Posted on 06/24/2011 12:25:31 AM PDT by Mount Athos
Eating an ultra low-calorie diet can cure Type 2 diabetes in just eight weeks, dramatic new research has shown.
Even people who have suffered from the condition for years found the drastic diet could jump-start their body’s production of insulin.
The breakthrough is good news for the nearly 2.5 million people in Britain who have this type of diabetes, which is caused by the pancreas not producing enough insulin to break down glucose in the blood.
It could revolutionise the treatment of what has always been seen as a lifelong problem.
Professor Roy Taylor, of Newcastle University, who led the research, said: “To have people free of diabetes after years with the condition is remarkable – and all because of an eight-week diet. For many years it has been assumed that Type 2 diabetes is a life sentence. It’s chronic, it’s progressive, people need more and more tablets, and eventually they need insulin. It’s a downhill slope. However, we have been able to show that it is in fact reversible.
“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 com- pletely back to normal, and that is truly remarkable.”
He added: “This represents a radical change in our understanding of the condition. Insulin cells, if they are exposed to fat, don’t work. If they are protected from the fat they perform normally. It is quite possible that we may be able to devise medicines that block the effect of fat and allow normal function.”
He warned patients, however, not to try the new wonder cure without close medical supervision.
Patients in the clinical trial had their food intake cut to just 600 calories a day for two months.
Professor Taylor said: “People ought to think about cutting down what they eat by perhaps a half. On average, someone with a Body Mass Index of 30 will get diabetes. If they got down to a BMI of 19-25, which is the healthy range, it would dramatically improve or even reverse their diabetes.
“A diet of 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day would achieve weight loss in most people.”
Dr Iain Frame, director of research at Diabetes UK, also urged caution. “We welcome the results of this research because it shows that Type 2 diabetes can be reversed, on a par with successful surgery without the side-effects,” he said.
“However, this diet is not an easy fix and Diabetes UK strongly recommends that such a drastic diet should only be undertaken under medical supervision.”
Type 2 diabetes, which can cause strokes, heart attacks and blindness, normally develops during middle age as a result of obesity or an unhealthy lifestyle. The Type 1 version is genetic.
In the trial, 11 patients ate a “meal-replacement” milkshake of 150 calories three times a day.
This was supplemented with three portions of non-starchy vegetables including cabbage, broccoli, peppers, tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce.
After just one week, their pre-breakfast blood sugar levels had returned to normal and an MRI scan revealed that the fat levels in the pancreas were also normal, down from around eight per cent to six per cent.
The pancreas also regained the normal ability to make insulin and as a result, blood sugar levels after meals steadily improved.
The volunteers returned to eating normally but received advice on portion size and healthy eating. Three months later, seven remained free of diabetes.
The research, published in the journal Diabetologia, suggests a dramatic drop in calories has a direct effect on reducing fat accumulated in the pancreas, which in turn prompts insulin cells to “wake up”.
The findings are consistent with the belief that a lack of insulin secretion, which is vital for blood sugar control, is due to accumulation of fat in the liver and pancreas.
It has long been known that people who restrict their calorie intake and remain slim live longer than those who eat freely.
A low-calorie diet is also thought to slash the risk of developing cancer, heart disease and stroke, while staving off age-related degeneration of the brain and nervous system.
Sorry...that's far too narrow a definition of Type II diabetes.
My body produces more than enough insulin. The problem is at the cellular level where the insulin is not able to "unlock" the cell to gain entry so the cell can utilize the sugar in the blood stream and convert to energy.
Medicines like metformin and the glitizones can help the body use the insulin normally to eliminate the excess sugar in the blood stream.
A lower calorie diet will surely help but only when combined with regular exercise will these medications work at peak efficacy and in best case eventually not be needed.
Spot on. This article describes the Type I diabetes affliction.
And if it were as simple as maintaining a low calorie diet for 8 weeks...there would be no such thing as Type I diabetes. Now...where did I put my Glyburide?
My grandfather's generation consumed a diet loaded with carbohydrates yet diabetes and obesity were almost unknown. Many of these folks were employed in agriculture and worked like hell. Even the people employed elsewhere, for the most part, worked like hell. No obesity, no diabetes.
Demonizing one macronutrient over another is a common trait of diet fads and is, naturally, supported by the people who want to sell books touting the fads.
History has proven over and over again that you can sell diet advice more easily if you claim that fats or carbs are the problem – while the obvious idea that calories are the problem seems to be something that few are prepared to pay for.
Excuse me. Unless this diet can regenerate/restore functioning beta cells that produce usable insulin it is complete garbage. Autopsies have shown beta cells in type 1s, thats true. Its the “autopsy” thing that makes it rough on the patient.
