Weight-Loss Surgery Could Reverse Type 2 Diabetes

Bariatric Surgery for weight loss in obese patients with type 2 diabetes helped many to reduce their blood sugar to healthy levels and not need more medication for the disease three years after the procedure, according to data presented at a major medical meeting on Monday.

The operation also helped patients to reduce the need for treatments for high blood pressure and cholesterol and led to improvements in quality of life compared with those who received medical therapy for weight loss, the researchers discovered.

The study, called Stampede, which involved 150 obese patients who had type 2 mellitus diabetes for at least eight years, was led by researchers at the Cleveland Clinic.

They compared two types of surgery for weight loss with weight loss achieved with diet and exercise along with advice from nutritionists and, in some countries, additional drugs for diabetes which may help promote weight-loss, such as Novo Nordisk’s Victoza.

More than one third – 37.5 per cent- of the patients who underwent a gastric bypass and a quarter of those who had a gastrectomy were able to acheive levels of sugar in the blood below those recommended by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and did not need more drugs to control it, researchers said.

This compares with only 5% of the patients in the medical therapy group who achieved an Figure equal to or less than six per cent.The ADA recommends levels of seven per cent or less.

Three years later, only 5 to 10 percent of the patients with surgery still used insulin, compared with 55 per cent of those of the medical therapy group.