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Bariatric surgery is associated with a higher rate of adverse events compared to non-surgical treatment, although early complications are often benign and long-term complications may be fewer in surgical groups.

Bariatric surgery is associated with a higher rate of adverse events compared to medical management, but these are often early and benign. Long-term, surgery may reduce the risk of serious diabetes-related complications. Patients should weigh the higher short-term risk of surgery against the potential long-term benefits of reduced complications and improved metabolic health.

GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
Our outcome was prone to a higher adverse events rate in bariatric surgery compared with non-surgical treatment for T2DM (RR = 2.08, 95%CI: 1.53 to 2.81, P < 0.00001)... However, early surgical complications were relatively benign. There were no perioperative deaths and no late surgical complications in bariatric surgical groups after 1-year follow-up.
Guozhong Wu et al. · Oncotarget · 2016

Why this rating

Meta-analysis of 8 RCTs, with consistent reporting of adverse events.

Source

Meta-analysis of bariatric surgery versus non-surgical treatment for type 2 diabetes mellitus

Guozhong Wu et al. · Oncotarget · 2016

DOI 10.18632/oncotarget.11961

Meta-analysis · 8 studiesCited 36×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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