VOA标准英语2011--Weight Loss Surgery Can Reverse Diabetes

Weight Loss Surgery Can Reverse Diabetes¹

Doctors often counsel patients with type 2 diabetes to lose weight. It's a proven way to manage the disease and reduce the risk of serious complications. But how you lose weight can make a difference.
Most people lose weight by eating less or exercising more, or both. But in severe cases, doctors sometimes recommend weight loss surgery. In the most common procedure, the surgeon removes part of the stomach and small intestine².
Gastric³ bypass surgery, as it's called, is highly effective, but weight loss isn't the only benefit.
Doctors who treat diabetes have known that patients who receive the surgery often get their blood sugar under control quickly - even before they lose weight.
Now, researchers think they are starting to understand why.
"What we've shown is that after gastric bypass surgery - that has been shown before actually - the levels of circulating amino acids decreased significantly." says researcher Blandine LaFerrère. "But what's novel here [is] that we did not see that in the diet group, although they lost the same amount of weight."
LaFerrère works at the New York Obesity⁴ Nutrition Research Center, at a hospital affiliated⁵ with Columbia University.
The increase in these particular amino acids in patients that had the surgery signals that their metabolism⁶ has changed. But the details are still unclear.
"I think the hope of the research in gastric bypass surgery," she says, "is to develop new treatments, and those treatments would be based on a better understanding of what causes type 2 diabetes."
LaFerrère says many other researchers around the world are also working on the same problem.
"And I think when we're able to integrate all the clues and all the facts of the changes that occur after gastric bypass, we might be able to find some new clues and new help in the treatment of type 2 diabetes."
If researchers can understand exactly how weight loss surgery leads to better blood sugar control, even before the patient loses weight, they may be able to turn that knowledge into a medicine or other treatment that could help people with diabetes.
Blandine LaFerrère's research paper is published in the journal "Science Translational Medicine."

1 diabetes   

n.糖尿病

参考例句：

• In case of diabetes, physicians advise against the use of sugar.对于糖尿病患者，医生告诫他们不要吃糖。
• Diabetes is caused by a fault in the insulin production of the body.糖尿病是由体內胰岛素分泌失调引起的。

2 intestine   

adj.内部的；国内的；n.肠

参考例句：

• This vitamin is absorbed through the walls of the small intestine.这种维生素通过小肠壁被吸收。
• The service productivity is the function,including external efficiency,intestine efficiency and capacity efficiency.服务业的生产率是一个包含有外部效率、内部效率和能力效率的函数。

3 gastric   

adj.胃的

参考例句：

• Miners are a high risk group for certain types of gastric cancer.矿工是极易患某几种胃癌的高风险人群。
• That was how I got my gastric trouble.我的胃病就是这么得的。

4 obesity   

n.肥胖，肥大

参考例句：

• One effect of overeating may be obesity.吃得过多能导致肥胖。
• Sugar and fat can more easily lead to obesity than some other foods.糖和脂肪比其他食物更容易导致肥胖。

5 affiliated   

adj. 附属的, 有关连的

参考例句：

• The hospital is affiliated with the local university. 这家医院附属于当地大学。
• All affiliated members can vote. 所有隶属成员都有投票权。

6 metabolism   

n.新陈代谢

参考例句：

• After years of dieting,Carol's metabolism was completely out of whack.经过数年的节食，卡罗尔的新陈代谢完全紊乱了。
• All living matter undergoes a process of metabolism.生物都有新陈代谢。