Obese patients with type 2 diabetes can not only lose weight with obesity surgery, they may also be able to put their diabetes into remission, finds a new study.
The research in the Journal of the American Medical Association is the first to test whether weight loss that comes as a result of bariatric surgery could be used as a treatment for type 2 diabetes in obese patients.
Researchers in Australia led a two-year study using 60 obese participants whose body mass index (BMI) was greater than 30 but less than 40. Patients received either conventional diabetes therapy with a focus on weight loss by lifestyle change, or laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding along with conventional diabetes care.
The researchers found that 22 of the 30 patients who had the gastric surgery had their diabetes go into remission; that is: they were able to stop taking diabetes drugs and achieve normal blood tests.
By contrast, only four of the 30 patients using conventional weight loss therapy were able to achieve diabetes remission.
What's more, two years later, the surgical group had maintained an average of 20.7 per cent body weight loss at two years, compared with 1.7 percent among the conventional-therapy group.
The researchers say it was the weight loss that was responsible for the high rates of diabetes remission in the surgical group.
"An important finding of this study is that degree of weight loss, not the method, appears to be the major driver of glycemic improvement and diabetes remission in obese participants," they write.
"This has important implications, as it suggests that intensive weight-loss therapy may be a more effective first step in the management of diabetes than simple lifestyle change."
