Studies affirm weight-loss surgery beats diabetes

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The most common form of diabetes disappears in nearly 80 percent of obese diabetics after weight-loss surgery, researchers said in a study that strongly affirmed the benefits of the operations.

Obesity raises the risk for type-2 diabetes and the disease is becoming increasingly common in many parts of the world as more people become obese.

Evidence has been mounting that weight-loss operations such as gastric bypass surgery help many people with diabetes.

The researchers combined data from 621 studies worldwide with 135,246 patients and found that 78 percent of obese diabetics returned to normal blood sugar levels and had no symptoms of diabetes following weight-loss operations, also known as bariatric surgery.

Another 8 percent saw their diabetes symptoms improve, although the disease was not eliminated.

“This is the most comprehensive study of the effect of bariatric surgery on type 2 diabetes. It includes every major paper that’s been written in this field,” Dr Henry Buchwald said. There are several different forms of weight-loss surgery that alter the digestive system’s anatomy to cut the volume of food that can be eaten and digested.

The study showed that some type of surgery led to greater weight loss and helped diabetics more.

Eighty percent of those, who had the most common form, gastric bypass, got rid of their diabetes. In the United States, about 220,000 people had such an operation last year, the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery said.

Previous research also has found that obese people who have weight-loss surgery are less likely to die from heart disease and cancer than obese people who do not have such surgery, and that the surgery also can improve or resolve high blood pressure and high cholesterol.