Would Weight-Loss Surgery Cut Diabetes Risk?

Also once known as non-insulin-dependent diabetes, Type-2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes that accounts for about 90 percent of diabetes cases. The risk of getting Type-2 diabetes is higher for people who are overweight and obese. 

For people with Type-2 diabetes, their pancreas does not make enough insulin or the body cannot use the insulin well enough. As a result, their body is unable to regulate blood sugar levels, which can put them at risk of blindness, amputations and nerve damage. Moreover, people with diabetes are more likely to develop heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke.

Besides adopting a healthy lifestyle, diabetics can go for weight-loss surgery with doctor’s recommendation. According to a study by researchers from King's College London, weight-loss surgery could dramatically lower the odds of developing Type-2 diabetes. The paper was published online November 2, 2014 issue of ‘The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology’.

After examining the electronic health records of more than 4,000 people in Britain, the researchers found that the risk of diabetes is about 80 percent lower in those who reduced their body weight by one of the 3 surgical procedures, namely laparoscopic adjustable banding, sleeve gastrectomy and gastric bypass.

In the study, the researchers identified 2,167 obese adults without diabetes who have had 1 of the 3 surgical procedures for weight loss from 2002 onwards and compared with 2,167 others who had not had surgery or other obesity treatments (control group).

During the follow-up period of up to 7 years, only 38 new cases of diabetes among participants who had weight-loss surgery were found, comparing with 177 in the control group, showing a reduction of 80 percent.

The results seemed promising and moving closer to confirm the positive effect of weight-loss surgery, but more studies are still required to gather more evidence in order to convince endocrinologists about the nature of this effect.

Weight-loss surgery, also called bariatric surgery, is employed as the last resort to treat people who are dangerously obese with an excessive amount of body fat. Doctors will only recommend this kind of surgery to people when other treatments fail to work.

In general, weight-loss surgery can be divided into 3 categories: restrictive procedure, malabsorptive technique and combination operations.

Restrictive procedures make the stomach smaller to limit the amount of food intake, while malabsorptive techniques reduce the amount of intestine that comes in contact with food so that the body will absorb fewer calories. Combination operation is a combination of both restriction and malabsorption.

Gastric band (restrictive procedure) and gastric bypass (malabsorptive technique) are the 2 most common types of weight-loss surgery. In gastric band, a band is used to reduce the size of the stomach so that a smaller amount of food is needed to let someone feel full. For gastric bypass, the digestive system is re-routed past most of the stomach so that less food is digested and makes someone feel full.