Intermittent fasting improves health in diabetes patients

Intermittent fasting diets have become popular in recent years as an effective weight loss method. With intermittent fasting, you only eat during a specific window of time. Fasting for a certain number of hours each day or eating just one meal a couple of days a week can help your body burn fat. Research shows intermittent fasting can lower your risk of diabetes and heart disease.

Intermittent Fasting Options

There are several options for practicing intermittent fasting — these are the most popular methods:

The 16/8 method: this method involves skipping breakfast and structuring eat patterns into an 8 hour period followed by 16 hours without eating.
Eat-Stop-Eat: This involves fasting for 24 hours, once or twice a week.
The 5:2 diet: Consuming only 500–600 calories on two random days of the week, but eat normally the other 5 days.

The most popular intermittent fasting method of these options is the 16/8 which seems to be the simplest and most sustainable.

“Type 2 diabetes is not necessarily a permanent, lifelong disease. Diabetes remission is possible if patients lose weight by changing their diet and exercise habits,” said Dongbo Liu, Ph.D. “Our research shows an intermittent fasting, Chinese Medical Nutrition Therapy (CMNT), can lead to diabetes remission in people with type 2 diabetes, and these findings could have a major impact on the over 537 million adults worldwide who suffer from the disease.”

The researchers conducted a 3-month intermittent fasting diet intervention among 36 people with diabetes and found almost 90% of participants, including those who took blood sugar-lowering agents and insulin, reduced their diabetes medication intake after intermittent fasting. Fifty-five percent of these people experienced diabetes remission, discontinued their diabetes medication and maintained it for at least one year.

The study challenges the conventional view that diabetes remission can only be achieved in those with a shorter diabetes duration (0-6 years). Sixty-five percent of the study participants who achieved diabetes remission had a diabetes duration of more than 6 years (6-11 years).

“Diabetes medications are costly and a barrier for many patients who are trying to effectively manage their diabetes. Our study saw medication costs decrease by 77% in people with diabetes after intermittent fasting,” Liu said.

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Additional benefits of Intermittent Fasting

According to Mayo Clinic (.org) some research suggests that intermittent fasting may be more beneficial than other diets for reducing inflammation and improving conditions associated with inflammation, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Arthritis, Asthma, Multiple sclerosis and stroke.

Intermittent fasting is safe for most healthy people, but may not be advised if you’re pregnant or breast-feeding. If you have kidney stones, gastroesophageal reflux, diabetes or other medical problems, talk with your doctor before starting intermittent fasting. And finally Intermittent fasting can have mildly unpleasant side effects for beginners, but they usually go away within a few weeks. This can manifest as hunger, fatigue, insomnia, nausea, headaches.