by Alan Mozes
health reporter
Mexico Surgery Weight Loss - Weight-Loss Surgery Beats Meds for Obese Teens
Wednesday, (health news) Weight loss surgery can help seriously obese teens with type 2 diabetes much more than medication and lifestyle changes alone, new surveys suggest.
A small analysis found that bariatric surgery did a job "better" than drug administration and lifestyle in obtaining significant weight loss and reversing diabetes, said the main author of the Dr. study. Thomas Inge.
Your investigation - involving 93 adolescents in all - - Surgical treatment was associated with significantly better blood sugar control, reduced risk markers for heart disease and stroke, and improved renal function .
This is important information because more than 5,000 Americans under 20 are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes every year. And youth start diabetes seems more aggressive than diabetes diagnosed in adults, according to background notes with the study.
This is coupled with a four-fold increase in childhood obesity as well, he added.
Weight loss surgery seems to have an advantage over the traditional treatment of obesity for various reasons, Inge pointed out.
type 2 diabetes in adolescents "is extremely difficult to treat," he said.
But "Adult studies and surgery animals for type 2 diabetes show that surgery not only decreases the size of the stomach but also results in a large change in pancreatic function and improvement in general metabolism," said Inge.
Compliance is smaller than a problem as well. "You can not forget to take the surgery every day as you can do with the pills and injections of insulin," he added.
Surgery also seems to do more to reduce insulin resistance, Inge said, and "to improve the body. own ability to fight against diabetes." Does this, improving signaling between the intestine, pancreas and liver He watched.
"Medical treatments simply can not do some of these things as effective as surgical treatments," Inge said.
The researchers first analyzed a bariatric surgery study involving 30 patients with 19 years or younger. All had type 2 diabetes and a body mass index (BMI) of 35 or more, which is severely obese (for example, a 5-foot boy-9 boy who weighs 240 has an IMC of 35). All were submitted to laparoscopic gastric bypass or laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy.
Two years after surgery, the BMI of the adolescents had decreased almost 30% on average. And its A1C hemoglobin levels - a key indicator of diabetes - dropped from 6.8% on average to 5.5%. However, almost a quarter required a second surgery in this period of time.
The team compared those results for the results of another study in which 63 adolescents with type 2 diabetes were traditionally treated. Participants also had an IMC of 35 or more at the launch of the study.
These adolescents were treated aggressively with the metformin of drugs of diabetes and / or rosiglitazone and received lifestyle advice. Insulin treatment was supplied as needed.
However, in the next two years, the average BMI in this group jumped almost 4%. And their A1C levels rose from 6.4% to 7.8% on average, according to the study.
and while blood pressure and renal function improved between the surgery group, this was not the case with the medication group.
Although these findings need to be replicated in a larger group of teenagers with diabetes, we can be optimistic that surgery seems to achieve these benefits without different surgical risk than when used in adults, "said Inge.
All surgeries They come with some risk, said Dr. William Heerman, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Center in Nashville. He was not involved with the study.Heerman said that the discoveries confirm the results already seen between Adults with diabetes, but said that we still do not know the long-term risks and benefits for teenagers going through bariatric surgery. "
However," the data presented today provide a convincing reason to have a surgery. Bariatrica careful consideration by adolescents with obesity and its complications, "added Heerman.
The discoveries are in March 12 online issuance of Jama's pediatrics.