Five years ago I was 60 pounds heavier, ate/drank whatever I felt like that wasn’t high in sugar, was sedentary, smoked a pack a day and had to take Metformin to control my blood sugar.
Then one day I experienced chest pains, which turned out to be heart disease. Four clogged arteries, two of which got stents.
I quit smoking, drastically changed my diet (low fat, low salt, low cholesterol, low sugar, whole grains, fruit, vegetables, nuts, ultra-lean meats), took up exercise, lost 60 pounds, and now my A1C is almost always in the low 5’s (5.1 - 5.3), and I am not on Metformin.
My doc says that I have a history of diabetes, though I am not currently diabetic.
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/saturated-fat/changing-dietary-trends-and-the-obesity-epidemic/
http://www.ajcn.org/content/79/5/774.long
I *completely* agree with you that we are eating more overall, but our grandparents did not eat the amount of carbohydrates that we do. They certainly didn’t eat the refined sugar and corn syrup that we do. My grandparents’ generation ate substantially more fats than we do in the form of real butter and animal fats. Fruits and veggies were consumed seasonally. Go back a couple more generations and you’ll find that wheat and corn flour wasn’t refined even close to the point it is today, leaving a lot more fiber and making sugar carbs much less accessible.
When I talk about going on a very low/no carb diet, I’m talking about reversing a disease process that’s already been started, not staying healthy if you’re fine. People who’re already sick will not respond to a reasonable diet. (I know. I tried to deal with the problem by eating a carefully measured, balanced 1200 calorie diet. It didn’t work. I was already too far gone.)
Had we been eating the amounts of calories, carbs, fats and protein that our grandparents did, we’d be a much healthier society as a whole.
I also must note that people respond differently to the same diet. My husband can handle carbs much better than I can and is very healthy with a basic 100-160g of low glycemic index carbs. (Veggies and whole grains)
I am much more sensitive to carbs (I blame this on my Indian grandfather) and will become sick if I maintain a diet of only 60g of carbs.
There is no one diet that is perfect for every human.
One more thing: I never said that calories didn’t count. As a matter of fact, I used a 500 calorie diet to lose weight and maintain with a 1000 calorie diet. (With short bursts of up to 1800 calories on my ‘fun’ days)
>My grandfather’s generation consumed a diet loaded with carbohydrates yet diabetes and obesity were almost unknown. Many of these folks were employed in agriculture and worked like hell. Even the people employed elsewhere, for the most part, worked like hell. No obesity, no diabetes.
Demonizing one macronutrient over another is a common trait of diet fads and is, naturally, supported by the people who want to sell books touting the fads.
History has proven over and over again that you can sell diet advice more easily if you claim that fats or carbs are the problem – while the obvious idea that calories are the problem seems to be something that few are prepared to pay for.<
The link below leads to an e-book published in 1864 - and it is a 3rd edition of the work:
http://www.proteinpower.com/banting/
That book would suggest that obesity and diabetes has been with us for quite some time. I will agree with you that in today’s society, obesity is skyrocketing. Can this be due to the huge amounts of carbohydrate based foodstuffs the average person consumes? Go to the store and notice that sugar is added to almost everything processed, as is corn starch or wheat. Even “diet” TV dinners are loaded with carbohydrates, which are used as a substitute for the lack of fat. “Low fat” is the rage these days.
My dad was a doctor. He was born in 1908. When we cleaned out the house, we found diet sheets for diabetics that counseled patients to severely restrict not only sugar, but breads, cereals and other common starchy foods.
Here’s the thing. When you really lower calories, you are also lowering the carbohydrate content of an individual’s diet. This lowers blood sugar, decreases the amount of insulin in the blood and improves the health of the diabetic.
Obesity (and the other disorders that make up metabolic syndrome) is a sign that a person’s insulin levels in his/her bloodstream are far too high. Carbohydrates are proven to cause the body to secrete insulin. The modern diet is way heavier in carbohydrate than is healthy, even when the person is eating “healthy” whole grain products.
You have to realize that T1 diabetes is an autoimmune process. All new beta cells are destroyed by the same autoimmune process which destroyed the original cells.
I don't know if beta cells regenerate in T2's the same way.
With long-standing T2's who've lost beta cell function, this diet can't hurt. At it's worst, it can restore insulin sensitivity to fat cells and help with BG control. It can also reverse the effects of hormonal imbalance in general and help with problems associated with diabetes (weight loss, PCOS, elevated triglycerides, etc.)
Hyperinsulinemia causes just as many problems as elevated blood glucose.
Some people do reverse their T2 diabetes with calorie restriction alone, but there is the phenomena of the 'skinny type 2 diabetic' that has to be taken into consideration. Not all type 2's are fat. Calorie consumption alone is not responsible for type 2 diabetes.
