Gastric bypass surgery controls diabetes
Obesity surgery can cause Type 2 diabetes to go into remission, but much depends on how much weight the patient loses within the first few months, a new study suggests. Gastric bypass surgery for severe obesity has been shown to control Type 2 diabetes, a disorder that commonly goes hand-in-hand with obesity. The procedure involves sectioning off a small portion of the stomach, creating a pouch that limits the amount of food a person can eat in one sitting. The new study, by surgeons at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, shows that hormones are not the whole story. The amount of weight patients shed in the first six months after surgery appears key to diabetes remission.

Vitamin D helps colorectal cancer patients
Vitamin D may extend the lives of people with colon and rectal cancer, according to a study. Previous research has indicated that people with higher levels of vitamin D may be less likely to develop colon and rectal cancer, also called colorectal cancer.
The new study at the Cancer Institute in Boston involved 304 men and women diagnosed with colorectal cancer from 1991 to 2002, to see if higher levels of vitamin D in the patients affected their survival chances. The researchers in the study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, used blood samples to determine vitamin D levels of the patients, and they were tracked for an average of about six-and-a-half years. Those in the highest 25 percent of vitamin D levels were about 50 percent less likely to die during the study from their cancer or any other cause compared to the patients in the lowest 25 percent of vitamin D levels.