A surgical procedure may help to put diabetes in remission, a study has found, Business Day reported on Monday.
The South African study, presented at the third national metabolic surgery conference on Friday, showed gastric bypass surgery could reverse diabetes.
Around 90% of obese patients with diabetes who had gastric bypass surgery which alters the anatomy of the stomach and small intestine experienced beneficial changes to their hormones, metabolism and appetite.
Professor Francesco Rubino of Weill Cornell Medical College in the US said it had been believed that patients could not recover from type two diabetes.
The new research indicated that the risks of cardiovascular disease and stroke, associated with diabetes, were also reduced after the surgery.
It was hoped the effects of the surgery could be reproduced in pill form in the future.
The study has been submitted for peer review, but the results have not yet been published.
(SAPA, February 2013)
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