Eating a low-calorie diet for just four months can cure Type 2 diabetes

People who slashed the calories they ate each day had a far more significant improvement in the condition and in their general health than medication offered.

They no longer needed life- saving insulin, the level of dangerous fat built up around their hearts was significantly reduced and their cardiac function improved.

“It is striking to see how a relatively simple intervention of a very low-calorie diet effectively cures Type 2 diabetes,” said the lead author of the study, Dr Sebastiaan Hammer.

“Moreover, these effects are long term, illustrating the potential of this method.

“Lifestyle interventions may have more powerful beneficial cardiac effects than medication in these patients.”

The discovery has major implications because diabetics and the obese are particularly at risk of suffering a potentially fatal heart attack or being struck down by debilitating heart disease.