'rubber Band' Obesity Surgery Cuts Diabetes Risk

http://diabetes.org/diabetesnewsarti...althewEDIT.xml

or

http://tinyurl.com/3yan4j

(excerpt)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - After having "lap band" surgery for weight
loss, men and women show large increases in sensitivity to the blood-
sugar-regulating hormone insulin -- even if they remain obese -- a new
study shows.

"They don't have to reach their ideal weight in order to make some
pretty significant health improvements," Dr. Joan F. Carroll of the
University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth, one of
the study's authors, told Reuters Health.

Carroll reported the findings this week at the American Physiological
Society's annual meeting in Washington, DC.

In the operation Carroll and her team are investigating, known
medically as laparoscopic gastric banding surgery, an elastic band is
placed around the stomach, restricting the amount of food the stomach
can comfortably hold. Another procedure, surgical gastric bypass, has
been shown to help reduce the body's resistance to insulin -- often a
prelude to full-blown diabetes -- before major weight loss has taken
place, but less is known about how lap band surgery affects insulin
resistance.