This is quite remarkable. A new study suggests that losing just one single gram of fat might reverse type 2 diabetes. The only problem? It has to be one gram of fat from the pancreas.
Express: How YOU can beat diabetes: Shedding just ONE GRAM of fat could cure Type 2 diabetesDr. Jason Fung has been talking about this possibility for a long time. Today he has a new post on it:
Dr. Fung: Losing a single gram of fat can reverse diabetes?The shorter summary
To summarize type 2 diabetes is very much a disease of insulin resistance. The resistance results from a long time of chronically excessive insulin levels, usually due to eating too many bad carbs too often (also called a standard Western diet). One of the hallmarks of insulin resistance is a fatty liver.
However, the body can often compensate for the insulin resistance by producing more insulin (with the unfortunate side effect of obesity, etc.). Thus the blood sugar can stay more or less normal for a long time. What tips people over into full-blown type 2 diabetes is that the body no longer manages to produce the pathologically high insulin levels required.
Why does this happen? Possibly because of excessive fat deposits in the pancreas. So not only the liver get fat due to excessive insulin (resulting in IR) but the pancreas eventually gets fatty too, limiting how much insulin it can produce.
This all is revolutionary, because it can explain why type 2 diabetes is not a chronic disease. Lose the liver fat and get rid of the insulin resistance, so less insulin is needed. Lose the pancreas fat (as little as one gram!) and normal insulin production resumes.
Voilà! The disease is gone.
How to do it
How do you do all this? Lower your insulin. An LCHF diet is great, but the most effective way is fasting.
Except there is one thing better - combining both.