A Fat Chance: A Surgical Paradigm of Obesity and Type-2 Diabetes

Dr. Edward Eaton Mason MD Ph.D. FACS the Father of Obesity Surgery writes about his remarkable life on his 100th birthday. Born in a taxi cab in Boise Idaho on October 16 1920 the year women got the right to vote his mother Dora Mason decided one child was enough. She was a teacher and sculptress who created the original Nile Kinnick bust. His father Edward F. Mason was a professor of photojournalism at the U. of Iowa. Raised by teacher parents Ed became a professor of surgery at the U. of Iowa training thousands of medical students and surgeons. He did research in 1965 with Dr. Chikashi Ito from Japan to treat peptic ulcer disease with gastric bypass surgery. His discovery that peptic ulcer disease was not helped but his patients lost weight led to his discovery of obesity surgery. Also this surgery could treat Type-2 diabetes by weight loss and dumping food containing glucose directly to the small intestine resulting in the release of GLP-1 hormones. Severe obesity was an epidemic disease resulting in heart ailments high blood pressure diabetes cancer arthritis and strokes. His surgery rescued the morbidly obese patients.