Despite its reputation as a successful weight loss treatment, a study is reporting that gastric bypass patients may experience post-meal glucose reactions that jeopardize their long-term weight loss. While many studied have proven that weight loss surgery patients have experienced remission in their Diabetes diagnosis, this one says that some experience blood sugar crashes. According to a survey by Lenox Hill Hospital, some patients experience a post-meal glucose spike followed by a blood sugar crash that can cause between meal hunger, which may inhibit weight loss. Mitchell S. Roslin initially became questioning the results when many of his patients regained weight after gastric bypass occurred and experienced inter-meal hunger.
His study shows that new conditions such as hyperinsulinemia, hypoglycemia and nesidioblastosis have taken place in this patient. First presented at the 2013 meeting ofSociety of the American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons, Dr. Roslin and his team compared glucose metabolism in his patients who had weight loss surgery.
His study showed patients who underwent sleeve gastrectomy, duodenal switch, and gastric bypass. Among his results, he noted that only gastric bypass patients experience glucose fluctuations and weight gain or extremely small weight loss total. His study showed that gastric bypass patients had much higher levels of one-hour glucose then his duodenal switch and sleeve gastrectomy patients combined.
“When you have high insulin, glucose falls, and we know that hypoglycemia causes hunger,” Dr. Roslin said. “Looking at the one- to two-hour glucose ratio, the gastric bypass patients have the highest one-hour sugar [levels] and the lowest two-hour sugar [levels], and I think this begins to explain why we have inter-meal hunger with gastric bypass.”
Regarding all three weight loss surgery options, the duodenal switch patients experienced the smallest rise of one-hour glucose and insulin levels. The author believes this may be because the pylorus is preserved during the surgery. He believes that more controlled trial studies between both gastric bypass surgery patients and duodenal switch ones are needed to determine the significance of these results.
Ultimately, this study shows that there are significant metabolic changes that occur as a result of weight loss surgeries that need to be investigated on a larger scale to understand fully. Until then, we recognize that gastric bypass may experience glucose irregularities. It’s important that potential patients are informed of this possible reaction and also that researchers continue to evaluate patients after gastric bypass weight loss surgery.