Bariatric surgery markedly reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes as compared to usual care

Patients, who had undergone bariatric surgery, had a substantially smaller risk of getting type 2 diabetes than patients in the control group. This result was discovered in a joint 15-year follow-up study between the University of Gothenburg, Sweden and THL and published on 23 August 2012 by the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

One of the authors, adjunct professor Markku Peltonen from THL, says that the study shows that in obese patients bariatric surgery prevents the risk of type 2 diabetes more efficiently than traditional weight-loss strategies.

The study results show that out of the 1658 patients who had undergone surgery, 110 developed type 2 diabetes in the course of 15 years.  In the control group, as many as 392 out of the 1771 obese patients who had been treated with traditional measures developed type 2 diabetes. 

The risk was reduced in both female and male patients, and the severity of obesity in the beginning of the study had no impact on the reduction of the risk of diabetes.

The present work “Bariatric Surgery and Prevention of Type 2 Diabetes in Swedish Obese Subjects” is one of more than 90 scientific articles published during the extensive Swedish Obese Subjects (SOS) study.  Bariatric surgery has also been proven beneficial to cancer, cardiovascular diseases, mortality and quality of life.

In Sweden nearly 10 000 patients underwent bariatric surgery in 2011, showing a significant increase from 1987. In Finland the annual number of bariatric operations is around 1000.

More information:

Markku Peltonen
Adjunct professor
Head of Department of Chronic Disease Prevention
THL
Tel.: +358 29  524 8477
firstname.lastname@thl.fi

Source:

Lena M. S. Carlsson, Markku Peltonen, et. al. Bariatric Surgery and Prevention of Type 2 Diabetes in Swedish Obese Subjects. The New England Journal of Medicine. Vol. 367 No. 8, August 23, 2012.