Type II Diabetes Reversal
TYPE 2 DIABETES REVERSED WITH EXTREME DIET
A small but landmark study has found that type 2 diabetes patients who followed for two months, an extreme but tightly supervised diet that restricted calories to just 600 a day experienced a return to normal pre-breakfast blood sugar levels after one week and that 70 percent of those patients remained completely free of diabetes a month after returning to their regular, but newly portion-controlled, diet.
Type 2 diabetes is a condition in which blood sugar levels are too high due to insufficient insulin or the inability to use insulin effectively. The researchers believe excess calories eventually cause fat buildup in the liver and pancreas, triggering type 2 diabetes. MRI scans of study subjects showed the pancreas returns quickly to normal fat levels and regains its ability to produce insulin.
This suggests type 2 diabetes may be reversed by calorie restriction alone.
A 600-calorie diet is a drastic, starvation diet that should only be followed temporarily and only under close practitioner supervision.
Presented June 24, 2011 at the American Diabetes Association conference, this study will appear in a future issue of the journal Diabetologia, but is now accessible online at http://bit.ly/mDicGp without cost.
Calorie Restriction Can Cut High Blood Pressure
A study has concluded that a substantially calorie restricted, or CR diet may serve as an effective non-pharmacological treatment for hypertension, or high blood pressure, even in a short-term program. (CR is a dietary regimen that restricts calorie intake substantially below normal levels, while still maintaining normal nutrient levels; it has been shown over many decades to increase median and maximum lifespan in a wide variety of species.)
The study also suggested that even a short-term CR diet may help prevent cardiac hypertrophy, which is a thickening of the heart muscle that decreases the size of the chambers of the heart. In just five weeks, a CR diet reduced the systolic blood pressure – the upper number of a blood pressure reading – and reduced ventricular wall thickness. Additionally, this short period of calorie restriction dilated artery walls and improved various other circulatory factors. This study was released August 9, 2010 but will not be published until a future print issue of the journal, Hypertension. It is available online in the meantime at http://bit.ly/9szxLy.
Calorie Restriction & Cancer
A study found that a calorie-restricted or CR diet – a daily regimen of substantially reduced calorie intake – can slow and restrict the spread of malignant brain cancer.
Lowering regular calorie intake reduces blood glucose (sugar) levels and thus, reduces the carbohydrate energy available to the tumor cells. Tumor cells rely heavily on this source of energy. But normal brain and heart cells can still survive by using the energy supplied by ketones (compounds produced when fatty acids are broken down in the liver and kidney).
The research showed that tumor cells are far more susceptible than healthy brain cells to the stress arising from a deficient supply of energy; the brain cancer cells cannot grow on a low-calorie diet. The cancer tested – and restricted – was glioblastoma multiforme, the most aggressive and invasive form of human brain cancer. This study will not be published in print until the August, 2010 issue of the neurochemistry journal, ASN NEURO. The full-text version can now be read online at: http://bit.ly/cRKqJF.
How to Live Longer
A study has provided insight into how a calorie restricted diet extends lifespan and prevents age-related diseases.
Scientists have long known that calorie restricted diets or CR, and very low calorie diets or VLCD, have this longevity effect in animals and presumably in humans, but the mechanism has been unclear.
This study on mice looked for senescent cells – cells that have reached the point where they can no longer reproduce – to determine whether a restricted diet had any effect on this process, believed to be the main cause of aging.
They found a reduced accumulation of senescent cells in the liver and intestines, organs known to accumulate large numbers of these cells with age. Also, the telomeres – protective tips on the ends of chromosomes that prevent cell replication errors and disease, until they shorten with age – were better maintained in the restricted mice. Because the effect occurred after a short period of restriction, the researchers suggested that the longevity benefit might occur even when the diet is adopted later in life rather than for an entire lifetime.
This study was presented at the conference of the British Society for Research on Ageing (BSRA) in Newcastle, UK, on July 16, 2010 but it has not been published.