Gastric bypass surgery may sound drastic but diabetes has become a serious health issue for millions of Americans.

The health care costs alone pose a threat the system not to mention the toll the disease takes on families and society at large.

Getting this epidemic under control should be a top priority, however, is life threatening surgery the answer?

Weight loss surgery to cure diabetes is an absurd notion which fails to address the real problem behind this disease; lifestyle choices.

Dr. Mark Hyman has painstakingly studied this epidemic and offers real solutions for curing diabetes and also addresses the drawbacks to radical solutions such as gastric bypass surgery:

A report on the effectiveness of weight-loss surgery published by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found that within 3 to 5 years after laparoscopic gastric banding, as many as one-third of patients are not able to maintain weight loss due to noncompliance with a prescribed diet and other issues. Plus, the complications stemming from lap-band surgery were as high as 30 percent.

We also know that weight-loss surgery is not without risks. Altering the gastrointestinal tract can lead to nutritional deficiencies that require lifelong monitoring and supplementation of calcium, vitamin B12, folate, multivitamins, iron, and thiamine. And the psychological risks of these surgeries are often underplayed. In 2010, a study published in the American Journal of Medicine showed a dramatic increase in suicide among patients who had bariatric surgery, most occurring within three years following the surgery. (1)

Even more disturbing is the rise in overweight teens choosing weight-loss surgery. Since the late ‘90s, the number of weight-loss procedures performed on teenagers has skyrocketed. (2) Some studies show the mean age of these young patients is just 16 years old with some as young as 12! (3) Very few studies have looked at the long-term ramifications of these surgeries. What kind of problems are we passing on to our youth?

Does this costly and risky procedure truly address the root causes of Type 2 Diabetes?