased risk of a first-time myocardial infarction compared with non-diabetic patients and a three to eight-fold increased risk of death.

Long-term follow-up show that gastric bypass and biliopancreatic diversion achieve durable normal levels of plasma glucose, plasma insulin, and glycosylated hemoglobin in 80 per cent to 100 per cent of severely obese diabetic patients, usually within days after surgery. All patients had severe obesity (BMI 35.0 kg/m2). One year after surgery, 64 per cent patients had remission of diabetes. The prevalence of diabetes decreased from 10 to 5.6 per cent. An additional 26 per cent of patients with diabetes had an improvement in their control of diabetes.

Link: http://feedroom.businessweek.com/index.jsp?auto_band=x&rf=sv&fr_story=FRdamp256782

Obesity in America - Reducing the costs of obesity

Obesity costs the health care system $90 billion a year, affecting both those who are obese and those who are not. Business Week is doing a check-up on the system, see where the problems lie, and look at what companies are doing to reduce obesity in their workforce.

Watch the video by clicking the link above.