New research from UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, has suggested that patients with type 2 diabetes who are put on a strict diet, similar to the one that patients have to follow after undergoing bariatric surgery, are just as likely to improve their blood glucose levels as in surgery patients.
Dr Ildiko Lingvay, assistant professor of internal medicine and first author of the study, commented that the findings revealed that the significant improvement in diabetes symptoms that take place following surgery has more to do with a restricted calorie intake than with the surgery itself.
Researchers monitored ten patients in a controlled setting over two separate periods. At first, patients were put on the standard diet which bariatric surgery patients are prescribed. During that period, researchers examined the changes to patients’ blood glucose levels. Several months later, all of these patients were given gastric bypass surgery and followed the same diet, before their blood glucose levels were tested again.
Results showed that fasting blood glucose levels fell by an average of 21% during the period of the diet and 12% during the period in which the diet was combined with surgery. Overall, patients’ blood glucose levels after a meal decreased by 15% in the diet-only phase and 18% after surgery. This led scientists to the conclusion that the very restrictive diet after surgery is the key to the rapid diabetes remission, which typically occurs shortly after the procedure.
However, Dr Lingvay noted that such a diet was too restrictive and following it long-term was extremely difficult without bariatric surgery.
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