Diabetes II and Obesity Surgery – Diabetes I and New Research in Brazil

Poorly managed type 2 diabetes costs the U.S. health system an extra US$22.9 billion a year in direct medical costs to treat heart, eye, kidney and other serious health problems associated with the disease, diabetes groups reported yesterday. Annual health costs for a type 2 diabetic are three times that of the average American without diagnosed diabetes, according to a new report called State of Diabetes Complications in America.

About 20.8 million Americans have diabetes, which causes about 5% of all deaths globally each year. Most have type 2, or adult-onset diabetes, in which

the body loses its ability to use insulin. Obesity and lack of exercise are linked with type 2 diabetes, which can cause blindness, heart disease, stroke, chronic kidney disease and foot problems that can require amputations. Treating type 2 diabetes alone costs about US$37 billion a year. When people fail to follow their diet, exercise and drug treatment plans, the disease leads to complications that boost the total health bill to US$57.1 billion.

According to Dr. Roberto Rizzi from Franco e Rizzi in Sao Paulo Brazil Gastric Bypass Obesity Surgery cures diabetes type 2 in almost all patients within a short period of time after gastric bypass surgery. It is different with type 1 diabetes. In type 1 diabetes, a person’s immune system attacks and destroys insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. Preserving beta cells is a key concept in the management of type 1 diabetes and in the prevention of its related complications.

In a small study done in Brazil, a treatment that included stem cell transplantation induced prolonged insulin independence in patients with newly diagnosed type 1, or insulin-dependent, diabetes. Fifteen patients in Brazil took part in the study, the first ever to use this approach. Thirteen of the patients were able to stop taking injections of insulin for the rest of the study, an average of almost 19 months. In a statement, Dr. Julio C. Voltarelli, from the Regional Blood Centre in Ribeiro Preto, Brazil, called the results “very encouraging”. While the same approach has been used in other autoimmune disorders, the current study, to the author’s knowledge, represents the first time the approach has been used in human type 1 diabetes.