Diabetes is a condition wherein the body persistently has excessive blood sugar. This happens because either the body is not able to process the blood sugar effectively or the pancreas does not produce enough insulin. While the latter is known as Type-1 diabetes, the former is known as Type-2 diabetes. A new study has indicated that weight loss induced by following a low-calorie diet may help reverse symptoms of Type-2 diabetes or improve insulin resistance. People with Type-2 diabetes have to take insulin shots which in turn may lead to weight gain as a possible side effect. The new study has raised hopes of people suffering from this chronic lifelong disease and given them a way of reversing the ailment. The researchers have said that losing weight may reverse Type-2 diabetes for upto two years or even for life.
The study trial was led by the researchers at Newcastle University and the University of Glasgow, for which they put the participants on a diet regime with a calorie budget of 800 calories per day. The trial took place over a period of eight weeks, during which the participants were advised to follow a healthy diet to maintain weight loss. The researchers said that those who lost significant amounts of weight were able to reverse Type-2 diabetes and were even observed to be in remission, two years later. The trial was called DiRECT and was a cluster-randomised trial, the results of which were published in the journal The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.
"The DiRECT trial assessed remission of Type-2 diabetes during a primary care-led weight-management programme. At 1 year, 68 (46%) of 149 intervention participants were in remission and 36 (24%) had achieved at least 15 kg weight loss. The aim of this 2-year analysis is to assess the durability of the intervention effect", said the study. It concluded by saying, "The DiRECT programme sustained remissions at 24 months for more than a third of people with Type-2 diabetes. Sustained remission was linked to the extent of sustained weight loss."