Living with diabetes mellitus can be difficult, but a new “cure” for the condition may exist—all you have to do is starve yourself for eight weeks.
British researchers at Newcastle University claim that patients can rid themselves of Type 2 diabetes by engaging in a severe eight-week diet that drops weight and moderates blood sugar levels, the Los Angeles Times reports.
According to study leader Rod Taylor, he and his colleagues studied 11 patients who had had diabetes for several years after developing the condition later in life. At the beginning of the study, patients weighed an average of 220 pounds. At the end of the eight-week period, they had dropped an average of 33 pounds and were diabetes free.
Taylor said the eight-week diet included a 600-calories-per-day limit that was filled with a special diet drink and non-starchy vegetables like broccoli, asparagus and cabbage. Positive results started showing early in the study, with fasting blood sugar levels returning to normal after one week on the diet. The effects were long term, too—three months after the diet, seven of the original 11 patients were still diabetes free. Weight gain during that period averaged around 6.5 pounds.
“We believe that this shows that Type 2 diabetes is all about energy balance in the body,” Taylor said in a statement. “If you are eating more [calories] than you burn, then the excess is stored in the liver and pancreas as fat, which can lead to Type 2 diabetes in some people. What we need to examine further is why some people are more susceptible to developing diabetes in others.”
He added that the starvation-like diet is not necessary for people to lose their diabetes. As long as people lose substantial weight by normal means, they can lose their diabetes, he said.
According to the LA Times, an estimated 25 million Americans have Type 2 diabetes.