The NHS is reportedly set to offer a soup and shakes diet that can reverse type 2 diabetes. The diet, which cuts calorie intake to only 850 a day, could lead to 500 patients beating the condition per week. The aim is to begin prescribing it as early as next year after results from about 2000 patients revealed it helped them lose an average of more than two stone.
Professor Jonathan Valabhji, diabetes and obesity chief at NHS England, said, “We have seen fantastic early results from the NHS low-calorie diet programme and are now planning to expand the offer nationwide.” He said the weight loss was found to be maintained at six months. The NHS has not given an estimate for how many people could benefit from the diet, however, Professor Paul Aveyard from the University of Oxford, said in a report that the number would be significant when 220,000 cases of diabetes were diagnosed annually.
If 25 per cent take part and 46 per cent of those achieve remission, it wold mean about 25,000 people saving themselves from type 2 diabetes every year. Professor Aveyard said, “Diabetes is no longer a life-long, incurable condition, which is very exciting.” The diet will be available to patients aged 18 to 65 diagnosed over the past six years. They must have a body mass index of more than 27, or more than 25 for people from black, Asian, or minority ethnic groups.
The study results come as hundreds of thousands of people with diabetes in the UK could be helped by a new weekly shot after t was approved by the drugs regulator. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has authorized tirzepatide, made by the pharmaceutical company Lilly, for use by adults with type 2 diabetes that is not sufficiently controlled by existing treatments.
