While diabetes is generally unpleasant at the most, it can definitely lead to some pretty unfortunate solutions if mismanaged. It’s not all that uncommon to go blind or to lose a limb if you fail to follow the instructions of your medical care provider. So of course, many researchers are attempting to put a stop to the condition.
But it’s easier said than done, as we’re not even sure of what causes the condition in the first place. So of course, when someone claims that it can be reversed, they do gain the attention of a large part of the medical community. According to a study led by world renowned professor Roy Taylor of the Newcastle University, type 2 diabetes is reversible via low calorie diet.
Diabetes and calories
Professor of Medicine and Metabolism at the Newcastle University, Roy Taylor has been down this road before. Back 2011, he published a different study in which he claimed that diabetes could be reversed by a low calorie diet. Even though it gained international attention back then as well, it was far too small a trial to be clinically relevant.
The idea is that according to the good doctor, fat in the pancreas is responsible for the onset of type 2 diabetes. If you maintain a low calorie diet and lose the fat in the pancreas, the condition will be reversed.
Six month trial
As many as thirty volunteers suffering from type 2 diabetes participated in the study for over six months. They maintained a diet of 600 to 700 calories a day and lost an average of 14 kilograms. They did not regain any weight over the next six months. Many in the group were suffering from the condition for more than eight years, with some even struggling with it for 23 years.
Thirteen of the participants that had the condition for ten years and under managed to reverse it and stay clear of it over the 6 months of the study. And this was despite the fact that some of them still remained overweight or obese. It was just the fat in the pancreas that mattered.
Personal Fat threshold
Bringing further prof to the personal fat threshold theory, the study showed that you can still have a high BMI and be perfectly healthy. The theory claims that we all have our personal fat threshold. If we maintain our weight to be within our bodies’ limits, we can still live normal lives. However, if that threshold is exceeded, we risk developing serious conditions such as diabetes.
The fact that it’s different for every person is supported by the lack of relevance posed by the BMI in developing diabetes, as well as by the fact that as much as seventy percent of all obese people don’t suffer from the condition
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