Have type 2 diabetes? One North Dakota doctor says there’s a simple way to stop it.
The solution? Starving yourself–by eating fewer than 1000 calories.
According to Dr. Spencer Berry, a medical director of Medical Weight Loss Specialists in Fargo, North Dakota, he’s developed a diet that whittles your calories down to a mere 800 calories per day–and apparently, it works.
“The KE diet provides only proteins, fats and micronutrients and no carbohydrates or sugars, so your body goes into a state of deep nutritional ketosis and burns its own fat,” says Berry. “Weight loss is known to be the most effective way to increase insulin sensitivity and thus decrease the amount of insulin the body requires.”
The KE Diet, better known as the Ketogenic Enteral Nutrition Diet, is a diet often used on obese people to help them lose weight–but in this case, is used on diabetics as well. Connecting a feeding tube to the esophagus, a simple, low-calorie nutritional solution is fed through the tube 24 hours a day, controlling how many calories a person consumes. In this case, it’s 800 calories.
Lasting from days to weeks, this enables people to lose more weight–and in the process, lowers their insulin sensitivity. This, Berry alleges, lowers the need for diabetics to depend on medications, and eventually, could eliminate diabetes.
“This is where the KE diet has tremendous value,” says Berry. “Patients greatly reduce their need for insulin and may be able to discontinue it all together.”
However, not everyone is board with this plan–including Dr. Maria Pena, director of the Center for Weight Management at North Shore-LIH’s Syosset Hospital in Syosset, New York.
“In general, all diets that significantly reduce caloric intake to about less than 800 calories per day can be effective in promoting rapid weight loss,” says Pena. “However, the problem lies in making these changes sustainable and the answer is a resounding “no.”
Though the KE diet may help people shed weight and overcome diabetes, Pena notes, chances are high they can’t maintain this weight loss, making it likely they’ll gain the weight back. And when that occurs, chances are diabetes symptoms will re-emerge.
It may be effective, but it’s simply not realistic.
“To receive nutrition via a feeding tube is not a realistic long-term method of nutrition,” says Pena.
What This Means For You
It may be extreme, but according to Berry, it works: Whittling down your intake to 800 calories. Though the risk of re-gaining the weight is high, Berry still stands behind his plan–claiming the benefits outweigh any risks cited by other scientists. Want to try it for yourself? Consider asking your doctor about going on a calorie restriction regimen, especially if you’re overweight..
Readers: Would you try this diet?
Sources:
Feeding Tube Diet the Answer For Diabetes, Study Suggests – FoxNews.com
Scary 800 Calorie “Feeding Tube Diet” Could Fight Diabetes, Researcher Claims – Business2Community.com
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