Can you imagine being able to stay free of diabetes by just watching your diet? Unbelievable? Well, not so to some researchers who have been studying the process of reversing diabetes through diet control.

Type 2 diabetes is characterized by insulin resistance and increased accumulation of fat.

“A collaborative effort by researchers at Newcastle University, University of Glasgow, and Lagos State University have shown that if we get rid of excess fat in our body, we could actually put diabetes in remission without the use of medications.” 

Here’s what they did in their analysis. They got 30 type 2 diabetes participants to follow a very low-calorie diet for 6 months. Some of the participants had diabetes for as long as 23 years while others had it for just 6 months.

The participants followed the diet for 8 weeks. The analysis found that 40% of the participants achieved fasting plasma glucose levels of < 7 mmol/L with the shift to the very low-calorie diet. The participants lost weight and were able to maintain their weight for at least 6 months during the analysis. Their diabetes was in remission during this period. These participants were those who had diabetes for a short duration.

Even though these are promising results, please keep in mind that these results are preliminary, and they need to be tested on a larger population to be able to conclusively recommend this strategy for potentially reversing diabetes.

So far, the signs look good. Removing excess fat from the pancreas can be a boost for our body to increase insulin production and reverse the process of diabetes. I guess, that’s all the more reason now to watch those calories.