How weight loss can reverse type 2 diabetes

Many diabetics are reversing their type 2 diabetes by losing weight. Many of them achieve this by spending up to five months on a low-calorie diet of soups and shakes to cause massive weight loss.

One of then is Isobel Murray, 65, who had weighed 15 stone, lost over four stone (25kg) and no longer needs diabetes pills. 

She says: "I've got my life back. I don't look at myself as a diabetic at all.

"You have to be fired up, you have to be prepared, but anybody can do it if you feel strongly enough."

The charity Diabetes UK says the trial is a landmark and has the potential to help millions of patients.

Isobel, from Largs in North Ayrshire, was one of 298 people on the trial.

Her blood sugar levels were too high, and she got her medication increased every time she went to the doctors.

So, she adopted the all-liquid diet for 17 weeks - giving up cooking and shopping. She even ate apart from her husband, Jim.

Instead, she had four liquid meals a day.

It is hardly Masterchef - a sachet of powder is stirred in water to make a soup or shake. They contain about 200 calories, but also the right balance of nutrients.

Isobel said this is easy as "you don't have to think about what you eat".

Once the weight has been lost, dieticians then help patients introduce healthy, solid meals.

"Eating normal food is the hardest bit," says Isobel.

The trial results, presented at the International Diabetes Federation, showed:

• 46% of patients who started the trial were in remission a year later
• 86% who lost 15kg (2st 5lb) or more put their type 2 diabetes into remission
• Only 4% went into remission with the best treatments currently used

According to Prof Roy Taylor, from Newcastle University: "It's a real watershed moment.

"Before we started this line of work, doctors and specialists regarded type 2 as irreversible.

"But if we grasp the nettle and get people out of their dangerous state, they can get remission of diabetes."

One negative thing about this is that doctors are not calling this a cure. They said if the weight goes return, then the diabetes will return.

Isobel said she will make sure she maintained her current weight so as to keep diabetes at bay. And so far, she has kept the weight off for two years.

The next question is : Why does losing weight work for diabetes?

Answer

Body fat that build around the pancreas causes stress to the beta cells in the organ that controls blood sugar levels. This will make the pancreas to stop producing enough of the hormone insulin, which definately causes blood sugar levels to rise out of control.

So when you lose the fat or diet, you loses the fat, and then the pancreas works properly again.

However, as good as the trial look, it is thought having type 2 diabetes for very long periods of time may cause irreversible damage because the trial was only carried out on patients having the disease for 6 years and below.

Prof Mike Lean, from Glasgow University, admitted: "It's hugely exciting."

"We now have clear evidence that weight loss of 10-15kg is enough to turn this disease around.

It is estimated that 1 in 11 adults worldwide has diabetes, mostly type 2.

Some of the complications of  uncontrolled sugar levels are damage throughout the body, which cab lead to organ failure, blindness and limb amputations.

Diabetes is very expensive to treat as treating the disease costs the UK's NHS about £10bn a year.

According to Dr Elizabeth Robertson, the director of research at Diabetes UK: "[The trial has] the potential to transform the lives of millions of people.

"The trial is ongoing, so that we can understand the long-term effects of an approach like this."