According to a new study released by the University of California, San Francisco, diabetes are less likely than other people to lose weight so easily. Just like the people with larger stomach pouches, the diabetes find it hard to lose weight after gastric bypass surgery. The ones who suffer this kind of operations have their food intake restricted because the surgeons create a smaller stomach pouch that bypasses large sections of the digestive system.

The researchers stated that when the bypass is performed in “high-volume centers and with a low rate of complications,” this provides “sustained and meaningful weight loss, significant improvements in quality of life, improvement or resolution of obesity-associated co-morbidities, and extended life span.”

They added that 5% to 15% of the patients don’t manage to lose weight in spite of the “precise surgical technique and regular follow-up.” 310 gastric bypass patients were tracked by the researchers and they all defined poor weight loss as losing 40% of excess body weight after a year. Before the surgery they all had an average body mass index of 52.

When they were checked up a year later the bypass surgery, their BMI average was 34 and they had lost an average of 60% of excess body weight. However, the researchers noted in their study that the people who have diabetes and take insulin or other medicines make their body stimulate the production of fat and cholesterol.

Their study also specified that other factors which lead to weight gain in patients with diabetes are “a 'protective' increase in caloric intake to treat episodes of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), reduction of urinary glucose losses, and sodium and water retention that are a direct effect of insulin on the distal tubule in the kidney.”