Drastic diet 'reverses' Type 2 diabetes

[am64]

it concerns me that people will suddenly rush to such a drastic cut in calories and will not be able to tolerate such a diet and will fail ....
at times i felt hypo and had the symptoms ..in fact my bs werent at a dangerous level.... just my body getting used to lower levels made it feel that way
....the best advice i got was about moderation and food swapping ..eg a simple change from white bread to seeded ...
...cut out on the obvious sugar culprits ...such as full sugar drinks ...and remember the so regarded 'healthy' fruit drinks and smoothees low fat yohurts breakfast cereals etc they all have high sugar ....good luck x🙂

 

[donnarob]

Hi Everyone,

In the middle of moving house, so haven't been paying that much attention to news headlines and newspaper reports. A well meaning friend made me aware of the story and I immediately logged in to find out more about it. I didn't think there was a "cure" for diabetes and I felt myself feeling very sceptical about the whole article. As you all know, my Hba1c has reduced from 10.5 to 6.2% in 6 months and, at my last doctor's visit last week, he told me to continue to work at reducing carbs and to take plenty of exercise, he subsequently questioned whether or not I had diabetes now as my levels were within the normal range!!

What makes me question the research, is that any diet which drastically restricts carbohydrates will reduce blood sugar. Is is really necessary to go on such a starvation diet when gradual, improved, eating habits will reduce blood sugar levels.

It's the people sitting on the other side of the fence which get to me. I know they are well meaning but I'm fed up being labelled "morbidly obese" which I am not, I have relatives in the family with diabetes which means it's hereditary and let's face it, not every overweight person gets Type 2. It's the labelling which gets to me the most and I can fully understand why people don't want to advertise the fact that they've got the disease.

My doctor has told me on numerous occasions, if I keep my blood glucose levels down to the level they are at, I will suffer no complications from the disease, however, my friend suggested that it would be prudent to go on the diet if it was going to counteract the nasties which are bound to happen. Surely if I went on a 600 calorie diet today, my blood glucose levels would plumment to God knows what! Even eating carbs, I can go as low as 3.6 and that's only with one Metformin per day! I would be interested to see what everyone else thinks, one minute I feel on top of the world and then I'm reminded constantly that I am not normal. Time to be proactive again and Thank goodness for the support of this group, I would be lost without you.

Donna and sorry about the Rant! 🙂

 

[C*5_Dodger]

Don't do it

Hi Everyone,

In the middle of moving house, so haven't been paying that much attention to news headlines and newspaper reports. A well meaning friend made me aware of the story and I immediately logged in to find out more about it. I didn't think there was a "cure" for diabetes and I felt myself feeling very sceptical about the whole article. As you all know, my Hba1c has reduced from 10.5 to 6.2% in 6 months and, at my last doctor's visit last week, he told me to continue to work at reducing carbs and to take plenty of exercise, he subsequently questioned whether or not I had diabetes now as my levels were within the normal range!!

What makes me question the research, is that any diet which drastically restricts carbohydrates will reduce blood sugar. Is is really necessary to go on such a starvation diet when gradual, improved, eating habits will reduce blood sugar levels.

It's the people sitting on the other side of the fence which get to me. I know they are well meaning but I'm fed up being labelled "morbidly obese" which I am not, I have relatives in the family with diabetes which means it's hereditary and let's face it, not every overweight person gets Type 2. It's the labelling which gets to me the most and I can fully understand why people don't want to advertise the fact that they've got the disease.

My doctor has told me on numerous occasions, if I keep my blood glucose levels down to the level they are at, I will suffer no complications from the disease, however, my friend suggested that it would be prudent to go on the diet if it was going to counteract the nasties which are bound to happen. Surely if I went on a 600 calorie diet today, my blood glucose levels would plumment to God knows what! Even eating carbs, I can go as low as 3.6 and that's only with one Metformin per day! I would be interested to see what everyone else thinks, one minute I feel on top of the world and then I'm reminded constantly that I am not normal. Time to be proactive again and Thank goodness for the support of this group, I would be lost without you.

