SAN ANTONIO – A partnership between UT Health San Antonio, University Health and Texas Biomed shows promising, if not remarkable, results from a new minimally invasive technique to improve the health of patients with type 2 diabetes.
The first two patients left the new procedure with lower blood sugar levels and other signs that it was working well to attack the indigestion that causes diabetes.
Melissa Mata lived on a downtrend with low energy, high glucose, and an increasing amount of medication to keep her healthy.
“My sugar was really out of control. They were sometimes in the high 200, 300 or even 400 years, ”said 55-year-old Mata, explaining her status before joining Dr. Richard Peterson, the head of UT Health Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, signed up for mesenteric visceral lipectomy (MVL).
Peterson describes the procedure as a new way to treat type 2 diabetes by breaking down the visceral fat that surrounds the intestines. The fat is removed from the abdomen with a special cannula, like liposuction, but in a more specific and sensitive area of the abdomen.
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“Essentially, this means removing some of the extra fat stores that are in that organ of the mesentery,” Peterson said.
Peterson was brought in when Texas Biomed began studying MVL in baboons with type 2 diabetes.
“I wasn’t really expecting the results we saw in baboons. And then I was shocked because that’s way better than I thought. That’s amazing, ”said Peterson, sharing how he felt after performing the first procedure on a human in November 2019.
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