And if it were as simple as maintaining a low calorie diet for 8 weeks...there would be no such thing as Type I diabetes. Now...where did I put my Glyburide?
Actually, this article *is* talking about Type 2 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. The sufferer's Beta cells are killed off completely by their own immune system. There is no 'cure' for Type 1 diabetes.
My son is a Type 1 diabetic.
>Hyperinsulinemia causes just as many problems as elevated blood glucose. <
And hyperinsulinemia causes elevated blood glucose in the first place.
>And hyperinsulinemia causes elevated blood glucose in the first place.<
In the long run - yes. But you can have metabolic Syndrome or (for a woman) PCOS for up to a full decade before you have your first abnormal blood sugar reading.
Which means that your hyperinsulinemia could give you your first heart attack years before you become a diabetic.
You didn't grow up on a farm, did you? I did, and I assure you that the average farmer's diet was high calorie and a high percentage of those calories came from some form of starch or sugar.
They certainly didn’t eat the refined sugar and corn syrup that we do.
How does one obtain sucrose without refining it? Corn syrup is mostly glucose. What does that fact have to do with anything?
My grandparents’ generation ate substantially more fats than we do in the form of real butter and animal fats.
I don't know that this statement is true, but since a gram of fat offers more than twice the amount of calories as a gram of carbohydrate, I'd say that our sedentary lifestyle has a lot more to do with the increase in obesity than anything else.
wheat and corn flour wasn’t refined even close to the point it is today, leaving a lot more fiber and making sugar carbs much less accessible.
Sugar carbs? The whole processed vs, less processed is a red herring. The issue is calories consumed vs. calories burned. Put a lab rat on a treadmill for 10 hours a day and you can feed it nothing but "refined sugar" and it won't get fat.
I’m talking about reversing a disease process that’s already been started, not staying healthy if you’re fine.
Removing carbohydrates from your diet isn't healthy. Eating a balanced diet is healthy.
Had we been eating the amounts of calories, carbs, fats and protein that our grandparents did, we’d be a much healthier society as a whole.
Yet we're live longer and healthier lives than our grandparents did. Farm families consumed massive amount of calories and obesity was rare. That's because they burned those calories off. Today we consume an energy dense diet and lead a sedentary lifestyle. That's the difference.
Like I said before, blaming one macronutrient or another is how diet fads are created and how books are sold, but it has little to do with the truth. Some people think they can repeal the first law of thermodynamics. They can't, but that doesn't stop them from trying.....and selling books and obtaining government grants in the process.
It might also suggest that there is a genetic component to diabetes. Even so, diabetes was rare back then as was obesity. That's because people worked like hell and didn't have access to the amount of food they have today.
Can this be due to the huge amounts of carbohydrate based foodstuffs the average person consumes?
Sure. And the huge amounts of fat based foodstuffs the average person consumes. We also consume a lot more protein per capita than we did several generations ago. The conventional wisdom is that the total number of calories is what is important – while the macronutrient ratio is not terribly important – provided it does not lead to malnutrition.
Go to the store and notice that sugar is added to almost everything processed, as is corn starch or wheat. Even “diet” TV dinners are loaded with carbohydrates, which are used as a substitute for the lack of fat. “Low fat” is the rage these days.
Low fat may be the rage these days but that's mostly because people have been told that a particular macronutrient is the problem rather than the total calories consumed being the problem.
I hear it often that sugar (carb) consumption is the problem. The numbers don't bear that out. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 1970 sugar's share of total calories consumed was 18.6%. In 2005, that had declined to just 17%. In comparison, per capita consumption of total fats in 1970 was 145 grams. That amount increased dramatically to 190 grams in 2005. Saturated fat intake has gone from 50 grams to 59 grams per person per day over the same time period.
So, I think there are a lot of misperceptions out there, many of which come from people who have no idea what they're talking about along with others who are pushing an agenda.
Carbohydrates are proven to cause the body to secrete insulin.
Well, of course they do. Insulin facilitates the metabolization of carbohydrates. Caffeine also stimulates the secretion of insulin. Can you show a correlation between caffeine consumption and obesity?
The modern diet is way heavier in carbohydrate than is healthy
The stats from the Dept. of Agriculture seem to disagree with you. I would say, instead, that the modern diet is far too energy dense to be healthy, and in the case where very high levels of sugars are being ingested, other foods are lacking or absent so the diet becomes very unbalanced so the body can now be lacking in vitamins, essential fatty acids, essential amino acids and essential minerals including trace minerals.
