Metabolic Function Boost through Weight Loss, Diet: Study

Weight loss, whether by surgery or diet, has certain physiological effects, according to a report by the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The study matched 11 people with gastric bypass surgery who had diabetes with 11 others who had not who achieved an equal weight drop on diet alone.

The average age of patients in the diet group was approximately 55, while the average age of patients in the surgery group was 49. Those in the surgery group lost an average of 51 pounds, while those in the diet group lost an average of 48 pounds, Xinhua reports.

In a 24-hour duration, researchers used advanced hospital-based methods to assess subjects' metabolic reactions to meals.

They found that members of both groups reported significant changes in metabolism, such as lower blood sugar rates during the day, improved insulin activity in the kidney, muscle and fat tissue, and decreased insulin and other diabetes medicines.

"It has been suggested that weight loss induced by gastric bypass surgery is different from weight loss induced by a low-calorie diet, based on the fact that certain factors, such as increased bile acid concentrations, decreased branched-chain amino acid concentrations and alterations in the gut microbiome, are different in surgery patients and may be responsible for the unique therapeutic effects of gastric bypass surgery," said principal investigator Samuel Klein, director of Washington University's Center for Human Nutrition.

"We found all of those factors were, in fact, different after weight loss in surgery patients than in patients who lost weight through diet alone. Yet those changes were not associated with any physiologically or clinically important metabolic benefits,” said the Samuel Klein.

Weight loss is the explanation for enhancing the metabolic process and the reversal of diabetes. Weight loss through dieting produces the same beneficial metabolic effects as weight loss after surgery, Klein said.

More than 40% of adult Americans are obese, and almost one in ten are extremely obese. Per year more than 250,000 individuals in the United States receive bariatric surgery to help them reduce weight.

The research was published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday.