Fat-free shakes and soups: liquid-only diets to reverse diabetes

LIQUID diets will be prescribed to thousands of people with diabetes in a bid to reverse the disease.

Overweight adults will be put on a strict regime limiting them to around 810 calories a day in an effort to tackle Britain’s diabetes time bomb.

Under a 10-year NHS plan, the number of overweight adults enrolled in weight loss programmes will double.

Around 200,000 overweight adults will be enrolled into schemes offering free Fitbit devices, one-to-one coaching and advice on healthy eating.

And 5,000 of those with a diagnosis of diabetes will be targeted for a national trial of diets that have been found in smaller studies to reverse the condition in almost half of cases. Other trials found that a quarter of those put on the regimes lost more than 2st.

Patients will be prescribed fat-free shakes and soups for three months, with a period of follow-up support to maintain weight loss.

The diet means a daily intake of between 810 and 850 calories – far less than the recommended limits of 2,000 calories for women, and 2,500 for men, if they are of healthy weight. Scientists believe the strict diet is particularly effective at shifting fat surrounding the pancreas, which can cause a drop in production of insulin that results in type 2 diabetes.

Simon Stevens, the NHS chief executive, said: “The NHS is now going to be ramping up practical action to support hundreds of thousands of people to avoid obesity-induced heart attacks,

strokes, cancers and Type 2 diabetes. The NHS long-term plan is going to give people the power and the support to take control of their own lifestyles, so that they can help themselves while also helping the NHS.

“Because what’s good for our waistlines is also good for our wallets, given the huge costs to all of us as taxpayers from these largely preventable illnesses.”

Elsewhere, health experts said that food companies should be forced by law to reformulate their products to make them healthier.

Public Health England has already asked the food industry to cut calories by 20 per cent by 2024, but the scheme is voluntary and critics have warned they will simply shrink items.

At a briefing on the damage of saturated fat in London, Prof Naveed Sattar, of the University of Glasgow, said a similar scheme to the recent sugar tax could help people cut down on their intake of fat.