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If you’re severely overweight, it can take a toll on your life in a lot of different ways. Your grocery bill may be excessive, walking may be difficult and fitting into tight spaces like your car or a seat on an airplane can be uncomfortable. Sound familiar?
Obesity Major Risk Factor for Diabetes
In reality, these are minor problems associated with obesity compared to the serious effects that significant excess weight can have on your health. For example, if you don’t already have type 2 diabetes, you might just be a blood test away from developing the disease. An estimated 90 percent of people who have type 2 diabetes are overweight.
Study: Bariatric Surgery Can Help Prevent Diabetes
But it’s not all bad news. A recent study published in the journal The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology found that bariatric surgery may help lower the risk of developing diabetes by as much as 80 percent.
In the study, researchers followed 2,167 patients who were scheduled to undergo bariatric surgery. Procedures used to help these patients lose weight included gastric banding, sleeve gastrectomy, and gastric bypass surgery.
After surgery, researchers monitored these patients for seven years to see if the surgery would have an impact on their diabetes risk. At the same time, researchers also followed another group of about 2,000 people who were obese, but did not have bariatric surgery.
Researchers found that the people who received bariatric surgery to promote weight loss were 80 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than people who did not have surgery.
Bariatric Surgery Also Helps Control Diabetes Symptoms
If you already have type 2 diabetes, bariatric surgery can help you control the dark side of the disease (elevated blood sugar levels, nerve damage, poor circulation, heart disease, kidney failure, blindness, etc.). In a study published in the Annals of Surgery, researchers found that bariatric surgery helped over-weight people with diabetes lose weight and maintain normal blood sugar levels for more than five years after surgery.
Do Everything You Can to Prevent Diabetes
Losing weight may be the primary goal of bariatric surgery. But research on diabetes prevention and management suggest that the benefits of bariatric surgery go far beyond just tipping the scale in the right direction. Diabetes is among the top 10 leading causes of death in the United States. It’s a disease that can rob you of your health and quality of life. You should do everything you can to prevent it, or control it if you already have diabetes.
If you want to find out if bariatric surgery can help you lose weight and prevent or control diabetes, contact the New York Bariatric Group today at 800-633-8446, or register for a free weight loss surgery seminar.
