A new study has found that weight loss surgery can be more effective in treating Type 2 diabetes than medications.
The study, appearing in The Lancet, was conducted by researchers from King's College London and Rome's Universita Cattolica and it found that the surgery can provide benefits that can last up to five years.
The study is also the longest study ever done to compare weight loss surgery and drugs to combat the condition.
For the study that began in 2009, researchers randomly assigned 20 obese individuals who have Type 2 diabetes to undergo medical treatment; 20 were assigned to go through a surgery for weight loss known as gastric bypass; and another 20 were assigned to another type of surgery known as biliopancreatic diversion.
Out of the 60 individuals who participated in the trial, 53 of them completed five years of follow-up. Eighty percent of those who went through surgery had maintained good levels of blood sugar compared to the 25 percent of patients who only received drugs.
The study also found that all groups had a reduced risk in cardiovascular events. However, those two surgery groups had 50 percent lowered risk compared to the drug group.
Not all patients have been treated with type 2 diabetes successfully even with the surgery, but the sugar levels were kept under control and in line with the recommended levels.
'The ability of surgery to greatly reduce the need for insulin and other drugs suggests that surgical therapy is a cost-effective approach to treating type-2 diabetes', said professor Francesco Rubino, senior author of the study, according to the King's College London news release.
Patients who underwent surgery may have lost more weight compared to patients who received only drugs; however, the changes in their weight were not able to predict the remission or relapse of high blood sugar levels following surgery.
This suggests that the effects of surgery on the condition is more than just weight loss.
Meanwhile, Universita Cattolica professor Geltrude Mingrone, co-author of the study, suggested that more trials involving larger groups should be performed to establish the effectiveness of weight loss surgery compared to medications.
