Diabetes is Resolved in Over 78 Percent of Diabetic Patients Following Bariatric Surgery, U Meta-Analysis Finds

Additional patients’ diabetes was improved

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (March 3, 2009) — A meta-analysis by University of Minnesota researcher Henry Buchwald, M.D., Ph.D., and associates has proven that the majority of patients with type 2 diabetes can be completely relieved of their symptoms following bariatric surgery. His meta-analysis of 621 clinical studies involving 135,246 patients proved that diabetes was resolved in 78.1 percent of diabetic patients and was improved or resolved in 86.6 percent of diabetic patients.

This study clearly demonstrates that the resolution or improvement of type 2 diabetes is related to the weight that morbidly obese diabetic patients lose post-surgery; however, it is not a direct cause-and-effect relationship. Type 2 diabetes has shown to resolve within days after gastric bypass, before there is any significant weight loss. This suggests that changes in the gut after bariatric surgery influence the mechanics of type 2 diabetes in the body. It is also worth noting that 10 percent of type 2 diabetic patients are thin and approximately three-fourths of people considered morbidly obese do not have diabetes.

“Bariatric surgery has a powerful treatment effect in morbidly obese people with type 2 diabetes; however, in the future, we will learn from this surgery to understand the factors involved so that we can develop even better ways to achieve diabetes resolution,” Buchwald said.

The researchers evaluated the efficacy of several types of weight-loss surgery. Diabetes resolution was greatest for patients undergoing a duodenal switch (95.1 percent), followed by gastric bypass (80.3 percent), and gastroplasty (79.7 percent). Diabetes resolution was least common in diabetic patients who had laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (56.7 percent). Patients evaluated in the study ranged in age from 16 to 65 with the mean age of patients in the study equaling 40.2 years. Of the overall study population, 80 percent were female and 22.3 percent had type 2 diabetes.

This research is the largest meta-analysis to ever examine bariatric surgery for type 2 diabetes. Meta-analyses give researchers a statistically relevant way to compare several studies that are researching related hypotheses but may differ in study characteristics such as size, type, or design. Research data is compared only after researchers have determined that it meets a certain set of objective criteria and study characteristics are numerically coded to make the numbers relevant and comparable in a statistically significant manner.

“Meta-analyses can provide definitive scientific answers far sooner than compilations of repetitive studies, thereby bringing medical benefits to the public earlier at a lower monetary cost,” Buchwald added.

The study, “Weight and Type 2 Diabetes after Bariatric Surgery: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis,” will appear in the March issue of The American Journal of Medicine.

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Contact:         
Laura Stroup, Academic Health Center, 612-624-5680 or stro0481@umn.edu
Emily Jensen, Academic Health Center, 612-624-9163 or jense888@umn.edu