Weight-loss surgery is a controversial last-ditch effort to help the weight-loss resistant lose weight after diets and behavior modifications have failed, but a new study indicates that the benefits may be even greater than initially thought.

Weight-loss surgery, of course, addresses the immediate problem of losing weight and achieving a healthier weight for patients, but researchers have also found some benefits resulting from the procedure pertaining to co-morbid conditions.

Researchers looked at a long-term dataset on weight-loss surgery and the likelihood in patients at risk of developing diabetes. Over a 15 year period among the participants pegged as likely to develop the condition, doctors found a strong protective effect against type 2 diabetes among people who underwent bariatric surgery before the condition could arise.

Dr. Claude Bouchard is an author of the study and a professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana. Bouchard explains:

“The message is that bariatric surgery works … You can take people on their way to becoming diabetic, and you intervene with bariatric surgery and weight loss, and you have a very, very strong protective effect against Type 2 diabetes.”

The study on weight-loss surgery and diabetes was not the first this year to examine the protective benefits of weight-loss surgery for patients in both preventing and treating type 2 diabetes. An earlier study found that bariatric surgery was more effective than any other method in reversing the condition among overweight sufferers of the disease.

Researchers found an 80 percent risk reduction in weight-loss surgery patients classed as prediabetic, and Dr. Philip Schauer commented to the New York Times on the significance of the findings:

“Prediabetics almost always develop diabetes, and this showed that surgical treatment could put them on a new pathway away from the disease … An 80 percent risk reduction is huge, particularly in light of the fact that Type 2 diabetes is a very deadly disease.”

The findings were published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. 

Weight-Loss Surgery May Prevent Diabetes, Researchers Say is a post from: The Inquisitr