I already wrote about the possibility of gastric bypass surgery to help overweight diabetics get rid of the condition.

Now, the BUPA Foundation has awarded a £93,000 grant to scientists of the Swansea University's School of Medicine to look further into the mechanism of weight-reducing surgery resulting to the almost immediate disappearance of diabetes in patients.

We should remember though that this study is focused on previous findings on the morbidly obese people (Body Mass Index of over 40) - 95% of this patient population have type 2 diabetes.

According to Senior Clinical Lecturer Dr Jeffrey Stephens, who is leading the research at the School of Medicine's Diabetes Research Group:

"Although patients with Type 2 diabetes do not always require insulin treatment, the average diabetic needs about 30 units of insulin a day to control blood sugar levels.

"For obese patients, this can rise to 200 units a day. To go from such a high level of insulin-dependency to not needing insulin in a matter of a few days is a dramatic result, and we need to understand the reasons why this happens.

Not only will this research improve our understanding of why overweight people develop Type 2 diabetes, it may also lead to an effective, non-surgical treatment for those with the condition. We are immensely grateful to the BUPA Foundation for giving us this opportunity."

The research team (Professor Steve Bain and Professor Rhys Williams from Swansea University's School of Medicine, and Professor John Baxter, a bariatric surgeon with Swansea NHS Trust), together with Dr Jeffrey Stephens are focusing attention on a protein known as Glucagon Like Peptide 1 (GLP-1) - a protein produced in the small intestine.

Find more details from the full report.