Professor Mike Lean from the University of Glasgow, and Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the University of Otago, shares a remarkable story of how a dietary intervention can lead to remission of type 2 diabetes.
For Diabetes Awareness Month, Professor Lean has prepared a video presentation explaining the results of the DiRECT study, which aimed to achieve remission of type 2 diabetes using dietary weight loss.
DiRECT uses a total diet replacement for three months, then a gradual progression to a weight maintenance diet. In a randomised controlled trial, approximately two thirds of participants who lost more than 10kg were still in remission from type 2 diabetes at 24 months.
More recently, Professor Lean and colleagues have been able to show that the structure and function of the pancreas improves following this weight loss programme.
Listen to the video
DiRECT: Dietary Remission of Type 2 Diabetes, Professor Mike Lean, University of Glasgow (30min51sec)
Read more about DiRECT
The DiRECT intervention has been shown to be a cost-effective way to treat type 2 diabetes and is now being rolled out around other Centres in the UK.
Find out more about the Diabetes Remission Clinical Trial (DiRECT)
