Is there a surgery for type 2 diabetes to temporarily stop the need of insulin?
Friday, January 29th, 2010 at
11:56 am
I know there is a procedure available for type 1 diabetes that works for 2-3 years (animal transplant that eventually gets rejected by the human immune system) but does it work with type 2 diabetes?
Filed under: Diseases And Conditions
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I’m sorry to say the answer is no…..
Unlike type 1 diabetics who produce little or no insulin, type 2 diabetics who make up 90-95% of the diabetic population for the most part produce an adequate supply of insulin, many times with the help of oral medications to help stimulate the pancreas into producing and releasing more insulin. Type 2′s can also use a longer acting insulin to help in controlling their blood sugars.
The main issue with Type 2′s is that they are to some degree insulin resistant, which means that the insulin their body produces is not making it’s way into the cells of the body to release the excess glucose, thus a buildup of glucose occurs and remains in the blood causing blood sugars to elevate to higher than normal levels which over time causes damage to body systems and organs. Which is why many type 2′s need to take oral medications to help the cells to become less insulin resistant.
Since it deals with the cells of the body, surgery would not be an option.
I have type two diabetes and is controlled by diet,for two years I have given up all sweets, cakes, curries, chinese, etc,etc, tho from time to time I am allowed a treat,it has been hard for me to do this as I am not a spring chicken any more,yet I still go hill walking and other outdoor activities,exercise and losing weight is the secret to keeping blood sugar levels ok, tho as I get older I will probably need medication,so far I have not heard of any type of surgery for type 2 diabetes so I will keep going the way I am.
C.K.
The only "surgery" available is a pancreatic transplant.
Some explanation between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes might help:
BOTH disease are characterized by an insufficient amount of insulin available in the body to allow sugar to be metabolized. The pancreas is the internal organ that does this.
In the Type 1 Diabetic, the pancreas fails outright. Without additional insulin shots, the patient will die. Since sugar cannot get from the blood to the cells where it is needed, the patient literally starves to death. Since this most often happens in children, this is often called Juvenile Diabetes.
In Type 2 Diabetes, the pancreas wears out slowly over time. BUT, the pancreas often remains working to some extent. When caught early, the patient can often treat the disease through dietary and lifestyle changes. This reduces the load on the pancreas, and allow it to function sufficiently.
Since this most often happens on older adults who have experiencedthe mid-l;ife weight gain, this is called Adult Onset Diabetes.
But if the disease is allowed to run for several years before the patient asks for treatment, the pancreas is often damaged. There are some oral drugs that will cause the pancreas to produce more insulin, and others that cause the body to bettter use the insulin. These patients can often control the disease with a combination of lifestyle changes and oral medication.
But eventually, most Type 2 Diabetics find that their pancreas eventually fails completely, and the sad fact is that most Type 2 diabetics eventully progress into complete pancreatic failure — Type 1 Diabetes, which requires a daily regimen of shots.
Once the pancreas fails, the ONLY surgery available is to replace the pancreas through an organ transplant. This often works in children, becaue they have not yet damaged their other internal organs.
But many Type 2 Diabetics have let the disease progress too far, through poor lifestyle management, and their other internal organs are also damaged. In this case many doctors consider thiese patients to be poor risks for a pancreatic transplant
The animal cell transplant is a technique that has not proven efficient, and is not commonly practiced any more.
T-Cell transplant has so far shown some success in mice, but it is many years of reasearch and approval testing before such a procedure is avaialbl to humans.
animal transplants? where did you hear this? I’ve been to many many diabetes education classes and this has never been discussed. as far as I know animal to human transplants don’t happen (with the exception of pig heart valves).
some type 2 people who have bariatric surgery do not suffer from diabetes afterwards.
I do not think so
I don’t think so, but I know one thing: I would take injections over surgery any day!
simple answer is no but obesity happens to be a good precursor of diabetes so in that context a morbidly obese person who has gastric bypass surgery could loose the weight and not need to take their diabetes medications since the amount of insulin produced by the body now is sufficient.