Consider obesity surgery more often for diabetes: Guidelines

[...] Tuesday's guidelines mark the first time the surgery is recommended specifically as a diabetes treatment rather than as obesity treatment with a side benefit, and expand the eligible candidates.

Many can control the disease with diet, exercise, medication or insulin — but years of poorly controlled diabetes can lead to heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure, amputations or blindness.

[...] WHAT'S NEW?

[...] health guidelines have focused on surgery as a last-resort method for the severely obese to lose weight, with diabetes improvement considered a bonus.

While weight loss itself can help Type 2 diabetes, operations such as gastric bypass, the most common kind, and other types of bariatric surgery are thought to help in a different way — by affecting hormones, gut bacteria and other substances that affect how the body handles insulin and blood sugar.

The risk of death or serious side effects from surgery is small and comparable to gallbladder operations or hysterectomies, said Dr. Francesco Rubino, chair of metabolic and bariatric surgery at King's College London, who helped write the guidelines.