Trying to pin the problem on sugars rather than obesity and the diet and lack of exercise that leads to obesity, is quite the stretch given what we can learn from my grandfather's generation. Unfortunately, all of these facts won't stop the various charlatans from hawking their diet fads that ignore this very real (and simple) issue.
Actually, I grew up with my grandparents on a farm.
There were fats aplenty. There was toast. Things like cake, candy, pies and ice cream were very rare treats. My grandfather was a bee-keeper and we did have honey. (I was given raw comb as a treat.) Our primary starches were bread and potatoes. (Bread for breakfast and potatoes for ‘dinner’ and ‘supper’) We never ate cold cereal.
Meat and carbs (usually potatoes) were eaten in equal portions - bite for bite. We’d have a small amount of cooked veggies on the side. (For breakfast we’d eat toast with eggs and, if we were lucky, some carefully rationed sausage or bacon.)
Men at much more than the women. They were larger and more physically active and it was expected. But the ratio of meat to carbs was the same. 1:1
Weirdly, I don’t remember eating a single salad (I’m not counting potato salad - that was a common theme with lunch), although we did munch on raw carrots straight out of the ground and I loved eating sugar peas right off the vine. Heck, grandma carried a salt-shaker in her basket when we’d work on the harvest just so we could snack as we worked. (I got smacked a lot for eating when I was supposed to be peeling... I hated peeling.)
Other than that, our veggies were eaten cooked and we ate much less than the amounts recommended today. (Usually it was only about two, half-cup servings a day.) Fruits and berries were eaten in season or in the form of preserves spread on our breakfast toast. My grandfather drank a tall glass of fresh goat’s milk every morning and this was also forced upon us kids. None of the grown women drank straight milk unless they were pregnant, but they did eat cheese.
We ate three meals a day, although the kids did graze outside all afternoon on whatever we could find on the farm.
As for the whole, ‘needing to eat carbs for energy thing’ that I hear so much about - our guys would head out to do chores in the morning with nothing more than a cup of coffee. (The cows and goats won’t wait to be milked while grandma makes breakfast.) They’d come in two hours later to wash up and break their fast.
We still have the farm in the family. Most of my relatives are farmers.
Yes, the farm life-style is much more physical than modern living. Yes, exercise is important. But we didn’t eat a ton of refined carbs on the farm. Sweet should be a *treat*, not a regular way of eating.
It’s interesting that in the 1998 textbook, The Handbook of Obesity, by Bray, Bouchard and James, it’s stated that “the reduction of energy intake continues to be the basis of successful weight reduction programs”, but later in the book there is this confession: “the results of such energy restricted diets are known to be poor and not long-lasting”. These 3 authors are known to be authorities in the field.
Why is it energy reduction, or calorie restriction, is such a cornerstone of treatment with a high rate of failure?
A 2nd textbook, “Joslin’s Diabetes Mellitus”, 2005 edition, contains a chapter on obesity by researcher Jeffrey Flier, who promotes calorie restriction as the preferred solution to obesity and then turns around and lists numerous ways calorie restricted therapy ultimately fails!
Let’s say you go on a 600 calorie diet. You lose a lot of weight. When you hit goal, what then?
I agree that there is a genetic component to why some folks are thin and some folks struggle with their weight. There are folks who cannot gain weight no matter how much they eat just as there are people who gain and gain until they are morbidly obese. However, you and I disagree on the cause of those heavy people’s body composition. Those people can and do lose weight when they restrict (THEY DO NOT ELIMINATE) their intake of dietary carbohydrate. As their insulin levels decrease, their fat stores are used as energy and over time they naturally reduce their calorie intake.
And one more thing: Every single time anyone of the older generation wanted to lose weight - they’d cut out ‘starch’. It was common knowledge that starch made you fat and unhealthy. Us kids weren’t allowed sugar very often because we were told it would make us ‘sick’ and give us ‘sugar diabetes’!
(Of course these were the same adults who thought it was hilarious to watch a 5 year old cry because she accidentally swallowed a watermelon seed and was terrified that it would grow in her stomach...)
>Us kids weren’t allowed sugar very often because we were told it would make us ‘sick’ <
Absolutely. I remember thinking my mom was being dramatic when she’d see me drinking a soda and she’d say I would make myself sick if I didn’t quit eating or drinking so much sugar.
Now, if I eat sugar I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck the next day and I’ve never been diagnosed with diabetes.
I guess the old saying, “Mother knows best” is right after all!
You did great work here —GREAT INFO.
I had a similar story as you. In fact some of the people I had known from before but did not again see for some time COULD NOT recognize me.
My transformation was very rapid.
Much later I also gave up ALL soda and ALL grains, even much fruit.
I eat lots of Brazil nuts, and nuts in general.
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