Bariatric Surgery Is Associated with Improved Macrovascular Outcomes in Severely Obese Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

Observational studies have suggested that bariatric surgery can prevent coronary and cerebrovascular events in obese patients. In this observational study, researchers used clinical databases from four large integrated health systems to identify 5300 patients with body-mass index (BMI) ≥35 kg/m² and type 2 diabetes who underwent bariatric surgery. Half the patients had BMI between 40 kg/m² and 50 kg/m². These patients were matched with 14,930 nonsurgical patients by sex, age, BMI, glycosylated hemoglobin level, and insulin use; patients with known cardiovascular disease (CVD) were excluded. Among surgical patients, 76% underwent Roux-en-Y gastric bypass.

The incidence of CVD events in the surgical group was roughly half that of the nonsurgic…