
Fat loss from pancreas 'can reverse' effects of type-2 diabetes
INDYPULSE
Fat loss from pancreas 'can reverse' effects of type-2 diabetes
Less than half a teaspoon of fat is all that it takes to turn someone into a type-2 diabetic according to a study that could overturn conventional wisdom on a disease affecting nearly 3 million people in Britain.
Researchers have found it is not so much the overall body fat that is important in determining the onset of type-2 diabetes but the small amount of fat deposited in the pancreas, the endocrine organ responsible for insulin production.
A clinical trial on 18 patients with type-2 diabetes has found that the loss of just one gram of fat from the pancreas can reverse the disease to the point where patients were once more are able to control levels of sugar in the bloodstream using their own insulin.
Diabetes comes in two forms. The “type-2” version affects about 90 per cent of the diabetic population and this is the disease associated with diet and obesity in adults. It occurs as a result of the failure of the body’s insulin hormone to control blood-sugar levels – by the pancreas not producing enough insulin, and the body becoming resistant to its own hormone.
If fat in the pancreas really is the key factor that triggers type-2 diabetes, it offers a potential target for reversing the disease through drugs. However, at present the only way of lowering fat levels in the pancreas is to go on a strict diet that lowers fat elsewhere in the body – a weight-loss procedure that is notoriously difficult to maintain.
Another problem is how we define “pancreatic fat”, according to Professor St
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