The government spends a lot of money assisting the medical professions and drug companies, for development of treatments and drugs to combat diabetes.
But, if lowering weight is a better method for beating diabetes, then, that money should be going towards incentives to get people to lower and keep their weight down. That would be a lot cheaper than having to pay for medical care, especially for the older folks with diabetes.
This may sound extreme but I believe that if we all could maintain our high school bodyweight a lot of medical problems would be solved or not even exist. I know that’s a ridiculous tall order but think back to your high school weight. And it might just take you to that area where the study is recommending that you go. I have another eight more pounds to reach my high school graduating weight which was 132 lbs. I’m at 140 lbs right now. I started my journey at 168 pounds at 5 foot six inches.
“...especially for the older folks with diabetes.”
That’s a misnomer. Diabetes II is not always caused by weight consideration. Many people are getting it while in good shape. I was determined to have it when I was in the best shape of my life. I was active duty military, ran over 5 miles a day, had a 42” vertical leap, and could squat 500 lbs. three times in a set at 185 pounds and 6 ft 2 inches. But I was also not near retirement age.
But the idea that losing weight is the way to get rid of the illness for older people is not workable. In the first place the magic of losing weight is the use of exercise. Diets that reduce intake are a problem for diabetics. Being able to burn off calories equal to your intake, especially a little more with insulin resistance, is beyond many seniors capabilities so doing it by intake only will cause many things for the body to do to you. It makes it very easy for the body to go hypo and get down to dangerous levels. I’ve done that and passed out at 24 once.
And by having insulin resistance, the body is going to capture a certain amount of storage to go to the midriff and there is no way to guess how much that is going to be.
Exercise is a major component of diet. A good article on this is by webmd:
https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/diabetes-diet-exercise
Old people can’t exercise well.
wy69