Can Surgery Cure Diabetes?

If you have a chronic, progressive medical condition that can lead to serious complications unless it is controlled with a strict diet along with a lifelong intake of daily medication, and possibly even injections, would you consider a surgical operation to cure this?

- Dr Melvin Look

Strangely enough, we are not talking about a rare esoteric medical condition, but yet surgery for diabetes is still little known in Singapore and Asia.

Diabetes is one of the major health problems here and the prevalence is expected to increase over the next few decades. In fact, it is so important that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong chose to discuss this in his National Day Rally in 2017. He said, “Overall, 1 in 9 Singaporeans have diabetes. But the prevalence increases as you age. If you are my age, over 60, 3 in 10 Singaporeans have diabetes. If you break it down by race, among the Chinese, 2.5 in 10 over 60 will have it; among the Malays, half; and for the Indians, 6 in 10. So this is a very serious problem, and for the Malays and Indians, actually a health crisis.”

There are an estimated 440,000 Singapore residents with diabetes currently and probably many more pre-diabetics who have glucose intolerance.

What is Diabetes?

Diabetes occurs when your pancreas is unable to produce adequate amounts of the hormone insulin, or when your body is unable to respond to the insulin in the right way, leading to elevated blood sugar levels. Diabetes is also strongly associated with Metabolic Syndrome, the cluster of inter-related metabolic problems, which includes hypertension, high lipid levels and, most importantly, obesity. In fact, obesity is one of the major risk factors in the development of glucose intolerance and diabetes.