Weight Loss Surgery an Effective Type 2 Diabetes Treatment, Study Says

A study published on JAMA Surgery this Wednesday has found that weight loss surgery can treat type-2 diabetes better than shifting to a healthy lifestyle.

Researchers collected data from a pool of 61 participants, who were each randomly assigned to three different weight loss programs, two of which involved surgery, reports US News.

The volunteers were between ages 25 and 55 years old. Participants who were placed into groups that involved surgery either had a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass or had adjustable gastric banding.

Newsmax Health explains that both the gastric bypass surgery and gastric banding can decrease the amount of food the body can consume in different ways.

With gastric bypass surgery, surgeons reduce the size of the stomach similar to that of a small pouch. In gastric banding, the opening of the stomach is reduced, presumably to prevent large amounts of food from entering the stomach.

For the participants placed in the control group that did not involve surgery, diet and exercise were used to lose weight. The control group followed an intense weight-loss program for one year and later switched to a milder program.

All the participants were observed for a period of three years. After the observation period was over, researchers discovered that the participants who received surgery were in better health than those who did not undergo surgery.

"Our study provides evidence that after three years, surgical treatments are better than lifestyle modification alone to treat type 2 diabetes," said lead researcher Dr. Anita Courcoulas, a professor of surgery at the University of Pittsburg Medical Center.

According to the data, 40 percent of the patients who had gastric bypass surgery and 29 percent of those who had gastric banding experienced a complete or partial remission of their type 2 diabetes, at the end of the three-year program. None of the patients from the control group experienced a remission of their diabetes.

Additionally, the patients in the surgical groups lost more weight compared to participants in the nonsurgical group, who reportedly lost just under 6 percent of their initial weight.

People who had gastric bypass surgery lost about 25 percent of the weight they initially had at the beginning of the program. Those who underwent gastric banding lost around 15 percent of their starting weight.

While the remission of diabetes may be temporary in participants who underwent surgery, there are still more long-term benefits to weight loss surgery. 

According to Dr. Joel Zonszein, the director of the clinical diabetes center at Montefiore Medical Center in NYC, diabetes will return after initial remission. Patients who were treated with weight loss surgery will need "fewer medications and are easier to treat" in the future.