In many cases, bariatric surgery has been found effective for people with type 2 diabetes and more and more studies have showed that. Clearly speaking, diabetes is not understood well and there is no permanent cure for it in medical science. Hence, the aim is to control your diabetes. Control refers to getting blood sugar levels back to normal level and you don’t need to get diabetes medications. The progression of complications is stopped by keeping blood sugar at normal range and it gives a chance to the body to repair damage.

Simply speaking, control refers to the fact that you are currently cured and will remain until the disease relapses due to the certain factors causing this disease. So, the actual question is whether bariatric surgery helps control Type 2 Diabetes. And the answer is yes in many cases.

How bariatric surgery works?

We all know that bariatric surgery is helpful to keep Type 2 Diabetes under control but most of us don’t know how. It is obvious that healthy weight loss is vital to reduce blood sugar levels and bariatric surgery has been scientifically proven to lose weight significantly for obese people.

But you need to consider other factors that may affect results. Most of the people got quick reversal of diabetes just after gastric sleeve surgery or gastric bypass surgery before losing any weight. This is where science is confusing.

According to a theory, if we bypass or remove the part of stomach quickly, it affects the way blood sugar enters the digestive system. Another study claims that GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide 1) is a substance which is stimulated by getting food to the lower intestine directly which can raise the production of insulin. According to the scientists, hormones like peptide Y (PPY) which spike hunger may be blunted when anatomy of gut is rearranged.  If people don’t need much sugar, they can better manage their blood glucose levels.

After several studies, it has shown that bariatric surgery has been proven a lot more effective to manage diabetes as compared to drug therapy. Even in extreme cases when diabetes cannot be controlled, long-term studies have proved that bariatric surgery has reduced their glucose levels more than those who don’t get surgery.

What are the chances for bariatric surgery to be successful?

Around 620 studies have been conducted in over 100,000 patients. According to the study, gastric bypass surgery has shown improvements in sugar levels in almost all cases and 80% of recovery. Some kinds of bariatric surgery seemed to be much more effective. For example, biliopancreatic diversion for most extreme obesity cases, has 95% of remission rates. On the other side, Lap Band or gastric banding is the least effective but has 50 to 60 percent of remission rates.

The less known gastric sleeve of sleeve gastrectomy achieves 80% of remission rates, which is just like gastric bypass. The chances of full remission are up to the severity of condition and how long you have been suffering it. According to all studies, the key result which is found that the less time you are having diabetes, the more likely you can achieve 100% reversal. Patients who are more likely to develop the condition, i.e. pre-diabetes, can get control in virtually every case. In severe diabetes, patients who use insulin are less likely to achieve control as compared to those who just have oral medications.

It is still not clear whether control can last forever or not. But according to recent studies, benefits can last longer and having healthy body weight can help in diabetes very much.