I was right: you CAN reverse diabetes with diet. Just ask MP Tom...
IT HAS been a great week for those of us who have been arguing for years that it is possible to halt the epidemic of type 2 diabetes. First there was the news that the NHS may soon encourage patients to try a rapid weight-loss diet – the sort I have been advocating on these pages and in my books.
Then Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson appeared on TV, showing off his new slim-line figure and telling the world how he had got off all medication and brought his blood-sugar levels back to normal by losing nearly 100lb. Tom had struggled for years with his weight. When he hit 22st he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and immediately went into denial.
‘My condition was so frightening, I just pretended I didn’t have it,’ he said, before finally accepting he had to act. His starting point was ‘reading all Dr Michael Mosley’s books’. He cut down on sugar and processed food, took up exercise and lost an incredible 7st.
‘I feel absolutely fantastic. I feel like my IQ has gone up. I feel so much younger,’ he added.
I know just how he feels. Six years ago I was told by my GP that I had type 2 diabetes, something that affected my father, who developed it in his late 50s, around the same age as I was.
My dad went on to develop complications and died at the relatively early age of 74. People often commented how much like him I was. But I was extremely keen not to go down that same road.
My doctor suggested I start on medication. Instead, I discovered intermittent fasting, invented the 5:2 diet and lost 20lb of belly fat.
Once I lost the weight, I was no longer diabetic. My cholesterol level and blood pressure went down too.
I’m delighted to say the weight has stayed off and my blood sugars have remained healthy.
What makes this such a big deal is that, until recently, type 2 diabetes was seen as progressive and incurable. The NHS website still says that once you have it you will probably need to take drugs ‘for the rest of your life’ and adds: ‘Diabetes usually gets worse over time, so your medicine or dose may need to change.’
What the website doesn’t add is that, even on medication, your chances of having a heart attack, stroke or developing dementia will double. And you may well end up having all or part of a limb amputated: between 2014 and 2017, there were 19,073 foot or toe amputations due to diabetes, a rise of 26 per cent on the previous three years, according to research published last week. This drug-centred approach, until recently, was conventional wisdom. Then along came Professor Roy Taylor, of Newcastle University, and Professor Mike Lean, of Glasgow University. They’ve been working for more than a decade to prove to sceptical colleagues that type 2 diabetes can be reversed – perhaps even cured – with the help of a rapid weight-loss diet. A crucial experiment, called DIRECT, began several years ago and it was only possible because of a multi-million-pound grant from the charity Diabetes UK.
Nearly 300 patients, recruited from GP practices in Scotland and the North East, were put on either an 800 calories-a-day diet for up to 20 weeks or on conventional diabetes care.
Those on the weight-loss diet got behavioural support from a programme called Counterweight Plus, which Prof Lean believes was a key part of their success. The patients were then followed for at least a year.
When the results of DIRECT were published, they were amazing. Those on the rapid weightloss diet had lost an average of 22lb and nearly half had managed to put their diabetes into remission. Those getting conventional care had lost 2lb and six per cent went into remission.
Prof Lean was delighted with their findings but said: ‘It’s a pity it took us so many years to get the funding to do the study.’
He added: ‘Given our results, it should be considered unethical NOT to give people with type 2 diabetes access to the necessary support for at least a good try at a remission. Most patients want to try, and it would save the NHS a lot of money.’ Prof Taylor was also thrilled by just how clear their findings were. He thinks we are at the beginning of a major wave of new understanding but acknowledges that there are still important questions that need to be answered. The scientists will continue to track patients to see how many keep the weight off and diabetes at bay.
For my wife, Clare, a GP, last week’s news has been particularly welcome. She has spent the past few years helping hundreds of overweight patients with bloodsugar problems shed pounds.
They are grateful, but because the advice she offers could, until recently, be seen as unconventional, there was always the threat that if anything went wrong then she would be blamed – even if it had nothing to do with her.
The current NHS culture is one of zero tolerance, and as a doctor sometimes your only defence is to show that you are sticking to the status quo. The fact that your patients are getting better and you are saving the NHS huge sums may not protect you.
I am hopeful that will now change and that we are, as Prof Taylor put it, about to revolutionise the way type 2 diabetes is treated. I’d also like to add that the research has shown the longer you have diabetes, the harder it is to reverse. So the moral of the story is tackle this problem headon – and don’t live in denial like Tom did for so long.