Weight loss surgery is gradually becoming one of the most accepted forms of tackling obesity, increasing by almost 200 percent over the last five years. Obese people, unable to shed their excess weight and afraid of other medical complications resulting from their obesity such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, joint pains and some forms of cancers are increasingly resorting to weight loss surgery or ‘bariatric’ surgery.

Weight loss surgery, it has been seen, apart from the very obvious result of leading to weight loss, also helps diabetics to stop taking medication. In fact, the weight loss surgery may help in reducing the need for diabetic drugs, thereby lowering the heavy costs of medication incurred.

A study, funded by the Department of Health and Human Services and conducted at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore by Dr. Martin Makary and his colleagues reveals this amazing fact and has been published in the Archives of Surgery, a Journal of the American Medical Association publication.

Weight loss surgery patients were reviewed over a period of time and the startling discovery was made. 2,235 adults who suffered from Type 2 diabetes and who had undergone weight loss surgery were kept under observation and their medical insurance data over a four-year period were analyzed.

Diabetic patients amounting to only 25 percent were still taking medication for their condition six months after weight loss surgery. One year after the surgery, the percentage of diabetics taking medication dropped to merely 20. Two years after surgery, only 15 percent of diabetics still had to take drugs for their diabetes conditions.

Dr Makary opines that since both obesity and diabetes are irreversible diseases without any known non-surgical treatment, weight loss surgery seems to be the only cure. Bariatric surgery helps in active reversal of both these types of problems and hence one of the best cures available in the market.