Ongoing Study Raises Hope in Treating Type 2 Diabetes

A new and ongoing study points to a possibility of reversing Type 2 diabetes. In a UK-led study carried out by Newcastle University-based researchers may have found a way to reverse the effects of obesity-related disease after coming up with extremely low-calorie diet for 30 Type 2 diabetes patients.

Published in the medical journal Diabetes Care, the so-called diet plan involved the extreme restriction of calorie intake to only 700 calories a day by drinking diet milkshake thrice a day and eating 200 grams of non-starchy vegetables.

As a result, the participants were reportedly posting an average weight loss of 14 kg (33 pounds). Furthermore, diabetes seemed to have disappeared in many of them with almost half showing no recurring symptoms of diabetes for the next six months.

According to the World Health Organization, Type-2 diabetes has been linked to a number of obesity-related diseases and has seen a quadrupled increase in the last four decades roughly affecting 400 million people around the world.

The disease has been attributed to a lot of factors such as the significant increase in global consumption of sugar-laden foods, meat, carbonated and artificially sweetened beverages, and processed foods.

As a result of the disturbing WHO global health report on diabetes, the international health agency recently called for an enhancing preventive measures aimed at reducing diabetes-linked risk factors.

"We need to rethink our daily lives: to eat healthily, be physically active and avoid excessive weight gain," said WHO director-general Dr. Margaret Chan according Global News.

In addition, the authors are hoping to find ways to radically change people's perception of the disease- a chronic and often incurable condition where the body insufficiently produces insulin. The study, however, remains an ongoing scientific effort to finding a possible cure in the future and requires longer-term trials and observation.

"This is a radical change in our understanding of Type 2 diabetes," remarked lead author Dr. Roy Taylor of Newcastle University as reported by New York Times. "If we can get across the message that 'yes, this is a reversible disease - that you will have no more diabetes medications, no more sitting in doctors' rooms, no more excess health charges' - that is enormously motivating."