Maybe.
You see that's the thing about evidence-based practice, you can't rule anything in or out until you've proven it does or doesn't work.
The latest proposed cure?
The Endobarrier (that's it up above).
Pretty simple concept. Endoscopically place the 2 foot long barrier in the proximal small intestine. In effect this mimics the "bypass" part of the gastric bypass where the proximal small intestine is bypassed by hooking up the new smaller stomach below it.
Mechanistically this ought to lead to malabsorption of calories though unlike the gastric bypass I wouldn't expect there to be any dietary restriction or a reduction in the hunger hormone ghrelin though with their add-on "Flow Restrictor" which delays stomach emptying, perhaps there'd be some of both of those effects as well.
According to GI Dynamics (the parent company), during a 12 week trial 10 morbidly obese patients with the Endobarrier and Flow Restrictor in place lost on average 36.7lbs with side effects including, "mild to moderate abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting."
With Endobarrier'ed type 2 diabetics (and no "Flow Restictor"), after a 28 week study their HbA1C levels (a measure of long term glycemic control) went down a remarkable 2.4 percentage points.
There's no long term data yet and while it's too soon for me to close up shop, given the ease of placement, the comparatively low cost ($2,000) and the effects to date, I'll be watching the Endobarrier with cautious curiosity.
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That's a new one. Hadn't heard of it before. Doubt it's available in U.S. yet.
ReplyDelete-Steve
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteIt's certainly not available in the US. Apparently they're expecting European approval within the year.
Kind of scary to me that approval will be granted without long term testing.
Yup, interesting device - I blogged about this "duodenal condom" and my reservations about this last year: http://tinyurl.com/yfmuaul
ReplyDeleteI must have missed the post!
ReplyDeleteAs I noted above, approval on the way.
"Duodenal condom" - you should trademark that!
If there is no reduction in the hunger hormone ghrelin, is this really of any benefit?? I overeat because I am hungry all the time. Find something that would fix that and there would be no problem any more!!!
ReplyDeleteI applaud anything that's available in the market or upcoming that will help combat the obesity and diabetes epidemic in this country.
ReplyDeleteLooks like a giant, synthetic tapeworm! Ew!
ReplyDeleteWhat if just lowering blood sugar is not a cure for diabetes? High blood sugar is the symptom; not the disease. This is crazy!
ReplyDeleteAll of these experiments with human beings as guinea pigs will not show real results until 10 pr 20 years down the road. Will these interventions decrease the incidence of serious complications, or will they just treat the numbers?
No Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteWhat's insane are people like you who don't have a clue what they're talking about leaving comments on blogs as if they do.
Physiologically the ravages of diabetes are indeed traced back to glycemic control while there have been literally decades of research that demonstrate that glycemic control is the means with which to prevent diabetic complications. The only question of late is how tight that control need be, not whether or not blood sugar should be controlled.