Weight loss surgery can stop prediabetes in its tracks: Study

People with prediabetes and severe obesity who underwent metabolic and bariatric surgery were 20 times less likely to develop Type 2 diabetes, claimed a new study.

The study showed that only 1.8 per cent of patients progressed to diabetes in five years after weight loss surgeries like Roux-en-Y gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy.

The numbers rose to 3.3 per cent in 10 years and 6.7 per cent after 15 years, according to researchers from the Geisinger Medical Center in Pennsylvania, US.

The team found that the protective effect against diabetes is higher among gastric bypass patients. On the other hand, nearly a third (31.1 per cent) of patients with no prior metabolic surgery saw their prediabetes develop into diabetes within five years, which increased to 51.5 per cent and 68.7 per cent at 10 and 15 years, respectively.

“This is the first study to analyse the long-term impact of metabolic and bariatric surgery on the potential progression of prediabetes and the impact is significant and durable,” said David Parker, co-author and a bariatric surgeon at Geisinger.

“It demonstrates that metabolic surgery is as much a treatment as it is a prevention for diabetes.” Prediabetes is a serious condition that occurs when blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be considered type 2 diabetes. For the retrospective, 1,326 patients with prediabetes before undergoing either Roux-en-Y gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy between 2001 and 2022, were matched with non-surgical controls from a primary care cohort.

The study was presented at the ongoing American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) 2024 Annual Scientific Meeting in San Diego.