Low Calorie Diet May Cure Your Type 2 Diabetes
In a new study finds that a very low-calorie diet may quickly reverse type 2 diabetes in animal models. The insight provides new drug targets for treating the common chronic disease, if confirmed in humans, said the researchers.
The analysis is published with the title Cell Metabolism.
One in three Americans will develop diabetes by 2050, according to projections from the Center for Prevention and Disease Control. Records indicate that the illness goes into remission in most patients who undergo surgery, which considerably restricts calorie intake before clinically significant weight loss. The study of the team focused on understanding the mechanisms.
The investigation team found that the effects of a very low-calorie diet (VLCD), composed of one-quarter the standard intake, on a rodent model of type 2 diabetes. Using a novel steady (naturally occurring) isotope strategy, which they created, the researchers monitored and calculated some metabolic processes that bring about the increased glucose production by the liver. The approach, called PINTA, enabled the investigators to execute a comprehensive set of analyses of key metabolic fluxes inside the liver that might result in insulin resistance and elevated levels of glucose production by the liver -- two important procedures that cause increased blood-sugar concentrations in diabetes.
Using this strategy, the researchers pinpointed three key mechanisms responsible for its VLCD's dramatic effect on rapidly lowering blood sugar levels in the diabetic animals. From the liver, the VLCD reduces sugar production by 1) decreasing the conversion of lactate and amino acids to glucose; 2) diminishing the rate of liver glycogen conversion to sugar; and 3) decreasing fat content, which in turn enhances the liver's response to insulin. These positive impacts of the VLCD were detected in only three days.
"Applying this strategy to comprehensively interrogate liver carbohydrate and fat metabolism, we showed that it's a combination of three mechanisms that are responsible for its rapid reversal of hyperglycemia after a very low-calorie diet," said senior author Gerald I. Shulman, M.D., Professor of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Another step for the researchers will be to confirm whether the findings can be replicated swallowing calorie diets that are very low or experiencing either surgery. His team has already begun implementing the PINTA methodology in people.
"These results, if confirmed in humans, will give us innovative drug targets to more effectively treat patients with type 2 diabetes," Shulman said.
