- Studies have shown that weight loss by reducing calorie intake leads to remission of type 2 diabetes. This includes a return of blood glucose (sugar) levels to pre-diabetic levels in the absence of medication.
- A recent primary care-based cohort study showed that approximately 97% of people with type 2 diabetes who adopted a low-carbohydrate diet experienced improved glycemic control.
- Approximately 51% of people with type 2 diabetes achieved remission on a low-carbohydrate diet, and those diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in the previous year were more likely to achieve remission than those with longer duration of diabetes.
- These findings suggest that a low-carbohydrate diet may be a viable non-pharmacological option for achieving good glycemic control and remission potential in patients with type 2 diabetes.
A recent study published in BMJ nutrition, prevention and health A low-carbohydrate diet has been shown to be effective in achieving glycemic control in diabetic patients
Additionally, more than half of the participants who adopted a low-carbohydrate diet achieved remission of type 2 diabetes and were eventually able to stop taking medication.
Dr David Unwin, study author at Norwood Surgery, UK, said: medical news today:
“Believe it or not, 77% of those who took a low-carb approach reported [type 2 diabetes] achieved remission. This represents a very important ‘window of opportunity’ for further investigation. ”
Dr. Ari Eckman, an endocrinologist and medical director of the Endocrinology Service at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, N.J., who was not involved in the study, said, “Many people with type 2 diabetes eventually I will stop taking medicine for
“This article [in The BMJ journal] “It provides a blueprint for the number of patients who have successfully controlled diabetes through diet alone,” he added. It will be interesting to see how it integrates.”
People with type 2 diabetes have poor blood sugar control because their bodies cannot effectively use insulin to absorb sugar.
As a result, diabetics have elevated blood sugar levels,
Hemoglobin A1c is a type of hemoglobin bound to glucose and reflects your average blood sugar level over the past 2-3 months.
Additionally, type 2 diabetes is associated with a progressive decline in the ability to control blood sugar levels, requiring the use of more medication over time.
Traditionally, doctors viewed type 2 diabetes as an incurable, lifelong condition.However, recent studies show that in the long run
Such diabetes remission means a return to a pre-diabetic HbA1c value of less than 48. millimole/mole (mmol/mol) or 6.5% — blood sugar level when drug-free for at least 3 months.
However, it should be noted that diabetes remission does not mean that the condition has been cured, and blood sugar levels may return to diabetic levels.
Although a growing number of medications are available to help achieve blood sugar control, a significant number of people have poor blood sugar control.
For example, recent estimates put around 2 million people in the UK at risk for type 2 diabetes.
About 80-90% of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese. Studies show that weight loss through bariatric surgery or caloric restriction can lead to remission of type 2 diabetes.
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Studies suggest that reducing energy intake lowers liver fat levels, improves pancreatic beta-cell function, and induces remission of type 2 diabetes.
Adopting a healthy diet may help people with type 2 diabetes achieve remission, but there is conflicting evidence about the effectiveness of different diets. includes reducing carbohydrate intake.
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Specifically, limit your intake of carbohydrates such as bread, rice, and potatoes, and encourage your intake of green leafy vegetables, fish, meat, nuts, and fruit.
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In addition to improving pancreatic beta-cell function and reducing fat storage, a low-carbohydrate diet can also help achieve sustained weight loss by reducing hunger and increasing energy expenditure.
This is important because one of the biggest challenges for people with type 2 diabetes is preventing weight loss regain.
However, some studies suggest that carbohydrate intake may not be a factor in glycemic control in people with type 2 diabetes. There are also concerns that there are
In the current study, the authors evaluated clinical data collected from UK primary care clinics over the past eight years to further assess the ability of a low-carbohydrate diet to induce remission in people with type 2 diabetes.
The study consisted of 186 clinic patients with type 2 diabetes who opted for a low-carbohydrate approach for diabetes management over an average follow-up period of 33 months.
