Bariatric Surgery & Diabetes / Cardiovascular Benefits

The New York Times (9/2, Rabin) reports that each year in the U.S., “hundreds of thousands of obese Americans undergo weight-loss surgery in a last-ditch effort to shed pounds and control their type 2 diabetes [T2D].” Now, new research indicates that “bariatric surgery may also have other significant health benefits, cutting the overall risk of serious cardiovascular events and premature death by almost half.” For the study, investigators “compared the long-term outcomes of about 2,300 bariatric surgery patients with some 11,500 closely matched patients who had not undergone surgery.”

Reuters (9/2, Chander) reports the study revealed that “obese individuals with type 2 diabetes who had weight-loss surgery were roughly 35% less likely to experience problems like heart attacks, strokes, and heart failure, and they were less likely to die during the study.” In addition, they “lost more weight, controlled their diabetes better, and reduced the amount of medication they took.” The findings were “published in the Journal of the American Medical Association to coincide with a presentation Monday at the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Paris.”

dr marc erlitz portrait photo
Dr. Marc Erlitz
MD
Anesthesiologist