Undergoing Surgery For Diabetes?

If I were a diabetic, would I go for a surgery that promises to halt the disease even for a few years and lasts an hour with a hospital stay of one day? A surgery that would leave four tiny scars on my belly and allow me to eat grilled fish?

- Dr. Sarfaraz Baig

Well I don’t know and I am not a diabetic. But I have always judged a procedure by asking myself one question, which is, would I recommend it for my own kin. If the answer is yes, then I wouldn’t hesitate to suggest the procedure to my patients. Now let’s evaluate this fascinating claim that a surgery can reverse a disease so far thought to be irreversible.

Diabetes is a disease of absolute or relative insulin deficiency. Insulin is required by the body to push in glucose from the blood to the cells. In type 1 diabetes, insulin itself is deficient and in type 2, it is present but unable to work. The net result is the same where the body cells are starved and undergo progressive degeneration. Eventually, a patient with chronic diabetics may incur multiple organ damage that includes the eyes, heart, kidneys, liver, nerves, blood vessels, etc. Diabetic patients frequently have to undergo eye surgery, heart stenting, kidney dialysis, nerve vitamin supplementation and leg and feet amputations.