Being overweight is the top cause of type 2 diabetes. While losing weight is the key to keeping blood sugar under control, you can do more than just manage blood sugar with bariatric surgery. The team of experts at Weight Loss Specialists of North Texas have extensive experience performing bariatric surgery, which can put type 2 diabetes into remission. Call one of their offices in Denton, Frisco, or Flower Mound, Texas, or schedule an appointment online for a weight loss consultation.
When you have type 2 diabetes, your pancreas makes insulin, but it either doesn’t produce enough, or the insulin doesn't work the way it should.
Insulin’s job is to remove excess glucose (sugar) from your bloodstream by sending it into cells to use for energy or to store as fat. If insulin doesn’t work properly or you’re low on insulin, blood sugar rises above healthy levels.
Over time, high blood sugar damages nerves and blood vessels and leads to health problems like heart disease, kidney damage, and blindness.
Being overweight or obese are the primary causes of type 2 diabetes. Almost 90% of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight.
Your genes also determine whether you’ll develop type 2 diabetes. A variety of factors can increase your risk, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and a history of gestational diabetes.
The more fat you have, the more resistant cells throughout your body become to insulin. That means insulin can’t get sugar out of your bloodstream because cells resist its efforts to transport sugar through the cell membrane. Insulin resistance is the start of type 2 diabetes.
Bariatric surgery refers to several procedures that are either restrictive or malabsorptive. Restrictive procedures restrict stomach size, which limits the amount of food you can consume, while malabsorptive procedures block the absorption of calories.
Weight loss by any method prevents type 2 diabetes if you’re still in the prediabetic stage, but bariatric surgery makes a dramatic difference by causing metabolic changes.
In 90% of patients with type 2 diabetes, bariatric surgery:
In 78% of patients, bariatric surgery puts their type 2 diabetes into complete remission by reducing blood sugar to normal levels. These patients also stop taking diabetes medications.
The team at Weight Loss Specialists of North Texas work one on one with patients, helping them reach their weight loss goals through nonsurgical and surgical options. They’re experts in bariatric surgeries such as:
