One person dying from DIABETES every 7 seconds: BARIATRIC SURGERY gains acceptance slowly

Nov. 16, 2011 - PRLog -- According to the international diabetes federation; data from global studies demonstrates that the number of people with diabetes in 2011 has reached a staggering 366 million, 4.6 million deaths are due to diabetes and health care spending on diabetes has reached 465 billion USD. In 2011, one person is dying from diabetes every seven seconds due to diabetes.

Says Dr.Ramen Goel, " IDF's latest Atlas data are proof indeed that diabetes is a massive challenge the world can no longer afford to ignore. In India, about 5% of people who come in for bariatric surgery now are coming exclusively to cure diabetes."

So does this mean that those of us who would have formerly tried eating healthy and exercising quickly admit defeat and covet the surgical option?

"Better understanding and results of these surgeries is hugely responsible for this shift in mindset.," says Dr.Ramen Goel; whose paper was invited by the International Federation for Surgery of Obesity in Germany on how surgery should be used for diabetes treatment. Journals and reports now document the long-term survival and metabolic benefits of bariatric surgery and these benefits are having an impact on patients' willingness to accept bariatric surgery as an option for the treatment of morbid obesity. Morbid obesity is when the body mass index (BMI) is over 32.5 or when individuals are 50 pounds or more overweight. This degree of obesity is associated with more than 30 illness and medical conditions including: Coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, hypertension and cancer.

Says Dr.Goel, " There might be a day when these key hole surgeries becomes as accessible and accepted a practice as teeth whitening. There is a difference between imagining youre eating 1500 calories when you eat 3000 a day, and a genuine medical problem that necessitates bariatric surgery."

The country at present does a volume of 4000 surgeries per year (projected figure for 2011) a metric that suitably indicates that India has accepted bariatric surgery. This as opposed to about 2500 in 2010 and 1500 in 2009. 95% of these would be for obesity related causes; only 5% would be diabetes related. The anti-diabetes drug market is about 2100 crore; which clearly shows that there's a lot of scope for bariatrics in diabetes surgery.