Obesity surgery can be a successful method of controlling non-insulin-dependent diabetes in obese people, according to researchers at the UCLA Medical Center.

Most patients who have non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus are obese. Results of medical weight loss programs, medications, and behavior therapy have proven disappointing, wrote the researchers.

Researchers speculated that bariatric (obesity) surgery is the most effective method of diabetes management and cure in patients who are morbidly obese. Obesity surgeries can provide a more dramatic effect on diabetes, especially by bypassing the hormonally active "foregut" (the beginning portion of the digestive system).

After reviewing pertinent journal articles spanning the last 40 years, as well as textbooks, researchers concluded that bariatric surgical procedures have proven a much more successful method of weight loss and diabetes control in the obese population than conservative methods. These surgical procedures have proven safe with reported rates of death of 0 percent to 1.5 percent, according to the report published in the Archives of Surgery.

The most effective bariatric surgeries for controlling diabetes are the Roux-en Y gastric bypass and biliary-pancreatic diversion, as these procedures bypass the foregut.

Other sources: Archives of Surgery