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In a significant advancement in diabetes prevention, a recent study revealed that individuals with prediabetes and severe obesity who underwent metabolic and bariatric surgery were 20 times less likely to develop Type 2 diabetes. The study, conducted by researchers from the Geisinger Medical Center in Pennsylvania, was presented at the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) 2024 Annual Scientific Meeting in San Diego.
According to the study, only 1.8 percent of patients who had weight loss surgeries like Roux-en-Y gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy progressed to diabetes within five years. This figure rose to 3.3 percent over ten years and 6.7 percent after fifteen years. In stark contrast, nearly a third (31.1 percent) of patients with no prior metabolic surgery saw their prediabetes develop into diabetes within five years. This increased to 51.5 percent and 68.7 percent at ten and fifteen years, respectively.
The research highlights that the protective effect against diabetes is notably higher among gastric bypass patients. Dr. David Parker, co-author and a bariatric surgeon at Geisinger, emphasized the groundbreaking nature of the findings. “This is the first study to analyze the long-term impact of metabolic and bariatric surgery on the potential progression of prediabetes, and the impact is significant and durable,” Parker stated. “It demonstrates that metabolic surgery is as much a treatment as it is a prevention for diabetes.”
Prediabetes is a critical condition characterized by blood sugar levels that are higher than normal but not yet high enough to be classified as type 2 diabetes. For this retrospective study, 1,326 patients with prediabetes who underwent 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 findings underscore the potential of metabolic and bariatric surgery not only as a treatment but also as a preventive measure against the progression of prediabetes to type 2 diabetes, offering hope to many battling severe obesity and prediabetes.
