The Surgical Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Non-Morbidly Obese Patients: A Community Hospital Study

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease with severe long-term health consequences. In patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus who are also morbidly obese, an abundance of clinical evidence exists showing that significant clinical improvement in their diabetes occurs following certain types of bariatric, or weight loss, surgical procedures. There is additional data showing that bariatric surgical procedures that bypass the beginning of the small intestine, such as the Roux-en Y gastric bypass, can markedly improve type 2 diabetes even before significant weight loss has occurred. This early effect on type 2 diabetes prior to weight loss suggests that bypassing the beginning of the small intestine in patients who are not morbidly obese may also treat type 2 diabetes. There have been small studies outside the United States that support the concept of treating type 2 diabetes with a surgical procedure that bypasses the beginning of the small intestine without causing significant weight loss; however, data is limited in the United States and a call for comparative studies has been made internationally. The investigators propose to compare, in patients who are not morbidly obese, conventional medical treatment of type 2 diabetes to surgical treatment of type 2 diabetes using a bypass procedure that does not cause significant weight loss, the laparoscopic duodenal exclusion.