Metabolic and bariatric surgery prevents pre-diabetes from developing into type 2 diabetes in most patients, shows new study

Patients with pre-diabetes and severe obesity who had metabolic and bariatric surgery were 20-times less likely to develop full-blown type 2 diabetes over the course of 15 years than patients with the condition who did not have surgery, according to a new study* presented today at the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) 2024 Annual Scientific Meeting.

Only 1.8% of patients progressed to a diagnosis of diabetes in five years after metabolic surgery (Roux-en-Y gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy), which rose to 3.3% in 10 years and 6.7% after 15 years. The protective effect against diabetes was higher among gastric bypass patients. Meanwhile, nearly a third (31.1%) of patients with no prior metabolic surgery saw their prediabetes develop into diabetes within five years, which increased to 51.5% and 68.7% at 10 and 15 years, respectively. Patients on average lost 29.4% of their body weight at 12 months and 27.6% at 36 months. Greater weight loss at three years was associated with a lower risk of progression to diabetes.

“This is the first study to analyze the long-term impact of metabolic and bariatric surgery on the potential progression of prediabetes and the impact is significant and durable,” said David Parker, MD, study co-author and a bariatric surgeon at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, PA. “It demonstrates that metabolic surgery is as much a treatment as it is a prevention for diabetes.”

Prediabetes is a serious condition that occurs when blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be considered type 2 diabetes. According to CDC, approximately 98 million Americans-more than 1 in 3-have prediabetes and 38.4 million have diabetes.