NHS 'soup and shake' diet puts almost 1/3 of type 2 diabetes cases in remission | Hacker News Reader

NHS 'soup and shake' diet puts almost 1/3 of type 2 diabetes cases in remission

theguardian.com

30 pointsrobaato23 comments

It's the reduced caloric intake that does it, not the specifics of the diet. But also

> Patients are given low-calorie meal replacement products such as soups, milkshakes and snack bars for three months

Something that goes below the radar is adherence - when someone else provides you with every single meal, sticking to a diet is much easier compared to when you're on your own and every meal is a choice that you make. It would be interesting to know how many people go back to their old habits once the program ends.

A better title would be that the diet triggered rapid weight loss which in turn put the diabetes into remission. That is, the weight loss caused the remission, not some special ingredient in the diet.

Total meal replacement is a diet most people are sleeping on.

One good article I found about this is

https://www.mynutritionscience.com/p/total-diet-replacement

Total diet replacement has effects on the level of new obesity drugs. Adherence is actually very good

I would love the ease of not having to cook, buy food, to eat healthily

I did meal replacements for a while. Not a weight issue, but I was having major GI issues. They were a way for me to pretty easily control exactly what I ate in basically any circumstance.

I ended up getting tired of always drinking a shake. It just doesn’t hit the same way as real food.

I was recently diagnosed as "pre-diabetic" which was new to me. I have been put on an NHS funded program with an online mentor and weight monitoring. Obviously prevention is also being ramped up.

Interestingly my BMI is in the lower part of normal.

1740 people started the trial and 945 people completed it. Of that 32% went into remission. So the rate for all those which attempted the protocol was around 17.4%. Certainly the ability of people to comply with the protocol has to be considered part of the effectiveness of it.

Sure, but given that the half that dropped out would be unlikely to be in remission, the bar is pretty low.

These types of studies are thought. Life style is a huge driver of T2, but food is also a massive outlet for a lot of people.

That seems to be where the GLP-1 drugs really work miracles. They pretty much eliminate the need for people to use food as an outlet.

800 "Calorie" diet... Effective surely, but also probably rather hard for many. Surprised by number that managed. Also the difference between average and "some" number seems rather small...

Done that many times, or even fasting for days. I dont think it is hard at all. The trick, what most people fail to get, is the right food to intake. And perhaps the hardest part, taking quality nutrients and food during calorie diet is quite expensive compared to simply eating junk.

I have recently started making a concerted effort to eat better due to high cholesterol. My BMI is in the normal range, but at the high end of normal.

Given my recent experience eating better, I think junk is probably even worse than many people realize.

Refined sugars increase appetite astronomically. When I flipped to healthy food, I had a good few days of "suffering" as my body adjusted to lower calorie intake. After that, I never felt better.

My daily calories are something like 1/4 what they used to be. I lost 10 pounds in a few weeks without even trying. My mental clarity is coming back, which I thought slipped a bit due to age. Maybe age is a factor -- but diet fixed it!

Exactly Yes. It is easy for other to read on the internet, but to actually understand and experience is an entirely different thing.

We dont need to eat a lot, not even three meals a day. But we need to eat high quality nutritious food.

I wish the next frontier is actually Food Tech. Which to me may be even more important than Bio Tech. Make organic nutritious affordable with technology.

It’s extremely hard if your body isn’t used to it. It took me nearly 2 years to adjust my body’s response to being hungry.

In the past, I’d get shaky and crabby if I didn’t eat every 2 to 3 hours. Now, I can basically go all day without eating. I frequently feel much better on the days that I don’t end up eating until nearly dinner time.

>It took me nearly 2 years to adjust my body’s response to being hungry.

May be it depends on body type but It really shouldn't take 2 years. If you stop eating carbs and any processed sugar, and I do mean any. And that is with zero calories deficit. i.e Eating as much as you want.

Once you primed your body to know how to burn fat, and sustain it for a period of time, let say at least 7 days and does it regularly Your body will quickly adopt.

I think the key here is that you are not on a calories deficit but simply changing the diet. You can buy some small urine tester to test the state of your body. It generally takes me anywhere from 14 - 21 days before showing the highest level of Ketone. When I am on fasting it took me 7 days.

Once you got to that state, adjusting for Calories deficit becomes much much easier.

If you want a feeling of fullness once in a while to take the edge off your hunger, try foods that have less than 1kcal per gram. For example, sauerkraut, pickles, and any raw veggie sans any kind of dressing or oil.

Interesting. I couldn't find it; Is there a resource anywhere which could help show how to replicate the diet / meals?

One of the papers mentions using an existing commercial TDR (total dietary replacement) product:

https://www.one2onediet.com/

And a calorie limit of 8-900 per day (and some support from a weight loss consultant, which I guess I spires the name, the 1:1 diet)

12 weeks with a total daily calorie intake of around 800–900 kcal

I've been drinking ~1600 calories of Huel Monday-Friday for a little over a year, maybe you could try this.

Or even one of the many other food replacement drinks.

I personally enjoyed Huel back in version 1, or it may have been 1.1, but then it quickly swung into containing high levels of sweetener. More popular than other options, but if anyone else found it had moved into drinking cake then try some of the others rather than giving up.

I found the same. I would find my thing with Huel then they’d be out of stock or change it up.

Also despise their website and shopping setup. Everything is pushing you towards expensive, repetitive subscriptions.

Honestly I'd rather do a complete fast and lose weight even faster!

If you eat the normal quantities of proteins, essential fatty substances, vitamins and minerals (all of which would provide only around 400 kcal/day, way lower than the around 800 kcal/day recommended for quick weight loss) and you eliminate only most carbohydrates and non-essential fats, you still lose weight fast enough, but you avoid any health risks, including muscle mass loss.

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