Donna and sorry about the Rant! 🙂

Dear Donna,

At 600kcals/d I would avoid this diet like the plague. It should not be attempted without close medical supervision! 😱

Regards Dodger

 

[Northerner]

It's being presented far too simplistically in a lot of the reports. You would definitely need very close (and therefore costly) medical supervision and even then it may not actually work for a large number of people - the sample size is far too small to draw any real conclusions.

Donna, the problem we people with diabetes have is that none of the 'prevention' campaigns are concerned with us - they are concerned with scaring the non-diabetic people into reducing their risk. To try and get through to as many people as they can, they keep the message highly simplistic which then sets a misleading impression that there is only one reason you become diabetic, and it is avoidable.

I very rarely read anything in the media that presents a positive view of how people with diabetes manage it well and achieve great things. the vast majority are shock horror scare tactics that are often incorrect in their facts and see people with diabetes as easy targets.

 

[Carina1962]

Like probably many people yesterday, i bought a copy of the Daily Express which headlined 'Wonder Cure for Diabetes'. I am due for my Hbaic again in July and feel pretty confident that i will get a good result again as i have been getting regular excercise by going to the gym since April and and slowly and steadily losing weight by sticking to about 1250 calories a day (which includes cutting out most (but not all) carbs). I am finding that by doing this, my BS levels are looking good and which has led me to reduce the amount i test, from every day to about 3 - 4 times a week. I have run out of test strips and do not feel a sense of 'panic' for not having any which i used to have as i feel i have lots more control and that is all due to good old fashioned diet and excercise 🙂 I do look forward with great interest to hearing more news about this trial in the not too distant future though

 

[Carina1962]

One question has just sprung to mind - if a T2 is not overweight and within normal weight range, what happens if they decide to do this 600 cals a day diet?

 

[tracey w]

It's a very small sample and I wonder if the restriction of calories means that the consequent restriction in carbs is a big contributory factor:

http://www.diabetes.org.uk/About_us/News_Landing_Page/Can-diet-alone-reverse-Type-2-diabetes/

Yes, i read this earlier. i just thought how awful only 600 cals a day to live on, cant be healthy in the long term. and yes 11 people is very small scale.

 

[cherrypie]

We are not talking about living a normal life with this diet. 600 calories is a starvation diet which mean that for 8 weeks you would have to be practically immobile and under medical supervision.

I am an underweight Type 2 so in all probability I am not suitable. I would fade away before the 8 weeks was over.
The media, as always have misrepresented this story and now everyone you meet who knows you are a Type 2 will have the answer for you. You will have to explain, as I did twice today, that it is not as simple as it seems.

The only good to come out of this is that we might get the true message across about Type 2 if enough people think they know the answer for us and we can tell them differently.

 

[Northerner]

We are not talking about living a normal life with this diet. 600 calories is a starvation diet which mean that for 8 weeks you would have to be practically immobile and under medical supervision.

I am an underweight Type 2 so in all probability I am not suitable. I would fade away before the 8 weeks was over.
The media, as always have misrepresented this story and now everyone you meet who knows you are a Type 2 will have the answer for you. You will have to explain, as I did twice today, that it is not as simple as it seems.

The only good to come out of this is that we might get the true message across about Type 2 if enough people think they know the answer for us and we can tell them differently.

Newspaper editors take note: See how simple it is to explain, as cherrypie has done here? And that it's not a cure-all suitable for everyone that they can just take it upon themselves to try out?

 

[wallycorker]

I actually thought of you when I read this Wally. You are one of the few people who I have read about that seem to have been able to resume eating at least some carbs without huge spikes. (not sure about the weight gain though)
Most of the people who adopt a very low carb diet seem to say that they cannot eat a few carbs without a spike. I don't feel this shows an improvement in insulin resistance, merely an avoidance of eating the things that cause a problem. I wonder how they would do with a glucose challenge . (so here I disagree with what Jenny Ruhl suggests)
You adopted the Barnard vegan programme, which is not low carb but very low fat and relatively high carb and I suspect could be quite low in calories as a result.
You say you didn't 'embrace it in it's entirety' but that nevertheless, ' In approximately three months, my Hba1c has dropped from 9.4 to 5.7 and is still dropping and I have lost 15 kgs in weight. ' This is a very similar result to those in this study. 🙂 You had also had diabetes for much longer than those in the study before you adopted the diet.
Recently you have reported eating quite high carb meals without high blood glucose levels.
It would be really interesting to see a food diary from back then (impossible now though, we don't report that accurately the day after eating, let alone 3 or 4 years later)
and of course N=1 is just what it says and YDMV

PS , sorry for using you as an example, I'm glad you're doing 'just fine'

Hi Helen,

I think that many people are missing the important message to come out of this scientific study. I quote Professor Roy Taylor from the article in the Daily Express:

"We have been able to put diabetes into reverse by a very low-calorie diet over a short period of time.

