Drastic diet 'reverses' Type 2 diabetes

[novorapidboi26]

This is partially why I would like to read the research 🙂

What this article and some of the ones linked off from it seems to suggest is that has your BG goes up you tend to cause Beta cell death at an accelerated rate. Even in a non-diabetic the beta-cells are dying, and at a faster rate then they are multiplying. The non-diabetic corpses they looked at seemed to suggest that they had lost about 50% of the beta-cell by death.

I've not seen anything that suggests accelerating the multiplication rate of the beta-cells - which in order to reverse diabetes would be needed.

The article I linked did suggest that it was possible to get back normal beta-cell operation of your remaining cells - but it all depends how many you had left of course.

Interesting.....

 

[MargB]

I came on to give the link to the BBC but see Robster has already done it.

Brilliant for those who could do something this drastic but people must never try a starvation diet like that without medical assistance/monitoring.

I, for one, because of other conditions could never do that plus my diabetes is genetic so it would come on anyway.

Because my diabetes is controlled, I do not have any symptoms, my HbA1C is in the 5s, does this mean I am no longer diabetic? Or does it mean it is controlled? I am on Metformin but plenty on here are diet and exercise and have good control - are they "if-you-don't-watch-out-you-will-become-diabetic" category???

I can see the possibility of T2 being reversed but early in the BBC report there was again the assumption that only obese people become a T2 diabetic.

Don't know whether to be hopeful or annoyed. Are all the newspapers right and everyone on this forum wrong?

 

[Andy HB]

Don't know whether to be hopeful or annoyed. Are all the newspapers right and everyone on this forum wrong?

I'd be hopeful, but only in that more research improves the knowledge of those who count (i.e. health professionals rather than journalists!).

The newspapers are often selective in what they report. They have to be otherwise the articles would be unreadable by most people!

Andy 'I'm always right' HB

 

[HelenM]

http://www.springerlink.com/content/68rmr50h7j024525/fulltext.pdf

The diet was basically liquid based (510 calories) 46.4% carbohydrate, 32.5% protein and 20.1% fat; vitamins, minerals and trace elements; supplemented by 3 portions of non starchy vegetables to make up the remaining 90 calories.
I make that as 59g carb, 45g protein. 11.3g fat + whatever is in the veggies .

The subjects all had greater than normal BM1s and were withing 4 years of diagnosis, so doesn't include thinner 'type 2s' or people with longstanding diabetes.
There were 15 subjects (3 didn't comply, 1 dropped out for other reasons)

They measured pancreatic and liver fat by MRI scans.

they suggest
The data are consistent with the
hypothesis that the abnormalities of insulin secretion and
insulin resistance that underlie type 2 diabetes have a
single, common aetiology, i.e. excess lipid accumulation in
the liver and pancreas [11].
After the 8 weeks the subjects went back to a normal 'healthy' diet with advice on portion size.
They gave them an OGTT after another 12 weeks, of the 11: 1 wasn't tested, 3 'failed' inn that their levels rose above 11mmol, the others 'passed'

 

[Vicsetter]

Being very sceptical I would like to point out that there are probably more T2s commenting in this thread than were involved in the 'trial'. The money would be much better spent trying to find the reasons why people become diabetic and hence find a cure than these impractical almost snake medicine cures, and absolutely useless for T1s.

 

[cakemaker]

This is a very interesting article for us as my husband has recently been diagnosed. It suggests that diabetes 2 could be reversed by eating just 600 calories.
Has anyone here dieted drastically and if so how did it affect you?
I've changed my husband's eating habits; continuing all the good and cutting out the cakes etc. and have talked about cutting down the calories but 600 is a bit too drastic but if it works it might be worth a try.

I saw a docu-drama years ago about the pioneering doctor who found insulin. (Can't remember all the details) Before that, if I remeber rightly, Diabetic children were given just 600 calories to live on. I don't know why but it always stuck in my mind.
I wonder if this was this the starting point of this latest study?

 

[Robster65]

they suggest
The data are consistent with the
hypothesis that the abnormalities of insulin secretion and
insulin resistance that underlie type 2 diabetes have a
single, common aetiology, i.e. excess lipid accumulation in
the liver and pancreas [11].

I think this statement would help greatly to shed light on the causes, rather than just being a method of holding it back. It may lead to a larger scale study that can give more useful data and show a stronger link to fatty deposits in the organs causing some forms of T2. 🙂

Rob

 

[jaa7]

Carb free diet

Someone asked me that if I didn't eat any carbs would I need to be on insulin!

 

[novorapidboi26]

Someone asked me that if I didn't eat any carbs would I need to be on insulin!

And how did you answer?😉

 

[Mark T]

http://www.springerlink.com/content/68rmr50h7j024525/fulltext.pdf...'

