A reduced-calorie diet can cure diabetes in just four months, according to a new study reported this week.
Researchers at the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands analyzed cardiac function and pericardial fat in 15 patients with Type 2 diabetes, AFP reports. The patients were put on a diet allowing only 500 calories a day for four months.
The results showed that the low-calorie diet eliminated insulin dependence and reduced amounts of dangerous fats around the heart in obese patients with Type 2 diabetes, according to AFP.
“It is striking to see how a relatively simple intervention of a very low-calorie diet effectively cures Type 2 diabetes,” says Dr. Sebastiaan Hammer, the study’s lead author, as reported by the Daily Mail. “Moreover, these effects are long term, illustrating the potential of this method.”
Hammer suggests the diet may be more effective than medication.
“Lifestyle interventions may have more powerful beneficial cardiac effects than medication in these patients,” Hammer says, as reported by the Daily Mail.
The study was presented at Chicago’s Radiological Society of North America this week, according to AFP.
