End‐of‐Trial Health Outcomes in Look AHEAD Participants who Elected to have Bariatric Surgery

OBJECTIVE: This study examined end-of-trial health outcomes in participants in the Look AHEAD (Action for Health in Diabetes) trial who had bariatric surgery during the approximately 10-year randomized intervention. METHODS: Data were obtained from the Look AHEAD public access database of 4901 individuals with type 2 diabetes and overweight/obesity who were assigned to intensive lifestyle intervention (ILI) or a diabetes support and education (DSE) control group. Changes in outcomes in participants who had bariatric surgery were compared with those in participants with a body mass index (BMI) ≥ 30 kg/m(2) who remained in the ILI and DSE groups. RESULTS: A total of 99 DSE and 97 ILI participants had bariatric surgery. At randomization, these 196 participants were significantly younger and more likely to be female and to have higher BMIs than the remaining ILI (N=1972) and DSE (N=2009) participants. At trial’s end, surgically-treated participants lost 19.3% of baseline weight, compared with 5.6% and 3.3% for the ILI and DSE groups, respectively, and were more likely to achieve partial or full remission of their diabetes. CONCLUSIONS: The large, sustained improvements in weight and diabetes observed in this self-selected sample of surgically-treated participants are consistent with results of multiple randomized trials.