A ‘game-changing’ diet can help people with type 2 diabetes reverse the condition, even when they are not overweight.
A scientific breakthrough previously found type 2 diabetes is not a lifelong condition, and can be reversed through dramatic weight loss on a drastic 800-calorie daily diet.
Because most people with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese, it may have been assumed only they could achieve this.
But now a study putting normal-weight people on a diet of meal-replacement shakes and vegetables has found they too can reverse type 2 diabetes.
Having recently run his first marathon, David Childs seemed an unlikely candidate for type 2 diabetes. But he was diagnosed in June 2020 after suffering severe daily headaches and fainting, because his blood sugar had become too high
A combination of nutritional shakes and vegetables can help reverse type 2 diabetes in people, even if they are not overweight
Around 10 per cent of people with diabetes fall into this normal-weight group, which works out as more than 400,000 people in the UK.
Researchers led by the University of Newcastle recruited 20 people with a normal body mass index (BMI) and type 2 diabetes.
Most were found to have an abnormally high amount of fat in their liver or pancreas.
This puts them in the group known as TOFIs – who are ‘thin on the outside and fat on the inside’.
But losing weight on the shakes and vegetable diet, followed by several weeks eating sensibly, helped 70 per cent of people in the trial to reverse their diabetes.
Professor Roy Taylor, from Newcastle University, who is set to present the results at the 2022 Diabetes UK Professional Conference, said: ‘Almost everyone in our trial had been told by their doctor or nursing practitioner not to lose weight to tackle their diabetes, because they were a normal weight.
‘That is clearly wrong, because we now know everyone has an individual weight threshold, and if their weight goes above that, they might develop type 2 diabetes.
‘For the majority of people who have had diabetes for less than six years, they can reverse their diabetes through careful weight loss in consultation with a doctor.’
In 2018, a landmark trial of a low-calorie diet to reverse type 2 diabetes showed almost half of 136 patients remained in remission 12 months later.
The NHS is now piloting that soups and shakes diet to tackle the UK’s diabetes epidemic.
But the new study focused on the minority of people with type 2 diabetes who are not overweight, giving them detailed medical examinations and MRI scans of their organs.
Researchers found the 13 women and seven men appeared to have a healthy weight but had on average three times more fat in their liver and pancreas compared to people of the same age without diabetes.
The study group were taken off their diabetes medication and put on a diet of nutritionally complete shakes in flavours like strawberry and chocolate for two to four weeks, along with non-starchy vegetables like courgettes and mushrooms.
Half of the group – ten people – went into remission from diabetes immediately, having lost an average of 5 per cent of their body weight.
Another four achieved remission after repeating the diet another one to two times to achieve up to 15 per cent weight loss.
The diet of shakes and veg (file photo) , followed by weeks of eating healthily, saw 70% of those in the trial reverse their diabetes
The average weight loss found to help normal-weight people reverse their diabetes and reduce their liver and pancreatic fat to normal levels was eight per cent of body weight.
An average person in the trial, called Reversal of Type 2 Diabetes upon Normalisation of Energy Intake in the Non-obese (ReTUNE), lost 8kg (one stone and four pounds).
Afterwards they were told to eat healthily, avoiding processed and high-calorie foods, for 12 months.
Around 4.9million people in the UK have diabetes, and 90 per cent of those have type 2 diabetes.
Chris Askew, chief executive of Diabetes UK, said: ‘This game-changing study from Professor Taylor and his team advances our understanding of why type 2 diabetes develops, and what can be done to treat it.
‘Our ambition is for as many people as possible to have the chance to put their type 2 diabetes into remission and live well for longer.
‘The findings of ReTUNE potentially take us a significant step closer to achieving this goal by showing that remission isn’t only possible for people of certain body weights.’