New Research Offers Hope for Diabetes Patients: A Way to Restore Sugar Regulation in the Body
American university research shows that a diet mimicking fasting effects can reprogram cells to produce insulin.
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A diet designed to mimic the effects of fasting has been found in preliminary research to initiate a healing process for diabetes by reprogramming cells, according to researchers from the University of USC in the USA.
"By alternating cycles of a normal diet and a fasting-mimicking diet, we were able to reprogram cells that do not produce insulin to start producing insulin," says Professor Valter Longo, who led the research. "This allowed us to rescue mice from advanced stages of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. We also managed to reactivate insulin production in human cells taken from patients with Type 1 diabetes."
The fasting-mimicking diet is a patented method by Professor Longo. It involves specially developed low-protein and low-carbohydrate recipes so that a person can eat while the body believes it is fasting and only drinking water, and acts accordingly. The diabetes research is the latest in a series of studies that have found significant health benefits from such short periodic dieting.
In Type 1 diabetes and in the later stages of Type 2 diabetes, the pancreas loses the beta cells that produce insulin, increasing blood sugar level instability. However, the USC research demonstrated an impressive recovery process in mice fed a fasting-mimicking diet four days a week. They were able to return to healthy insulin production and their glucose sugar levels stabilized. This was true even for mice at a very advanced stage of diabetes. What essentially occurred is that the fasting-mimicking diet activated genes in adult mice that are typically active only in embryos, thus creating new healthy insulin-producing beta cells.
"These findings warrant a larger FDA trial regarding the potential to use this diet to treat human diabetes and help them produce normal levels of insulin," says Longo. "We hope to reach a state where diabetes patients can be approved to follow the fasting-mimicking diet for a few days a month and thus achieve control over their insulin production and blood sugar levels."
