How to combat type 2 diabetes

Maria Cohut Correspondent
A new study has found that if people achieve moderate weight loss within the first few years of a type 2 diabetes diagnosis, they could actually send the condition into remission.

Type 2 diabetes is a metabolic condition characterised by the body’s inability to sufficiently process glucose (sugar). As a result, blood sugar levels are persistently high.

Usually, doctors prescribe medication and suggest dietary interventions to help individuals keep the symptoms of type 2 diabetes under control.

Yet remission — referring to a drastic decrease or even disappearance of symptoms, allowing people to cease treatment — is possible under certain conditions.

Individuals with both obesity and type 2 diabetes, for instance, can experience remission of diabetes following bariatric (weight loss) surgery.

Previously, in 2016, a different study showed that people with diabetes who followed an intensive low calorie diet — amounting to an intake of 624–700 kilocalories per day for a period of 8 weeks — could also experience remission. But is it possible to send type 2 diabetes into remission through a less demanding dietary intervention? That is the question that sparked the interest of a team of specialists from the University of Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.

‘Modest’ weight loss may be enough

In a new study — the findings of which appear in the journal Diabetic Medicine — the researchers from Cambridge analysed data from 867 people aged 40-69 with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes.