It is not an unknown fact that an individual’s weight is one of the biggest contributors of type 2 diabetes. What many are not aware of is the recent findings by a few researchers which suggest that the disease can, in fact, be cured if the patient strives to lose weight. The authors of the paper that is published in the BMJ aim to inform the public as well as the medical fraternity about the findings which claim that losing 33 pounds of the body weight can go a long way in curing type 2 diabetes. The study has also been supported by a 2016 follow up research where people suffering from type 2 diabetes for as long as 10 years have successfully been able to reverse the condition after losing around 33 pounds.
The above studies and research have been spearheaded by the professor of human nutrition at the University of Glasgow by the name of Mike Lean. The renowned professor is also of the view that if you can control your weight, you can avoid getting the disease altogether. However, if you do get affected by it, the best time to reverse this chronic illness happens to be the first five years after type 2 diabetes has been diagnosed. As per him, taking insulin injections or medicines in order to deal with the disease is just not enough and should not be the primary focus of all medical experts.
So, what can be the implications of this research? Well, the author’s of the paper believe that healthcare costs and the total amount of complications that can be caused due to type 2 diabetes can reduce by great amounts if both the doctors and the public at large can start believing in the research results.
The ways in which most of the patients who manage their type 2 diabetes today is by concentrating on stabilizing the rates of blood glucose, while also reducing risks of several cardiovascular diseases. Weight loss hardly figures in anyone’s regime when it comes to diabetes reversal. Most of this stems from the fact that neither the doctors nor do their patients are aware that type 2 diabetes could be reversed. If they know about it, they would take losing weight as a serious cure for the condition.
Lean and his co-authors also strongly believe that there is a growing need to establish a well-structured weight loss regime so that the fact that type 2 is reversal can be taken much more seriously. They are conducting further studies on this topic and the first results of the same should be public by the year 2018. For this purpose, they want to retest all those patients who were once affected by type 2 but have been able to get past the disease.
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To conclude, although the acceptance of weight loss might not be taken easily as an effective measure of reversing type 2 diabetes, doctors and patients should nevertheless focus on the same for the time being!