Study: Obesity surgery can cure diabetes

Last update: January 22, 2008 - 9:10 PM

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

Patients who had banding 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.

"It's the best therapy for diabetes that we have today, and it's very low-risk," said the study's lead author, Dr. John Dixon of Monash University Medical School in Melbourne, Australia.

The patients had stomach band surgery, a procedure more common in Australia than in the United States, where gastric bypass surgery, or stomach stapling, predominates.

Gastric bypass is even more effective against diabetes, achieving remission in a matter of days or a month, said Dr. David Cummings, who wrote an accompanying editorial in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association but was not involved in the study.

Diabetes experts who read the study said that surgery should be considered for some obese patients but that more research is needed to see how long results last and which patients benefit most. Surgery risks should be weighed against diabetes drug side effects and the long-term risks of diabetes itself, they said.

The study involved 55 patients, so experts will be looking for results of larger experiments under way.

NYC FAST-FOOD MENUS MUST INCLUDE CALORIES

A city agency voted Tuesday to revive a plan to force chains to post calorie counts for their foods right on the menu, hoping the fat-filled truth will shock New Yorkers into eating more healthfully. The regulation adopted by the city Board of Health takes effect March 31.

The city's original effort was struck down last September. The new regulation applies to any chain that operates at least 15 separate outlets, including those that don't currently provide any information on calories. Major fast-food chains make up about 10 percent of the city's restaurants.

TRADITIONAL MEDICINES CAUSE LEAD POISONING

Health departments around the country say traditional medicines used by many immigrants from Latin America, India and other parts of Asia are the second most common source of lead poisoning in the United States -- surpassed only by lead paint -- and may account for tens of thousands of such cases among children each year.

Dozens of adults and children have become gravely ill or died after taking lead-laden medicine over the past eight years, according to federal and local health officials.

The dangerous medicines are manufactured outside the United States and sold in the U.S. by folk healers known as curanderas and in ethnic grocery stores and neighborhood shops that offer herbs and charms. They are usually brought into the country by travelers in their suitcases, thereby slipping past government regulators.

"No one's testing these medications," said Dr. Stefanos Kales, an assistant professor of environmental health at the Harvard School of Public Health who researched the problem. "There's no guarantee it doesn't have dangerous levels of lead."

Lead is added to many of the concoctions because of its supposed curative properties, even though doctors say it has no proven medical benefits. In other cases, powders and pills become contaminated with lead from soil or through the manufacturing process.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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