During regular visits during the follow-up period, clinicians provided patients with advice for maintaining a low-carbohydrate diet and shared information about how this diet might help improve glycemic control. .
Clinicians also advised patients on how to identify and avoid trigger foods, very palatable foods that lead to overeating. We were also given the option to gain hands-on knowledge of low-carb food selection and preparation.
The authors found that people with type 2 diabetes who chose a low-carbohydrate approach lost an average of about 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of weight.
Furthermore, approximately 97% of patients on a low-carbohydrate diet showed a significant reduction in HbA1c levels during the follow-up period.
In addition, patients on a low-carbohydrate diet also showed reduced cardiovascular disease markers at the end of the follow-up period.
Specifically, patients were assessed for mean blood pressure, triglyceride levels, and
Across the 186 cohort, 94 patients (51%) demonstrated durable remission, achieving HbA1c levels below the remission threshold of 48 mmol/mol for >3 months.
Patients who achieved remission showed greater weight loss than those who did not. In addition, all patients who achieved sustained diabetes remission showed at least some weight loss.
Those with high HbA1c levels at the start of the low-carbohydrate diet had significantly lower HbA1c levels, whereas those with low HbA1c were more likely to achieve remission. This may be due to the recent diagnosis of diabetes in the patient who was low.
Consistent with this, further analysis revealed that 77% of patients adopting a low-carbohydrate diet within one year of being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes achieved remission.
In contrast, 35% and 20% of patients who adopted a low-carbohydrate diet 1–5 years and ≥15 years after diagnosis of diabetes, respectively, achieved remission.
Although remission rates in patients with long-lasting type 2 diabetes are low, these results help a low-carbohydrate diet clinically significantly improve glycemic control in patients with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes. suggests that it is possible.
The study authors acknowledged that medication may also be needed for longer-term management of type 2 diabetes.
Other studies have also investigated the effectiveness of low-carbohydrate diets for achieving glycemic control, but most studies failed to achieve similar levels of weight loss. and physician trust, open discussion of the benefits of weight loss for long-term health, and continued support.
For example, doctors regularly monitored patients’ weight and HbA1c levels and called to alert them when these parameters increased. This was generally due to increased carbohydrate intake, and phone calls were sufficient to ensure adherence to a low-carbohydrate diet.
The study also found that clinics spend half as much per patient on diabetes medications as other local clinics.
Dr. Unwin said: [type 2 diabetes]may not be well controlled, but may benefit from careful consideration of reducing sugar and starchy carbohydrates.In many cases you don’t need expensive medicines. Our practice will save you £68,000 [approximately $80,637] Partly because of this, it impacts the diabetes drug budget each year. ”
Dr. David Cutler, a family physician at Providence St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif., said he was not involved in the study. MNT that “[p]Physicians who have discouraged their patients from actively pursuing diets because few adhere to these regimens have encouraged their patients, even if initially reluctant, to do so. You may become more enthusiastic about encouraging. ”
The authors noted a risk of bias, as only patients motivated to improve their health may have opted for a low-carbohydrate diet. Only 186 people opted for the low-carbohydrate diet, indicating reluctance to follow this diet.
Dr. Cuttler said: […] The degree of improvement here, with more than half of patients clearing diabetes, is sufficient to encourage those who might have been reluctant to pursue such a diet to do so. .
Also, this study was observational in nature and had no control group. Srujana Yada, Ph.D., a board-certified endocrinologist at the Texas Board of Diabetes and Endocrinology in Austin, Texas, who was not involved in the study but did not have a control or comparison group, suggested that a low-carbohydrate diet would be better than other diets. He pointed out that no conclusion could be drawn that it was better than diet.
Dr. Yada says: Therefore, I recommend a low-sugar diet. However, this study cannot really say whether a low-carbohydrate diet is better.
“However, we would like to compare it to other diets with the same number of calories. Was it a change in diet type or a reduction in total calorie intake that led to improvements in HbA1c? We would like to know if the decline in HbA1c is due to these undesirable hypoglycemic events,” added Dr. Yada.
