500 Calorie Diets, A good reason why they work

AbsoluteNG

Brief intro to real medical problems facing Americans, and not things from fairy-tail land like goblins, witchcraft, and starvation mode
Insulin Resistance impacts one-third of the American population. If you know you have 30 pounds of extra fat, your chances of being insulin resistant are extremely high. Don't be one of those people and pretend that being fat is healthy, it's not as it's related to real medical problems. If you want to test for insulin resistance, an oral glucose test is the most accurate test as it will test your phase one insulin responce and a kit can be bought for 10 dollars at Walgreens. Fasting Glucose test will only test for type 2 diabetes, your phase two insulin response. You can also do any of these test at your doctor's office but 10 dollars is way cheaper to spend than the copay.


Recently, I was under the belief that it is impossible to truly reverse insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes but recent research from 2011 says that's not the case. Studies below to show how insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes can be reversed on a 500 calorie diet.


The results showed that insulin phase 1 came back to life, which is an important factor as most type 2 diabetics are believed to no longer have a phase 1 insulin response. Insulin resistant people or prediabetics, different names for the same thing, usually have a weak phase 1 insulin response. This is an important fact to keep in mind because it is under current belief that diabetics and insulin resistant people can only manage their glucose levels because phase one insulin response is gone but the study below shows that, that is not the case. As an example, i specifically asked my doctor if my phase one insulin response will ever be like a normal person's again. She said no, most likely because she was not aware of these recent studies.

As some of you may or may not know, Bariatric sugery, has been shown to cause diabetes to go into remission in Type 2 diabetics. That is the reason why the studies below came about, to test and see if it was the diet that caused diabetes in Bariatric patients to go into remission. Bariatric patients are often on 500 to 800 calorie diets.

Reversal of type 2 diabetes: normalisation of beta cell
function
http://www.diabetologia-journal.org/Lim.pdf


Followup to the study above, Population response to information on reversibility of
Type 2 diabetes
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/magres/research/diabetes/CounterpointReflections.pdf


Now, am I advocating a 500 calorie diet? No I am not, as a 500 calorie diet is not sustainable. We have a Type 2 member in the intermittent fasting forum who received similar results which would suggest that you could follow Michael Mosley's 5:2 diet or Judd(alternate date fasting) your way to remission of diabetes or a true reversal of insulin resistance, not just maintaining glucose levels. However, if you want to do a 500 calorie diet for 8 weeks like the subjects in the study, I don't really have a problem with it as long as you keep it as a short term goal only and you are not underweight. One last thing, if you are a type 2 diabetic, consult your doctor before you change any diet and test with your glucose monitor any diet changes you make.


I'm also curious. Are there any studies that show a small daily deficit can bring back phase 1 insulin response in diabetics or insulin resistant people?


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Mistyvs

And what happens when they start to eat normally again? they gain the weight back and more. Been there, done that. I believe the key is to have a healthy relationship to food.

AbsoluteNG

I agree, which is why I recommended the intermittent fasting approach. Instead of eating 500 calories every day for the rest of your life, you can fast just two or three days a week. There is a member in the IF section that followed the judd approach and put his type 2 diabetes into remission.

Does anyone have any studies that say a small deficit can bring back phase 1 insulin response? I'm curious about that because phase 1 is how you identify a true reversal of diabetes and not just a management of glucose levels.

acidosaur

Hmmm, very interesting post, thanks! Replying to save to read again later.

SideSteel

I agree, which is why I recommended the intermittent fasting approach. Instead of eating 500 calories every day for the rest of your life, you can fast just two or three days a week. There is a member in the IF section that followed the judd approach and put his type 2 diabetes into remission.

Does anyone have any studies that say a small deficit can bring back phase 1 insulin response? I'm curious about that because phase 1 is how you identify a true reversal of diabetes and not just a management of glucose levels.

I don't have any studies to post but I would be surprised if this is a function of acute calorie intake rather than total fat loss.

Not that my intuition really matters here but for purposes of discussion, I'm sharing my opinion

Yanicka1

Work short time, disaster long term.

fbmandy55

Must have just missed my topic...

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1062930-hcg-is-killing-my-loved-one

evgenythe2nd

Losing fat will most likely make people on metformin to stop taking it , therefore saving their liver and kidneys in the long term(avoiding dialysis)

Adding excercise + weight training also reduces insulin resistance(read it somewhere legit)

You will screw up your immune system with 500 cal diet.

AlongCame_Molly

LorinaLynn

My Pekingese maintains on 500 calories a day, and he sleeps 75% of the time.

If I weighed 19 pounds and was as inactive as he is, I might be able get by on 500 calories a day, too.

AlabasterVerve

I agree, which is why I recommended the intermittent fasting approach. Instead of eating 500 calories every day for the rest of your life, you can fast just two or three days a week. There is a member in the IF section that followed the judd approach and put his type 2 diabetes into remission.

Does anyone have any studies that say a small deficit can bring back phase 1 insulin response? I'm curious about that because phase 1 is how you identify a true reversal of diabetes and not just a management of glucose levels.

I don't have any studies to post but I would be surprised if this is a function of acute calorie intake rather than total fat loss.

Not that my intuition really matters here but for purposes of discussion, I'm sharing my opinion

But dieting alone with fat loss doesn't restore insulin response, this was only noticed in bariatric patients, right?

What I thought was interesting was that the people in the study were in ketosis (if I'm remembering this study correctly). I read this last week and that's what stood out to me and I wondered at the time if the calorie restriction was necessary to get the same results or if it would be enough just to remain in ketosis. On the other hand, a lot of diabetics opt for a very strict low carb diets and I haven't heard anyone talk about putting their diabetes in remission so maybe it really is the severe calorie restriction. Either or, fascinating topic and I hope more research is being done. Thanks for posting, OP.

mabelbabel1

This Channel 4 programme, The Food Hospital (UK tv) proved that both a calorie restricted liquid diet of 800 cals and a 40c/30f/30p of 1600 can both reverse the effects of Type 2 Diabetes. I know which I'd rather do if I had to.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-food-hospital/4od#3443004

AbsoluteNG

Im a bad troll in DNA. but to add to the topic.

Losing fat will most likely make people on metformin to stop taking it , therefore saving their liver and kidneys in the long term(avoiding dialysis)

Adding excercise + weight training also reduces insulin resistance(read it somewhere legit)

You will screw up your immune system with 500 cal diet.

This is true that a regular diet and exercise can increase insulin sensitivity but this is not the same thing as bringing back phase 1 insulin response. This is why I specifically asked for anyone that can show phase 1 response coming back to life off of a standard diet. Phase one insulin response and insulin sensitivity are two different finctions in the body. They both work together to achieve the same goal but are different in scope.