Okay, lots of issues here.

Byetta is not a great drug and it works in a fraction of people. Just wanted to throw that out there.

This person was referring to bypass. Not DS. And they were referring to bypass 'curing' diabetes, later they referred to it correctly by using the word remission.

There was a Welsh study (I'm going by memory here, numbers will be close but not exact) showing that something like 70-80% of bypass patients went into remission within 10 days of gastric bypass. This was HUGE in the world of medicine. It completely changed how researchers look at diabetes. This is a good thing. But, while other studies showed similar results - long term... different ballgame. Diabetes came back in a good number of them.

What I am unsure of is why it came back. There can be a very significant regain if a bypass person ends up with a dilated stoma. Did the diabetes return because of weight gain or was it the same in those who maintained well, too? I don't know.

BTW, this person refers to amputating the stomach. There is nothing removed in bypass. They 'bypass' intestine, they do not remove it. They slice and dice the stomach, they do not remove it. Bypass is reversible and it's done all the time. It's risky but it is still done all the time.

Doctors do not make $20,000 for WLS. They often times charge $20K for surgery but that isn't the contracted amount paid by insurance. You can self pay for bypass for around $20K but that doesn't go to the doctor, the bulk of it goes to the hospital.

Dr. Ren? As in Christine Ren? She was just sued by the estate of a dead patient for using unlicensed doctors in the OR and for aftercare causing the patient to die. It wasn't even bypass, it was a band patient. Even she knows 95 patients is not nearly enough patients to see the bigger picture. I honestly wouldn't trust anything coming from her. I have links to news articles if you wish. They are in my blog.

www.WASaBubbleButt.blogspot.com

Death stats... many people like to take the highest risk target group of patients and point while saying, "See? The death stats are alarming!" Bleh... it depends on many factors. Risk level of the target group, surgeon skill, even hospital. Some hospitals have a much higher death stat. Even patient compliance is a huge factor. They are a week post op and supposed to be consuming clear liquids and you would be astounded to see how many are trying to eat ham and cram bagels down their throats.

This person is claiming 13 people out of every thousand die of bypass. That, quite frankly, is a load. There are some people that are very literally eating themselves to death. You don't get to be 800# from eating carrot sticks and chicken breast. Those people need surgery or they WILL die yet surgery might kill them. What do you do? Take the risk? Or let them die for sure? You take the risk.

This very biased author keeps referring to surgery or weight loss surgery and death stats and malnutrition. The person needs to stop being so ridiculously biased and post some real facts, neutral sources. They need to identify which surgery type vs. assuming every surgery type is like this.

Bypass... it's not my cup of tea. I don't like the surgery type. I think there is far too risk involved long term and my own personal opinion that I cannot back up with stats and facts but I don't believe we know enough about nutrition to be bypassing people willy nilly. However, someone who is seriously metabolically challenged is not going to do well with a band or sleeve, they need the malabsorption and for them DS can be a great choice.

I take serious offense to the people that lump all WLS types together and paint a doom and gloom picture. That's ridiculous and dishonest. If they were not so biased and dishonest they wouldn't need to lie, right? The facts should speak for themselves. But if they told the truth it wouldn't support their points, their invalid points.

Bypass puts diabetes in remission, maybe short term. DS... whole different ballgame. That is an actual cure for most.

I have a sleeve, I have no malabsorption. I do not supplement because of my neurotic thing with pills, I absolutely hate taking them. My labs are perfect except for Vit D3, that is very low without supplementation but it was low before I ever had surgery. Probably 95% of the US population is very low on D3 and I'd venture a guess that 100% of obese people are deficient in D3. I'm not dying of malabsorption, I have no long term issues because of the sleeve, my labs are perfect, and I'm still waiting for someone, anyone, to tell me how removing the fundus of my somach makes my body work badly. No takers on that one, just the claim.

I have been at goal for over 3 years now, I do not struggle to stay there, my diet is healthy. Most of my diet is produce thus I do supplement with protein shakes. Well, when I think of it. My diet is modified Atkins, I do eat carbs, I don't even count carb grams unless it is from white carbs. I do try to avoid flour as that is my trigger food. Sugar... I can take it or leave it.

Not all surgery types leave people dying and malnourished, period.

Got something more realistic to throw at me? Something I cannot refute with actual science?