Stomach-shrinking bariatric surgery beats other forms of treatment in bringing about remission of type 2 diabetes in the obese, according to a Swedish study.
The study, to appear in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), also found that the procedure was linked to fewer diabetes-related complications in the severely overweight.
The findings come at a time when obesity and diabetes have reached epidemic proportions, creating a costly public health problem.
In the US, more than 29 million people - or 9.3 per cent of the population - had diabetes in 2012, up from an estimated 26 million two years earlier, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.
Treating the disease and related complications amounted to $US245 billion ($A265 billion) in medical expenses, as well as lost pay in 2012, up from $US174 billion five years earlier.
Carried out by a team led by Lars Sjostrom of the University of Gothenburg, the findings to appear in JAMA involved a follow-up of the Swedish Obese Subjects study.
The median follow-up time was 18.1 years for people who had had surgery and 17.6 years in the control group in an effort to determine the long-term effects of bariatric procedures, diabetes remission and diabetes-linked complications.
The authors found that the proportion of people with type 2 diabetes who had bariatric surgery and were in remission was 72.3 per cent two years after the procedure, compared to 16.4 per cent in the control group.
Fifteen years on, the diabetes remission rates were 30.4 per cent for those who had surgery, significantly higher than the 6.5 per cent remission in the control group.
All kinds of bariatric surgery - including gastric bypass and adjustable and nonadjustable banding procedures - "were associated with higher remission rates compared with usual care", said a release announcing the study.
What's more, according to the authors who say the findings require confirmation through randomised trials, this type of surgery is also linked to a lower incidence of micro- and macrovascular complications.
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