Research

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Bariatric surgery reduces long-term all-cause mortality and the incidence of type 2 diabetes in obese adults.

Bariatric surgery offers a significant long-term survival advantage for severely obese individuals, reducing the risk of death by nearly 30% over 16 years compared to non-surgical care. This benefit extends to a drastic reduction in the development of type 2 diabetes.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
At 16 years’ follow-up, surgery was associated with a 29% lower risk of death from any cause (0.71, 0.54 to 0.92; P=0.01) compared with usual care.
David Arterburn et al. · BMJ · 2014

Why this rating

Based on large prospective observational studies (SOS, Utah) with long follow-up.

Source

Bariatric surgery for obesity and metabolic conditions in adults

David Arterburn et al. · BMJ · 2014

DOI 10.1136/bmj.g3961

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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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