Thanks for the link HelenM 🙂 the site is being a little slow - I'm guessing that it is being somewhat overwhelmed.

From having a look at the details on the people involved, based on age, weight and c-peptide scores I would argue that they are all predominately insulin resistant. It's notable that as the study progresses, each week there insulin and c-peptide is dropping - which I think means that the ammount of insulin they are producing is dropping.

Another interesting statement in the report was "These participants had no family history of diabetes, were taking no medication and had normal glucose metabolism as confirmed by a standard 75 g OGTT..." Edit: oops that was the control participants

 

[Dizzydi]

whoo hoooo so all I need to do is eat no fat, have 600 calories a day and develop anorexia and I will be cured !!

Or Dead 😱

Or am I missing the point here ? what ages? what weight? where these people actually diagnosed diabetics or showing the signs of becoming becoming / being diabetic (there is a name but I cant remember it as I know there is no pre-diabetes you either are or not)

 

[Mark T]

whoo hoooo so all I need to do is eat no fat, have 600 calories a day and develop anorexia and I will be cured !!

Or Dead 😱

Or am I missing the point here ? what ages? what weight? where these people actually diagnosed diabetics or showing the signs of becoming becoming / being diabetic (there is a name but I cant remember it as I know there is no pre-diabetes you either are or not)

11 individuals (nine male and two female, age 49.5 ? 2.5 years)
Weight: 103.7 ? 4.5 kg
BMI: 33.6 ? 1.2
Baseline HbA1c: 7.4 ? 0.3 %

It states that they have all had diabetes for less than 4 years

 

[HelenM]

Another interesting statement in the report was "These participants had no family history of diabetes, were taking no medication and had normal glucose metabolism as confirmed by a standard 75 g OGTT..."

Mike, that was the controls, these were matched for age, gender and weight with the subjects who were, diabetic, diagnosed within the last 4 years , had HbA1cs 6.5?9.0% and BMIs 25-45.

Posted and saw your correction 🙂

 

[Andy HB]

This is a very interesting article for us as my husband has recently been diagnosed. It suggests that diabetes 2 could be reversed by eating just 600 calories.
Has anyone here dieted drastically and if so how did it affect you?
I've changed my husband's eating habits; continuing all the good and cutting out the cakes etc. and have talked about cutting down the calories but 600 is a bit too drastic but if it works it might be worth a try.

I refer the honourable lady to the answer I gave some moments before. 🙂

Suffice to say I don't think that drastic diets are necessary to achieve the same effect. It's all about consistent weight loss ..... I think. Or atleast the removal of fatty deposits in the pancreas and liver (I had a fatty liver when diagnosed. That is now clear based on the last scan results).

Andy 🙂

 

[Robster65]

It would seem that the purpose of the experiment was to force fat deposits from the pancreas and liver by a drastic low cal diet and observe the outcomes. The hypothesis stated needed testing and this was a way of possibly showing some support for it.

It appears that it wasn't in any way a search for a cure or a means of reversing the symptoms for the general population. Merely a medical trial to see if a larger scale study or further research is justified.

The media, bless them, have clearly seen it as a chance for headline grabbing and inferred all sorts. But I wouldn't have thought that was the intention of the team involved.

I hope.

Rob

 

[Mark T]

Looks like Jenny Ruhl picked up and blogged about the research: http://diabetesupdate.blogspot.com/2011/06/idiotically-dangerous-diet-reverses.html

 

[wallycorker]

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/

It's very much what happened to me by slightly different means as is well documented on this forum.

In my case, I restricted my diet to around 1300/1500 calories and lost a lot of weight just over 5 stones over several months.

The improvement in blood glucose levels came almost immediately I started my improvement programme.

As time went on, I found that my pancreas had started to work fairly normally again and could increasingly cope with foods that would have caused me problems in previous times.

I stopped taking metformin tablets altogether some time back now and that didn't cause me any problems.

What's more, despite the fact that I have put on around 2 stones since that stage, I am still doing just fine.

 

[HelenM]

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'

 

[Mark T]

Having had a search back a read a bit, yours is an interesting story wallycorker and I'm glad you are doing well too. 🙂

Personally I think this approach is good for those that it will work for, but not when it doesn't. My personal issue is that I see others regaining normal glucose function and I sit on the side frustrated because I don't although I've worked at it by loosing weight and limiting carb in my diet. Possibly I'm just being unreasonable 🙄

 

[Lilies]

So who ot a phone call about this article from a well meaning person? My mother called me earlier to say so and SOS husband had seen this on the BBC website and did I know about it.... Firstly doh... And I had to tell her why i wasn't going to do it.... But it made me so angry, she's been going rou d telling all and sundry about something that is private to me and for me to choose who I tell....😡