The End of Diabetes: The Eat to Live Plan to Prevent and Reverse Diabetes

A new study published in Nature Communications has shown that a radical diet can result in impressive and quick health gains for people with type 2 diabetes. Does it have potential for your diabetes management?

The Diet

The new learn about was designed by a multi-disciplinary team of scientists and specialists mostly associated with the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Patients were asked to consume a low-calorie diet (850-1100 kcal) that was both low in carbohydrates (<50g per day) and high in protein (110-120g). The experiment lasted 12 weeks.

The large amount of protein in the diet is notable – American authorities suggest that the average adult man should consume about 56 grams of protein per day, or half as much as the diet prescribes. The average American also gets about 16% of their calories from protein; in this diet, it’s more like 50%.

The food in the diet was provided by a weight loss company named Ideal Protein. Presumably, however, interested readers could recreate a nutritionally equivalent diet without access to those specific products, simply by setting the same macronutrient targets.

And to be clear, while this diet would likely result in nutritional ketosis for many, this was not a standard ketogenic diet: participants limited themselves to ~35-45g of fat per day, a extremely small amount. It’s not easy to eat so little fat, especially if you’re targeting such a high percentage of protein. Anyone interested in trying the diet themselves should be prepared to eat a lot of very lean meat and seafood – or use a lot of protein powder.

The Results

All patients were obese adults (30+) with type 2 diabetes. All were using at least one glucose-lowering medication, such as metformin or insulin.

The effects of the 12-week diet intervention were very impressive. Compared to a well-matched control group that received treatment as usual, the dieters:

• Massively better their HbA1c (6.4% vs 7.8%)
• Improved fasting glucose levels (7.2 vs 9.1)
• Lost an average of 12 kg
• Shrunk their waistlines and reduced their body fat
• Improved their blood pressure (124/75 vs 137/83)
• Reduced triglycerides (1.00 mmol/L vs 1.49)

All of the above results were highly statistically significant. In addition, dieters also reported big improvements in surveys probing a variety of issues such as mental health, social functioning, and perception of physical health.

The primary purpose of the experiment was to see how many patients discontinued their use of glucose-lowering medication. In the end, a whopping 35.7% had done so. (By contrast, not a single member of the treatment as usual control group enjoyed such success). About half of that total, 17.3% of the dieters, discontinued glucose-lowering medication and achieved an HbA1c below 6.5%, putting them on track to official type 2 diabetes remission.

The overall picture is of significantly improved health and well-being, across the board.

But … Do Crash Diets Work?

There’s one sticking point, and you may have already spotted the issue yourself: this diet is very low calorie, so low calorie that it might be difficult for many people to stick to for even as little as a day or two. It would take an awful lot of willpower to eat as few as 850 calories per day for 3 months.

Although well-controlled and thoughtfully formulated, it is, in essence, a crash diet.

Most obesity researchers believe that crash diets are a bad idea because they don’t set dieters up for future success. Dieting authorities almost unanimously recommend gradual weight loss rather than rapid weight loss.

The science isn’t perfectly clear on this: there is some evidence that crash diets create good long-term results. And it is well-established that significant caloric restriction can rapidly improve glucose management and metabolic health in type 2 diabetes.

The truth is that if you were to limit yourself to diets that have objectively high rates of adherence and long-term success, there’d be no diets to choose from. As far as we can tell, most diets fail. That’s a poor reason not to try.

So, could a crash diet work for you? While it is clear that a diet that requires such caloric restriction isn’t sustainable in the long term, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll go back to your old habits. It’s not impossible to switch from a low-calorie diet to an enjoyable and sustainable healthy eating pattern.

The current study did not follow its participants after the conclusion of the diet, so we don’t know what happened next to them.

The Takeaway

A low-calorie, low-carb, and high-protein diet led to impressive weight gain and metabolic health improvements in obese adults with type 2 diabetes.

Most health experts are suspicious of crash diets like this one, but the science on extreme dieting is murky. It may be possible to lock in those huge health improvements by pivoting from a low-calorie diet to a different diet that is well-formulated for long-term success.

Diabetes Daily

The End of Diabetes: The Eat to Live Plan to Prevent and Reverse Diabetes