What is really important and very new is the changes in the body that go along with this. Specifically, the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas have gone to sleep in Type 2 diabetes, they are not really doing very much.

As the level of fat in the pancreas has reduced, we have seen these insulin-producing cells come completely back to normal, and that is truly remarkable.

This represents a radical change in our understanding of the condition."

From what I read, I understand his message to be that what most of us Type 2s have been told - i.e. that Type 2 cannot be cured or reversed is wrong and the pancreas can recover in some cases simply by dietary changes.

I don't consider that they are saying that the 600 calorie diet that they have used in their experiment is the only way that this reversal can be achieved. I know from my own personal experience that a diet of 1300-1500 calories achieved a similar improvement in my case. I've always said that my improvement came about by diet alone because I didn't ever change my execise regime to any great extent - this is in fact what Dr Neal Barnard states happened with his patients in the USA.

I re-iterate that the important message message to comprehend is that such improvements can be made at least in some Type 2s.

Just like Dr Barnard and the scientists at Newcastle University say, I came to the conclusion from my own situation that the important thing has been to remove fat from the cells. In my opinion, the most important measure of whether this is being achieved is by the lowering of one's triglyceride level - i.e. a test that is carried out as part of most diabetics annual check up. Perhaps even more important still is the triglyceride/HDL ratio.

My biggest step forward seemed to come when my HDL suddenly jumped to its highest ever reading and my triglycerides are now lower than they have ever been. Both of these numbers have changed markedly since I started my improvement programme - triglycerides have dropped in just over over two years from 2.56 > 1.18 > 0.93 and 0.84 mmol/l last time and my HDL has jumped from 1.1 > 1.52 > 1.44 in just over the last year.

I ask people not to get bogged down with just considering the 600 calorie aspect. Just work at getting fat out of the cells. I did that by initially adopting a very low fat (almost vegan) die by following Dr Barnards approach and then also being increasingly mindful of the importance of keeping starchy carbohydrate intake - i.e. cereals, bread,potatoes, pasta, pizza and to a lesser extent rice - to a low level.

What I did to effect my improvement is well documented elsewhere in other posts on this forum - particularly in this thread:

http://www.diabetessupport.co.uk/boards/showthread.php?t=6435&highlight=reversal

 

[Doghouse]

As a type 1, I have not spent much time understanding T2, however I find this result strange. I thought T2 was a disease of cell resistance, and that the pancreas was capable of producing loads of insulin, but not enough to overcome the higher than normal cell resistance. Initially drugs can be used to lower cell resistance, but in the end B-cells get warn out from the high demand, and the sufferer has to resort to insulin.

A very low carb diet will reduce the amount of glucose being fed into the blood, into the range that the insulin available can cope with, therefore no diabetes. Is this why communities that have low carb and calorie intakes, and high physical work loads, do not have a high incidence of diabetes?

If you want to cure T2, would have thought it necessary to fix the cell resistance problem, rather than do things to the pancreas. Alternatively adopt a low carb/calorie high workload lifestyle.

These results suggest something different, so where is my understanding wrong?
Mike

 

[wallycorker]

Further to my post above, I've just been taking a look at the full report as published in Diabetologia Journal:

http://www.diabetologia-journal.org/Lim.pdf

To re-inforce what I said above, I would draw attention to the very final paragraph and, in particular, to the very last sentence in the report:

"This study demonstrates for the first time the time course of a return of normal beta cell function and hepatic glucose output by acute restriction of dietary energy intake in individuals with type 2 diabetes. The changes occurred in association with decreases in pancreatic and liver triacylglycerol concentrations. This new insight allows an understanding of the causality of type 2 diabetes in individuals as well as in populations. It carries major implications for information to be given to newly diagnosed patients, who should know that they have a potentially reversible condition and not one that is inevitably progressive."

i.e. unlike what almost all of us have been told, Type 2 diabetes is not necessarily progressive and in some cases can be reversed.

