According to a new study published in the journal PLoS Medicine , around one in twenty people in Scotland diagnosed with type 2 diabetes can achieve a remission of the disease if they undergo bariatric surgery and other treatments.
Recognizing people in remission, tracking their progress, and better understanding the factors involved in remission could lead to better initiatives to help other patients.
Identifying the characteristics
Some people with type 2 diabetes have achieved remission after bariatric surgery or after participating in a research trial of a very low calorie diet, but it is unknown how many people in the general population are simply healing .
Using a national registry of people with type 2 diabetes in Scotland, Mireille Captieux of the University of Edinburgh and her colleagues calculated how many people were in remission in 2019 and described the characteristics of those who were in remission and not in remission .
Of 162,316 patients older than 30 years who were eligible for analysis, 7,710 (about 5%) were in remission in 2019 . People in remission tend not to have previously taken glucose-lowering medications; have lost weight since their diagnosis; have lower blood sugar levels at the time of diagnosis; or have had bariatric surgery. Understanding how many individuals are in remission, as well as their characteristics, creates a baseline against which to evaluate future initiatives and studies. It could also help doctors identify patients to talk to about remission and weight management options.
There were an estimated 463 million people with diabetes in the world in 2019, of which 90-95% have type 2 diabetes, and these numbers are increasing due to an aging population , increasing obesity and sedentary lifestyles. .