“Healing” from type 2 diabetes through weight loss is associated with a normalization of the size and structure of the pancreas, due to the improvement in the release of the hormone insulin that follows weight loss. This is the new result of the Roy Taylor team of Newcastle University, which has been studying the effects of a careful diet on type 2 diabetes, the most widespread form of the disease, for years. Taylor’s clinical studies have been instrumental in demonstrating that, by losing a relatively modest amount of weight and maintaining the achieved weight loss over time, diabetes can actually go into remission.
The available data also shows that remission is real, and not just an effect of the patient who has lost weight better able to manage the disease. The study was presented this year at the first virtual edition of the Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), and shows that the pancreas, after weight loss, not only starts producing more insulin again, but also returns. , within a few months, of normal shape and size, managing to eliminate the excess fat it contained. Type 2 diabetes affects nearly one in 10 people worldwide, totaling over 400 million individuals, and its growth seems unstoppable. The disease, which has overweight among the main risk factors, is characterized by excess sugar (glucose) in the blood both due to a deficit in the production of insulin (a hormone that controls blood sugar), and because the body responds less well to hormone (insulin resistance). In diabetics, the pancreas may have reduced size and abnormal shape, but to date it was not clear whether these morphological alterations were a contributing cause or, on the contrary, a consequence of the disease. Experts studied 64 of the patients enrolled in the Diabetes Remission Clinical Trial (DiRECT) – instrumental in demonstrating the efficacy of weight loss in reversing the disease – by comparing the shape and size of their pancreas with that of healthy controls. Each pancreas volume and appearance were monitored over two years with advanced MRI techniques. The pancreatic volume of diabetics was initially 20% less than the mean pancreatic volume in the control group and the shape of the organ was irregular. It was found that 5 months after weight loss, those whose disease had regressed showed an improvement in the function of the endocrine pancreas, with an increase in insulin production. Two years after weight loss, this was accompanied by an increase of about a fifth of the pancreatic volume and a significant reduction in the fat deposited in the pancreas, improvements that were not found in patients who were not ‘cured’.
“Insulin contributes to tissue growth,” says Taylor. After a meal, the amount of insulin produced and present in the pancreas is high, but in patients with type 2 diabetes this does not happen adequately. Our new work suggests that the improvement in insulin secretion that is achieved with weight loss and which contributes to the remission of type 2 diabetes also has very positive effects on the entire pancreas. It is possible that in the future we will be able to predict the onset of diabetes with imaging tests of the pancreas. “” The remission of type 2 diabetes by improving the reduced secretion of insulin by the beta cells of the pancreas is a topic of extreme. interest “- explains to ANSA the expert of the Italian Society of Diabetology (SID) Piero Marchetti of the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine and University Hospital, University of Pisa. This ‘cure’ can be obtained with bariatric surgery approaches ( interventions on the stomach or intestine that induce weight loss sometimes very significant) and also, as the Taylor group has shown, with diets such as to induce moderate weight loss. Moreover, the remission of diabetes does not manifest itself, or is attenuated with time, in 30-50% of the people who the various studies have evaluated – underlines the expert.
Fortunately, some late stage research is defining the mechanisms that lead to the functional recovery of beta cells. Hopefully, such research will allow the development of specific therapies to expand the number of people who will be able to ‘recover’ from type 2 diabetes “, concludes the diabetologist. (ANSA).
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