 

[Mark T]

The question here is how did they determine that a normal response has been achieved? All the paper says is that those people taking part were <11 on the OGTT. A non-diabetic would be <7.8 on the OGTT.

And the OGTT result at 12 weeks - 10.1! That still leaves them as pre-diabetic - so the diabetes is in remission not reversed.

I would only regard myself as reversed if I was getting the normal levels on the OGTT.

The reference range for blood glucose is supposed to be between 3.6 and 5.8 mmol/L. That would tend to correlate with the fact that I've never seem my wife outside the 5's regardless of what we eat. How many of us non-insulin diabetics would stay in the 5's after eating sugary carbs?

 

[cherrypie]

I think there is some confusion here between a chronic and an acute condition.

An acute condition is of sudden onset sand has a finite duration.

A chronic condition is long lasting and may progress.

When I see some research that says that Type 2 can be cured as opposed to reversed then I will jump for joy.

Having been diagnosed for 8yrs and always had an HBA1c in the 5's and never having used medication, I am well aware of what I can and cannot eat. Some of the food choices that Type 2's make here would have me in double figures proving that we are all different.

I think there will come a day when Type 2 is not used as a blanket term and there will be sub groups within this definition.

I also think to be cured you would have to be able to eat anything and everything for at least 5yrs with no ill effects and keep non diabetic numbers and until I see some research that agrees with this then I will carry on doing what I am doing.

Type1's have always been told that there is a cure on the horizon but to date there is nothing. We all want a cure.

Carry on managing this condition and don't get your hopes up that a small study is going to change the outlook for Type 2's.

 

[HelenM]

If you want to cure T2, would have thought it necessary to fix the cell resistance problem, rather than do things to the pancreas. Alternatively adopt a low carb/calorie high workload lifestyle.

I'm not sure they've 'fixed' it but they have certainly reduced, maybe only temporarily the levels of circulating NEFA (free fatty acids) These are believed to a major factor in producing insulin resitance.
I don't know if you want to read the evidence for this but if you google free fatty acids cause insulin resistance you'll find the major papers.

 

[Carina1962]

You know what will happen next? so called 'companies' will pop out of the woodwork and start selling the 'diet' used in the study, don't you think?

 

[Robster65]

You know what will happen next? so called 'companies' will pop out of the woodwork and start selling the 'diet' used in the study, don't you think?

...or some miracle substance that dissolves fat.

Washing up liquid anyone ? 🙄

Rob

 

[HelenM]

You know what will happen next? so called 'companies' will pop out of the woodwork and start selling the 'diet' used in the study, don't you think?

The frightening thought is that I know of one fad diet with a very similar nutrient profile to the one used in the study.
The only thing is everyone I know that's tried it couldn't manage it for more than a few days let alone 8 weeks.

 

[Northerner]

The frightening thought is that I know of one fad diet with a very similar nutrient profile to the one used in the study.
The only thing is everyone I know that's tried it couldn't manage it for more than a few days let alone 8 weeks.

It reminds me of the diet followed by Elizabeth Evan Hughes, who was Type 1 before the discovery of insulin - her diet was often as low as 400 calories a day, but not just for weeks - for years 😱 Her story is fascinating, highly recommended!

http://www.diabetessupport.co.uk/boards/showthread.php?t=4974

 

[C*5_Dodger]

my improvement programme - triglycerides have dropped in just over over two years from 2.56 > 1.18 > 0.93 and 0.84 mmol/l last time and my HDL has jumped from 1.1 > 1.52 > 1.44 in just over the last year.

Dear wally,

Nice to see you posting again, how are you doing? Just an additional thought: My last HDL was 1.6mmol/L and my last Trigs were 0.8mmol/L and I eat a very high fat diet. Does it not seem feasible that our excellent figures are due to low carb? The excellent results seen in this trial, are probably, as Northerner observed, due to the low carb also.

Warmest Regards Dodger