Diabetes and obesity patients ‘may benefit more from surgery than lifestyle changes’

People with diabetes and obesity may experience better outcomes by undergoing gastric bypass surgery than they would by simply making lifestyle changes.

This is according to a new study from Joslin Diabetes Center and Brigham and Women's Hospital, which assigned 38 obese patients with type 2 diabetes to either receive surgery or undergo an intensive lifestyle management programme.

After three years, it was shown that those undergoing surgery experienced dramatically greater weight loss, losing 55 pounds on average, compared to 11 pounds for those in the lifestyle management group.

The surgical cohort was also able to lower their blood sugar levels by an average of 1.79 percent – compared to 0.39 percent for the lifestyle management patients – and experienced a significantly lower risk of coronary heart disease and stroke.

Dr Donald Simonson, of the division of endocrinology, diabetes and hypertension at Brigham and Women's Hospital, said: "We expect that more physicians will consider gastric bypass surgery a viable option for patients with type 2 diabetes and mild to moderate obesity when previous attempts to lose weight and improve glycaemic control have not been successful."

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