A new way to fight diabetes: The fasting diet

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Are you at risk of developing type 2 diabetes? Well, new research is shining a light on a possible answer.

Scientists from the University of Adelaide and the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) are studying different diets. Their findings might help you.

What’s the Study About?

The study is about two types of diets. One is an intermittent fasting diet. The other is a diet where you eat fewer calories every day.

The scientists wanted to see which diet is better for people who could get type 2 diabetes.

What is Type 2 Diabetes?

Before we dive into the study, let’s talk about type 2 diabetes. It’s a health condition. Your body can’t use insulin well. Insulin is like a key.

It helps sugar get into your body’s cells. If you have type 2 diabetes, the sugar stays in your blood. This can cause health problems.

Around 1.3 million Australians have type 2 diabetes. There is no cure for it. But, scientists think that about 60% of these cases could be prevented. How? By making changes in what we eat and how we live.

What’s an Intermittent Fasting Diet?

On this diet, you have a time window when you can eat. For the study, people ate only between 8 am and 12 pm. But, they only did this for three days a week. For the other four days, they ate normally.

What’s a Low-Calorie Diet?

This diet is more straightforward. You just eat less. In other words, you consume fewer calories every day.

What Did The Study Find?

Here comes the exciting part. People on the intermittent fasting diet had better results. They could handle sugar better after six months.

This was compared to people on a low-calorie diet. So, eating in a time window on some days could be helpful.

Also, people on the fasting diet were better friends with insulin. Plus, they had less fat in their blood. All these things lower the risk of getting type 2 diabetes.

Is Intermittent Fasting the Answer?

The study had over 200 people. They tried both diets for 18 months. Both groups lost about the same amount of weight. But, the fasting diet had some extra benefits.

Xiao Tong Teong, a Ph.D. student, said something interesting. She said that how your body uses sugar after eating is important.

It’s a better sign of diabetes risk than a fasting test. This new study is the largest in the world so far that checked this.

What’s Next?

So, what does all this mean? The study shows that when you eat can matter. Fasting sometimes could have health benefits. And these benefits are not just about losing weight.

But, more studies are needed. Scientists want to see if eating in a larger time window also works. This could make the diet easier to follow.

In short, this research gives us hope. It suggests a simple way to lower our risk of getting type 2 diabetes. So, we should pay attention to future research on this topic.

If you care about diabetes, please read studies about high vitamin D level linked to lower dementia risk in diabetes, and green tea could help reduce death risk in diabetes.

For more information about diabetes, please see recent studies that blueberries strongly benefit people with metabolic syndrome, and results showing vitamin D could improve blood pressure in people with diabetes.

The study was published in Nature Medicine.

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