33^rd European Diabetes Congress

Diabetic Surgeries

Diabetes mellitus type 2 is an epidemic health problem, affecting more than 150 million people worldwide. This number is expected to double in the first decades of the third millennium. Recently, evidence for reduction of complications of type 2 diabetes with tight control of hyperglycaemia has been reported, but current therapies, including diet, exercise, behaviour modification, oral hypoglycaemic agents, and insulin, rarely return patients to euglycemia. Morbid obesity, in which patients exceed their ideal weight by at least 100 lb or are more than 200% of ideal body weight, is a condition with high mortality and morbidity because of its association with severe comorbid diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidaemia, and cardiopulmonary failure. In these patients, surgery represents the most effective therapy in that it achieves significant and durable weight loss as well as resolution or amelioration of comorbidities. Current indications for surgery in morbidly obese patients include body mass index (BMI) greater than 40 or greater than 35 if comorbidities are present.