A new scientific review article outlines evidence suggesting that adherence to a plant-based low-carbohydrate diet supplemented with olive oil can be crucial in type 2 diabetes remission.
Remission occurs when blood glucose levels in individuals previously diagnosed with diabetes remain below the diagnostic threshold for an extended period without using diabetes medications.
The review, published in Diabetes & Metabolic Syndrome: Clinical Research and Reviews, focused on two key factors in type 2 diabetes remission: weight loss and diet management.
See Also:Health NewsThe review analyzed 52 studies from diverse scientific sources, investigating the correlation between dietary intake, weight loss targets, and success in achieving diabetes remission.
The authors cited the low quality of many research papers in the field, indicating that about 40 percent of the examined papers were at low risk of bias.
Using these sources, the authors compared the efficacy of the low-carbohydrate Mediterranean diet on diabetes remission against other relevant diets, including the traditional Mediterranean diet, low-fat diets and the American Diabetic Association diet.
The results indicate that remission is more frequently achieved with low-calorie diets and diets high in plant proteins.
Additionally, the review found that for recently diagnosed patients, the average weight loss needed to achieve remission – six kilograms – was lower with a low-carbohydrate Mediterranean diet compared to other diets.
The research also examined remission outcomes in patients who had managed diabetes for extended periods.
In these cases, successful remission was associated with adopting a low-carbohydrate Mediterranean diet and more significant weight loss, averaging eight kilograms.
The authors’ findings suggest that a low-carbohydrate Mediterranean diet has the potential to sustain remission and possibly achieve diabetes reversal in newly diagnosed patients.
Although the definition is still debated within the scientific community, diabetes reversal is usually defined as a complete remission lasting more than five years from diagnosis.
The review authors noted that in previous studies, complete remission was sometimes achieved with the traditional Mediterranean diet, often when following the diet was accompanied by significant weight loss.
Interestingly, the Mediterranean diet has been shown to reduce serum levels of advanced glycation end products, which are associated with insulin resistance, a critical factor in developing type 2 diabetes.
The review cited the Mediterranean diet’s impact on modulating advanced glycation end-product metabolism as a potential mechanism by which the diet supports newly diagnosed diabetes patients in achieving remission.
The traditional Mediterranean diet typically includes 50 percent of calories from carbohydrates, 30 percent from fat and 20 percent from protein.
The low-carbohydrate Mediterranean diet modifies this ratio, reducing carbohydrate intake to 35 percent of total calories and protein to 20 percent while increasing fat to 45 percent.
The diet excludes commonly used saturated fats, red meat, ultra-processed foods, and foods high in sugars and simple carbohydrates. As a result, olive oil is considered a primary nutrition source.
The review findings have not come as a surprise: olive oil is increasingly considered an important factor in mitigating the impacts of diabetes, with the healthy qualities of its monounsaturated fats and polyphenols providing significant cardiovascular protection.
This cardiovascular protection is especially important, as cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death among people with diabetes.
Extra virgin olive oil also helps reduce oxidation and inflammation, which benefits patients’ overall health.
According to the review’s authors, current evidence supports low-carb, plant-based diets as key to achieving diabetes remission. However, they emphasized the need for broader, more robust, high-quality studies.
This review comes at a time when diabetes is recognized as a significant global health issue.
According to the International Diabetes Federation, approximately 10.5 percent of the global population aged 20 to 79 currently has diabetes.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that 1.5 million deaths worldwide were attributed to diabetes in 2019, and the prevalence of diabetes continues to grow.
The WHO estimated that the number of people with diabetes increased from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014.
Meanwhile, the International Diabetes Federation projected that about 783 million people might be living with diabetes by 2045, a 46 percent increase over the current figures.
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