Low-calorie diet boosts heart function in type 2 diabetes patients

December 2nd, 2011 by Ryan Luce No Comments

written by Michael O’Leary

Dr. Sebastiaan Hammer

Severely restricting calorie intake eliminated the need for insulin and resulted in improved heart function in obese patients with type 2 diabetes, according to a study presented yesterday at the annual meeting of theRadiological Society of North America being held in Chicago this week.

Before going on a crash diet, however, the researchers, led by Dr. Sebastiaan Hammer of the Department of Radiology at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, warn that not all type 2 diabetes patients should opt for this type of therapy, and should consult their doctors before starting such a diet.

“It is of utmost importance to follow such a complicated intervention under strict medical supervision,” Hammer said in a prepared statement, “especially as patients may be able to stop all anti-diabetic therapy from day one.”

The small study involved 15 patients, seven men and 8 women, with type 2 diabetes who were restricted to 500 calories per day for four months under close supervision. Before starting the diet and at the end of four months, the amount of fat surrounding the heart was measured via magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), along with a number of other measures including body mass index (BMI) and indicators of heart function.

The diet resulted in a decrease in BMI from average of 35.3 at the start of the study to an average of 27.5 after four months. The amount of fat surrounding the heart decreased from an average of 39 milliliters (ml) to 31 ml.

After following them for 14 months of eating a regular diet the average BMI increased to 31.7, but the amount of fat surrounding the heart increased only slightly to 32 ml.

Hammer told Corengi by e-mail that the study confirmed earlier findings regarding weight loss and insulin.

“All patients used insulin before the study, which was stopped on day one when they started the diet,” Hammer said. “Due to the weight loss after four months, when patients started to eat normally again, none of them was in need of insulin. At 18 months, four out of 15 patients need insulin again, probably due to the increase in bodyweight. The effects of a low calorie diet in these kinds of patients on eliminating insulin dependence, are however, already known. The new finding of the present study is that the associated initial improvements in heart function after the diet are sustainable at 18 months of follow up after more than one year without any dietary restrictions.”

Hammer pointed out that these findings stress the importance of including imaging strategies in these types of therapy regimens.

“MRI clearly showed all the changes in fat compartments, structural changes in the heart and improvements in diastolic function, making it a very effective method of quantifying the effects of metabolic interventions,” he said.