I’ve written before about the dramatic and often amazing results that extremely overweight people have see in regards to their diabetes when they undergo gastric bypass surgery.
Gastric bypass is a procedure that essentially creates a dramatically smaller stomach by stapling off the majority of the stomach and leaving just a “pouch” for the food to pass through. With this much smaller stomach a person gets full quicker, and that combined with eating the right things, a healthy diet, creates rapid weight loss and in many cases an almost instant reversal or cure of type 2 diabetes.
Such is the case in an interview posted by TuDiabetes today. The story tells about a woman whose diabetes was really poorly controlled even on medication and within a week of the bypass she was able to come off of medications completely and her glucose levels were lower than they had been in years.
The decision to have gastric bypass surgery is not to be taken lightly and has risks that need to be considered, but for many those risks pale in comparison to the risks face by continued obesity and out of control diabetes. There really is no soft way to explain how damaging the combination is and how it can lead quickly to a loss of the quality of life, if not the loss of life itself.
Life insurance underwriters view gastric bypass carefully knowing that there are risks from the surgery and the dramatic weight loss for the first year or so, but within a few years the weight loss and improved overall health often lead to much better rates than a person would have received prior to the surgery, if they were insurable at all at that point.
Bottom line. Gastric bypass has always had a stigma attached, just as obesity has. To put it bluntly, there are a lot of people who probably say under their breath that it’s just a case of a fat person taking the easy way out. But let’s be real. There isn’t anything easy about the situation they are in and when they choose the surgery there’s nothing easy about the way out…..and it saved and changed their lives.
May 29th, 2009
American Heart Association twitter this morning, “80% of sudden cardiac arrest victims collapse at home. Are you ready to save someone you love?” It provided a link to a CPR website.
This Twitter @HeartofDiabetes is all about education on the link between diabetes and heart disease. This is a subject that we have continually talked about, the fact that when a life insurance underwriter looks at obesity and/or type 2 diabetes, they know that without effective management and excellent control other health issues are likely to follow. It’s not like the only thing they have to weigh is the chance of a person with diabetes going into a diabetic coma.
It’s the combination of risk factors and collateral health issues that an underwriter has to weigh when they consider an application. Especially in the overweight population having type 2 diabetes puts them at risk of high blood pressure, stroke, coronary artery disease and kidney damage along with a host of issues that have a lower mortality risk. The key to avoiding the downhill slide into health issues that will change your life and can end your life is taking the situation seriously.
Education, compliance and control should be the mantra. Know about your diabetes. Know what it is, what makes it worse and what makes it better. Know how worse and better are measured. Educate yourself on diet and exercise programs. Learn about the direct correlation between obesity and diabetes. Learn what the hbA1c is and why it’s important to keep it in a controlled range.
Compliance is all about listening to your doctor and following recommendations and prescribed treatment. When you don’t feel like you’re getting the information you need from your doctor, finding a diabetes education forum or a professional diabetes educator to help you take control of your condition and your life.
The good news with life insurance is that a diagnosis of diabetes doesn’t knock you out of the running for competitive, affordable life insurance rates. Given good control and no other risk factors, standard or better rates are not uncommon. If you are over age 60 and diagnosed in the last 5 years you actually have a good shot at preferred plus rates with one of our companies.
Bottom line. Diabetes is a destructive disease if not taken seriously. The diagnosis is a wake up call that you should definitely not be hitting the snooze button on.
May 29th, 2009
