60 Minutes on Sunday.

Someone on the California Board posted this.  Thought I would pass it along.  Brian CBS) An operation performed primarily to reduce weight in the obese has some startlingly positive side effects. Gastric bypass surgery can send type 2 diabetes into complete remission, in some cases almost instantly. It can also alleviate sleep apnea, common among obese patients, which causes them to intermittently stop breathing in their sleep. Studies also suggest gastric bypass patients greatly reduce their risks from certain obesity-related cancers, according to the American Cancer Society. 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl reports on the effects of gastric bypass surgery this Sunday, April 20, at 7 p.m. ET/PT. Dr. Eugenia Calle, managing director of Analytical Epidemiology at the American Cancer Society, tells Stahl the incidence of many types of cancers increases with weight gain. "Our estimate is that 100,000 individuals in the U.S. a year…die of cancer because of their weight," she says. But, she tells Stahl, it's been hard to prove whether losing weight reduces the risk of cancer because most Americans will regain weight they lose. This makes gastric bypass patients interesting research subjects because they tend to keep off the weight they lose. "And in those populations, very interestingly, the…overall cancer risk is…cut in half," says Calle. Another beneficial side effect of the procedure may have more to do with the surgery than the weight loss. Doctors noticed that bypass surgery can force type 2 diabetes into remission, sometimes right after surgery. Dr. Francesco Rubino, director of the Gastrointestinal Metabolic Surgery Program at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell, tells Stahl, "We thought it could have something to do with the small bowel." Operating on diabetic rats, he proved that eliminating the flow of food through the upper part of small intestine caused the remission. Rubino now hopes his findings will lead to a "diabetes surgery." Currently, NIH Guidelines, established in 1991, recommend the bypass surgery only to the morbidly obese, or to those severely obese with a related health problem, like diabetes. Dr. Neil Hutcher, the former president of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, says it's time to reevaluate the guidelines, and allow more diabetics access to surgery. "I think we have clear-cut evidence that we can do terrific things for diabetics," he says. In reporting the story, Stahl met Dr. Bruce Miller, a family practitioner from Hopewell, Va. who also lost 120 pounds in a bypass operation. He says it affected all his health problems. "I don’t take any blood pressure pills anymore. I don't take any cholesterol pills anymore, as well as my diabetic medicine," he says. Miller is now recommending the surgery to many of his obese patients and says he no longer sees it as a last resort, as many doctors do. "They haven’t walked the walk," he tells Stahl.

 I'm curious to see if the subject of the different types of WLS will come up, or whether they will all be lumped as "gastric bypass" ..   The emphasis of the article seems to be on the diabetes cure effecft of surgery, and I believe there are big differences between RNY and DS in regard to same ..  The DSers seem to achieve a 98% resolution rate and usually within two weeks of surgery (not "instantly" as they state in the article, btw) ..  It is also nearly always permanent ..  By contrast, it is my understanding that the resolution rate for RNYers is not quite that high, and is slower when it does resolve, being related directly to their actual weight loss ...  (and hence why the diabetes can return if the RNYer gains back weight) ..

i'm one of those stats cabin.

i went from wearing a pump or taking 10 shots a day to zip from day one. also, the apnea, high bp and choles were gone. i never took another medication from that day on! thanks for posting this. i'll watch this episode with great interest. at least they admit we don't gain the weight back. now i was told that the rny is what does the trick. banding wouldn't get me the same results. so i think those like me, with comorbids, benefit more with rny as opposed to the banding. now having said that, i know tons of guys here who had the same results with the band. not trying to start a war, just repeating what my surgeon told me the studies find.....carbonblob