Weight-loss surgery helps reduce risk of diabetes, according to new study

A major study into the effects of bariatric (or weight-loss) surgery has found that it can lower the risk of type 2 diabetes, and offers other health benefits such as improved blood pressure .
The National Bariatric Surgery Registry (NBSR) audited 7,045 separate bariatric operations between 2008 and 2010, to reveal that type 2 diabetes fell by 50 per cent and that nearly 60 per cent of the excess weight of patients was lost a year after surgery. It also reviewed the follow-up data from 1,421 of these operations, of which 379 patients suffered from type 2 diabetes, with only 188 of them still having the condition a year later.
The study claimed that by bringing down the associated costs of obesity, including diabetes treatment, the surgery reduces the burden of obesity to society, and recommends that the treatment should be made more widely available on the NHS.
Alberic Fiennes, chairman of the NBSR Data Committee, commented “An approach that limits treatment to a fraction of those who would benefit is one which the NHS will rue in years to come as these patients become an unsustainable burden on the health service .”
Professor Sir George Alberti, chairman of the charity Diabetes UK, said “We agree that bariatric surgery should be used as an alternative treatment to help people lose weight if all other attempts have been unsuccessful and their diabetes remains poorly controlled.”