A new study shows that although gastric bypass surgery reverses
Type 2 diabetes in a large percentage of obese patients, the
disease recurs in about 21 percent of them within three to five
years. The study results will be presented Saturday at The
Endocrine Society’s 94th Annual Meeting in Houston. “The
recurrence rate was mainly influenced by a longstanding history
of Type 2 diabetes before the surgery,” said the study’s lead
author, Yessica Ramos, MD, an internal medicine resident at Mayo
Clinic Arizona in Scottsdale. “This suggests that early surgical
intervention in the obese, diabetic population will improve the
durability of remission of Type 2 diabetes.” Ramos and her co-
investigators studied the medical records of 72 obese patients
with Type 2 diabetes who underwent a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass
operation between 2000 and 2007 and had at least three years of
follow-up visits. Of these, 66 patients (92 percent) had a
reversal of their diabetes at some point, the authors reported.
Within three to five year