
How Weight Loss May Reverse Type 2 Diabetes
The benefits of weight loss in treating diabetes have always been at the forefront of diabetes care, particularly for those people with type 2 diabetes who are overweight or obese. Excess weight can increase inflammation and make blood sugars harder to control by causing insulin resistance.
The American Diabetes Association states that, "There is strong and consistent evidence that modest persistent weight loss can delay the progression from prediabetes to type 2 diabetes and is beneficial to the management of type 2 diabetes." But, what if losing weight could actually help to reverse type 2 diabetes altogether?
Researchers of the Diabetes Remission Clinical Trial (DiRECT) discovered that after 12 months of intervention, 46 percent of participants were able to achieve remission of type 2 diabetes through weight loss versus only 4 percent in the control. They also found that the more weight lost increased remission (defined as achieving an A1c of less than 6.5 percent without diabetes medication) of type 2 diabetes.
Medical Director of the Diabetes Alliance and Telediabetes Lead at The Mount Sinai Hospital and endocrinologist, Dr. Noga Minsky says, "The takeaway point, which offers so many people out there hope, is that diabetes is reversible with weight loss. These results contrast previous studies comparing bariatric surgery to lifestyle changes or medical management, where non-surgical treatment did not lead to remission of diabetes in any patients treated non-surgically after two to three years." Additionally, Minsky says, "It was promising that diabetes was reversed suc
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