Intermittent fasting can reverse type 2 diabetes in up to half of patients within three months, according to a study.
- The diet consists of 840 calories for five days, then a normal diet for 10 days
- In the study, 33% were able to reverse the condition and remain free after one year
- The expert caution study was very small – involving only 36 people – and very short.
Fasting for five days at a time can help some people reverse type 2 diabetes, according to a study.
It’s a fad to try the 5:2 diet, alternate-day fasting, or eating within an eight-hour window each day to lose weight.
Now another kind of fasting diet seems to beat type 2 diabetes, according to the results of a small Chinese study.
The strict regime involves eating only 840 calories a day for five days, followed by a normal diet for 10 days.
Fasting for five days at a time can help some people reverse type 2 diabetes, a study suggests (Stock).
Foods that are offered at every meal during the fast and only boiled water include ‘nutritious rice’, black beans, corn and oats, and meal replacement biscuits containing fruit and vegetables.
About half of the 36 people who were on this diet for three months reversed their type 2 diabetes and were free of the disease a year later.
The study was very small and high blood sugar can often return, so it is important to follow the participants for many more years.
But the results add to evidence from a trial led by the University of Newcastle in the UK, which found that half of people on a very low-calorie diet of soups and stews could drop their blood sugar to undetectable levels. Diabetic patient.
This approach, which has been piloted by NHS England, is planned to be rolled out nationally.
Dr. Dongbo Liu, senior author of the study at Hunan Agricultural University in Changsha, China, said: ‘If patients lose weight by changing their diet and exercise habits, diabetes can be alleviated.’
Commenting on the results, Dr Duane Mellor, a nutritionist and senior lecturer at Aston University, said: ‘Despite studies showing that low-calorie diets and low-carbohydrate diets can help people with type 2 diabetes achieve remission. A modest amount of research shows the benefits of early fasting.
But he says it’s impossible to say that fasting, rather than simple weight loss, is responsible for putting type 2 diabetes into remission: “There’s no better diet for managing type 2 diabetes or getting it into remission—it’s the best diet for a person with type 2 diabetes.” ‘
Around 3.7 million people in the UK are known to have type 2 diabetes, which is linked to obesity and an unhealthy diet.
The Chinese study recruited people aged 38 to 72 who had lived with the disease for 1 to 11 years.
Half of them tried an intermittent fasting diet for three months, while the others ate regularly.
The 36 people who fasted lost an average of 6 kilograms (13 pounds), while the other 36 lost an average of 0.27 kilograms (0.6 pounds).
Three months after the diet, 17 of the 36 people who fasted had reversed their type 2 diabetes, compared to only one of the 36 who ate their normal diet.
One year after ending the diet, 16 of the 36 people on the fasting diet – 44 percent – were still free of type 2 diabetes.
Remission, the medical term for reversing diabetes, is defined as an average blood sugar level below 6.5 percent at least one year after stopping diabetes medication, according to a study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
People with type 2 diabetes who are thinking about changing their diet or are concerned about whether their diabetes can be reversed should talk to a health care professional to discuss the possible effects of their medications.
Proponents of intermittent fasting say it’s easier than calorie counting, so it may work better for weight loss.
advertisement
.
Comments