In April of 2008 "60 Minutes" did a piece on bariatric surgery, specifically gastric bypass. Part of the segment was spent talking with Dr. Francesco Rubino who was so fascinated with the results of his insulin dependent type 2 diabetic patients going into complete remission before even leaving the hospital that he has since started to test the removal of the equivalent amount of small intestine and reattaching it to a non altered stomach in laboratory animals with type 2 diabetes with the same amazing results as his gastric bypass patients. By preforming the "duodenal switch" part of the gastric bypass without altering the stomach in any way the lab animals are also showing signs of diabetes remission.
This is an amazing finding. If this promising procedure can continue to have the same results without the weight loss component of gastric bypass surgery it could become a way to force type 2 diabetes into remission for the millions of Americans who have this disease but are not candidates for gastric bypass because they do not meet the weight requirements.
The segment also spoke to several post surgery patients. Each and every patient said that they would have the surgery again tomorrow and had no regrets about their surgery. Almost all of them had been on insulin for their diabetes and most either left the hospital without medication or were soon able to stop taking their medications and are now considered in complete remission for type 2 diabetes.
An article about the segment as well as a video of the segment are available here
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