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People who have had obesity-related type 2 diabetes for years have been cured, at least temporarily, by keeping to an extreme, low-calorie diet for two months.

The discovery, reported by scientists at Newcastle University in the UK, overturns previous assumptions about type 2 diabetes, which was thought to be a lifelong illness.

In the UK about two and a half million people have been diagnosed with diabetes, the large majority with type 2, and numbers are rising across much of the world. The condition has to be controlled with drugs and eventually insulin injections.

Eleven people with diabetes took part in the study, which was funded by Diabetes UK. “To have people free of diabetes after years with the condition is remarkable – and all because of an eight-week diet,” said Roy Taylor, professor at Newcastle University, who led the study. “This is a radical change in understanding type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes, which used to be known as adult onset, is caused by too much glucose in the blood. The research, presented today at the American Diabetes Association conference, shows that an extremely low-calorie diet, consisting of diet drinks and non-starchy vegetables, prompts the body to remove the fat clogging the pancreas and preventing it from making insulin.

After just one week into the study, the pre-breakfast blood sugar levels of the study group had returned to normal. The pancreas regained its ability to make insulin.

After the eight-week diet the volunteers returned to normal eating but had advice on healthy foods and portion size. Ten of the group were retested and seven had stayed free of diabetes.

Taylor, the director of the Newcastle Magnetic Resonance Centre, had the idea for the study after it was shown that diabetes was reversed in people who had undergone stomach stapling or other forms of bariatric surgery because of obesity. “We believe this shows that type 2 diabetes is all about energy balance in the body,” said Taylor. “If you are eating more 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 than others.”

He warned that only a minority of people, perhaps 5% or 10%, would be able to stick to the harsh diet necessary to get rid of diabetes. Iain Frame, director of research at Diabetes UK, said people should not embark on such a diet without a doctor’s approval and help. “We welcome the results of this research because it shows that type 2 diabetes can be reversed, on a par with successful surgery without the side effects.

“However, this diet is not an easy fix and Diabetes UK strongly recommends that such a drastic diet should only be undertaken under medical supervision.”

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The number of people being admitted to hospital for obesity in the UK has risen dramatically, by 60 per cent in the last year alone, in part due to surgery now being widely available on the National Health Service (NHS).

There were 8,085 admissions for obesity in 2008/09 in England, up from 5,056 the previous year, and from 1,746 in 2003/04.
These statistics include treatment for breathing problems, type 2 diabetes, circulation or organ failure, or heart disease and also surgical procedures such as stomach stapling.

Tim Straughan, head of the NHS Information Centre, said: “The large increase in admissions for obesity reflects the growing impact that obesity has on the health of our nation as well as the demands it is placing on limited NHS resources.
“However, it also reflects the fact that overweight people are resorting to treatments such as bariatric surgery to tackle their health problems.” Bariatric surgery involves banding part of the stomach to reduce its size or even removing a portion on it.

Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum said society was after a “quick fix” for obesity. “We no longer try to use diet and exercise as a way of treating this problem. The increasing demand for bariatric surgery is going to put a lot of pressure on the NHS.”

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Many of us can’t resist peeking at that the scales every morning even though we know that this is futile. From water retention to glycogen storage and changes in lean body mass, daily weight fluctuations are normal. Water makes up approximately 60% of total body mass. Normal fluctuations in the body’s water content can send scale-watchers into a tailspin if they don’t understand what’s happening.

Two factors influencing water retention are water consumption and salt intake. Strange as it sounds, the less water you drink the more of it your body retains. The solution is to drink plenty of water.

Excess salt (sodium) can also play a big role in water retention. A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium. Read the labels of processed foods. Their hidden sodium content can be sky high.

Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. Pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking plenty of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum. You can also add water balancing supplements.

Another factor that can influence the scale is glycogen, our body’s carbohydrate store. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and it’s packaged with 3-4 pounds of water when it’s stored. When the glycogen supply shrink (for instance when you don’t eat enough carbohydrates), you’ll refuel with carbs and water. It’s normal to experience glycogen and water weight shifts of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level.

It’s best to weigh yourself in the morning because everything you eat and drink will show up on the scales until it is digested and expelled.

On a very low calorie diet that causes you to lose 10 pounds in 7 days, it’s physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you’re really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle. This brings us to the scales’ sneakiest attribute. It doesn’t just weigh fat. It weighs muscle, bone, water, internal organs and all. When you lose “weight,” that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve lost fat. Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is metabolically active tissue. The more you have, the easier it is to lose weight. If you are exercising and eating right, don’t be discouraged by a small gain on the scale.