I just had a look at the full paper. Included in the aims/hypothesis section was the casual comment that: "Type 2 diabetes is regarded as inevitably progressive, with irreversible beta cell failure" Talk to any reputable specialist in diabetes or a good GP and they will tell you that is not necessarily the case. What tends to be the case is that with exercise, dietary discretion and the use of metformin persons with recently diagnosed type 2 diabetes can often restore normal or near-normal glucose tolerance for a time. There are large studies that clearly demonstrate this. We do not yet know whether this can be sustained for life if the above advice is adhered to.
The subjects of this small study had had known diabetes for less than 4 years, and were placed on a near-starvation diet (600kcal!) for up to 8 weeks. Good luck if you can stick with that for more than a few weeks. And then the authors conclude by saying that: "The abnormalities underlying type 2 diabetes are reversible by reducing dietary energy intake" Well, sure they can be, especially in a carefully-selected sub-group. Nothing new there. But try getting the same result with the average overweight or obese patient with known diabetes for 10 years or more. Good luck with that too :) Can happen, but not too often I'd wager. I'm surprised that Diabetologia even bothered to publish that paper.
Oh well, here's to Channel 7; seems like yet another example of heroic "investigative" BS journalism at work.
(Btw: I didn't actually watch the program, so maybe I've got it all wrong).
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