Open Letter to Anonymous Commenter

Dear Anonymous Commenter,

1. LASIK, not lazik. You'll notice that I've actually spelled it out for you in the post.

2. Are you implying that I should have gastric bypass surgery? If so, this is most disconcerting. I'm not sure if you know me, but I don't quite qualify for gastric bypass surgery. My BMI is normal, and though I'm definitely chubbier than I like right now, I'm by no means obese.

It's kind of you to think of me, but you're wrong if you're thinking that gastric bypass surgey can help my Type 1 diabetes. See Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disorder. My immune system attacked my pancreas and now it's kaput. The result is the inability to produce insulin and regulate the level of glucose in my blood. The insulin pump replaces the broken pancreas in the best way doctors currently know how.

You're probably thinking of Type 2 diabetes. This is the disorder where a person's body continues to produce insulin, it's just really bad about using it correctly. It can be caused by a number of factors, including just getting old, but one of the most popular reasons to blame right now is obesity, which is what the gastric bypass surgery is trying to address. Being overweight is a major factor of developing Type 2 diabetes. It is NOT, in any way, related to Type 1 diabetes.

So, there's your first mistake. If you're recommending that I get gastric bypass surgery, you have effectively just recommended that I surgerically starve myself.

Your second mistake is believing everything you read in the news. This study says that gastric bypass has the great benefit of "curing" diabetes. I hope that for many of the patients, that's true, it would be great. Unfortunately, since the study didn't look at 5 year, 10 year, or 20 year follow up results, we'll never know if that claim is actually true, and the patients were cured for life, or if their condition actually returned because their treatment was really only a band aid for whatever caused them to become obese to begin with.

See, something made these people obese. The weight is just a symptom of that underlying cause. Surgery treats the weight/symptom without any regard to the cause. Surgery to correct Type 2 diabetes, generally a lifestyle disease, is going to do the exact same thing. Obesity and Type 2 diabetes are generally acquired conditions, so the "cure" has to be ongoing lifestyle change. It's hard to make lasting change, though, when you're first step is such a drastic, one-time measure.

All this is my very long-winded way of saying that the gastric bypass study was funded by the company that makes the bands that are used in the surgery (yeah, it's true, look it up), and that until they publish some long term results that don't show a significant number of the subjects showing renewed symptoms of Type 2 diabetes over the next several years, this data is bunk and may be doing more harm than good.

But thanks for piping up, we always encourage participation here at Lizzie's Blog!