Should Bariatric Surgery Become a Standard Type 2 Diabetes Therapy?
A recent and contentious meeting of diabetes experts at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Vienna, Austria, has continued the intense international debate over whether bariatric surgery should become a treatment for type 2 diabetes or continue to be reserved only for the extremely obese. In bariatric surgery, the stomach is either reduced in size or completely bypassed so that food directly reaches the small intestine. In either case, the amount of food that can be eaten and the appetite for it are lowered significantly. Bariatric surgery not only leads to dramatic weight loss by severely restricting food intake, but it also lowers the high risk of cardiovascular disease that comes with obesity. But a fortuitous side effect has put the procedure front and center in a wide-ranging debate over how the surgery should be perceived and used. Most obese people with type 2 diabetes who undergo bariatric surgery see dramatic improvements in their blood glucose levels and ins
