If you decide to go on any type of diet, you should consider your overall health and whether you have any pre-existing conditions. This includes undertaking intermittent fasting in an effort to lose weight.
Intermittent fasting is touted as having many health benefits, and one claim is that it can help people with their type 2 diabetes. This is the most common type of diabetes, which affects the way the body metabolizes sugar to convert for energy.
Many experts believe that rather than treating type 2 diabetes with medications, the best treatment is to adhere to a healthy lifestyle. The main recommendations are to eat healthy foods, be more active and lose weight.
Intermittent Fasting and Type 2 Diabetes
Excess weight and uneven fat distribution in the body are two of the main risk factors in developing type 2 diabetes. Intermittent fasting, an eating cycle that alternates periods of fasting and normal eating, helps you lose weight effectively. It helps you shed the excess fat.
At the simplest level, type 2 diabetes happens due to persistently high levels of insulin in the blood, which is a direct result of persistently having too much glucose in the blood. This occurs due to the regular intake of simple carbohydrates, especially sugars.
Intermittent fasting breaks this cycle. During fasts, the body is able to use up the excess blood glucose and insulin levels normalize. The body can then switch to a fat-using (for energy needs) mode instead of a fat-storing mode.
There are many ways to do intermittent fasting. One is called the 16:8 method, where you fast for sixteen hours and eat healthy low-carb foods in the other eight hours. There’s also the 5:2 method, where in a 7 day period, you eat for five days and fast for two.
Another method is to fast for 24 hours every other day of the week, going without eating for 24 hours – from dinner to dinner the next day. Many have found intermittent fasting to be easier to follow compared to other low-calorie diet programs.
With intermittent fasting, you consume fewer calories, which consequently helps you manage your blood sugar levels. When you take in fewer calories than normal, your body uses its stored fats as fuel.
While intermittent fasting does not have a set guideline on foods to avoid during the eating windows, it is recommended to eat healthy foods that are high in protein and lower in carbohydrates.
One small study involving three diabetic men revealed that intermittent fasting helped them stop needing to take insulin. That is a dramatic result because when many people start taking medications for diabetes, they usually continue for life, unless they are extremely proactive.
The participants tried intermittent fasting for 10 months. One of them was able to stop taking insulin just five days into the program, while the other two stopped within 18 days. The study results suggested that intermittent fasting is not only able to help manage your diabetes, but it also has the potential to help completely reverse it.
Should You Be Cautious?
Fasting while on diabetes medications can increase the risk of hypoglycemia where blood sugar levels can drop to life-threatening levels. One study showed that intermittent fasting can be safe for people with type 2 diabetes for three months. If fasting longer than that, the risk of hypoglycemia increases during the fasting days.
As such, people with diabetes are advised to consult with their doctor, and not to try intermittent fasting on their own. If you are a diabetic, you need to be monitored by your healthcare provider.
The full range of effectiveness of intermittent fasting in helping type 2 diabetes patients is still being researched. Larger studies are needed to draw a more accurate conclusion that it is effective and safe in the long term. Other experts argue that there are far better methods to address type 2 diabetes such as sticking to a low-calorie diet, rather than fasting and consuming zero calories during the fasting period.
However, studies and personal trials have shown that when followed correctly, intermittent fasting can be a game-changer for people with type 2 diabetes.
