• Guest, the forum is undergoing some upgrades and so the usual themes will be unavailable for a few days. In the meantime, you can use the forum like normal. We'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Prof Roy Taylor's work on reversing type 2 diabetes

DCUKMod said:
I think getting hung up on the 15kg/15% doesn't make sense. That's just the average for the subjects.

The following article by Richard Doughty illustrates it's a very personal thing indeed: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/may/12/type-2-diabetes-diet-cure
Click to expand...

Absolutely.

I'm surprised this video on YouTube hasn't got more views, since diabetes is such a common thing these days! Maybe it's because the video just shows slides while the audio plays a presentation by Roy Taylor. Maybe dancing cats would give it more views!?

Anyway re weight loss and whether percentage or absolute values are important, neither seem to be anything more than statistics which just show that: it's probably worth trying to lose weight for anyone who can safely afford to, because it stands a good chance of improving your insulin response. If you keep losing weight you may get lucky and have a very dramatically improved insulin response at some point.

So you could look at the first Newcastle study and get hooked on 15%.

Or you could look at the inspiration for the Newcastle study, which is the surprising remission rates after bariatric surgery. That will give a very different statistic: bariatric patients showed the biggest chance of remission at 20-30% weight loss. And bear in mind that these are likely to be very heavy people, so in absolute terms that's a heck of a lot of kilogrammes.

Not everyone can afford to lose 30% body weight, so that's another reason not to get hung up on the stats. The Richard Doughty article is a great example of the fact that even you are fairly thin and active, it's still worth trying, again so long as it's safe, e.g. you don't get unhealthily thin.

Video here, I'd say it's worth putting the kettle on and sitting through it all if people haven't already, but if you just want to see the stats Roy Taylor shows for bariatric patients, skip to 36:30.

 
Guzzler said:
Re the above video, how do they calculate just how long someone has had T2 before dx?
Click to expand...

I don't remember any reference to that in the video (but there may be). From memory there's something about the chances appearing to reduce in an almost step-like way at about 10 years (from diagnosis), but I don't recall it tackling the issue of assessing how long someone has actually had diabetes.

I haven't watched it again just now so I may be wrong - I just skipped through quickly to try to find the slide on bariatric patient remission chances.
 
AdamJames said:
I don't remember any reference to that in the video (but there may be). From memory there's something about the chances appearing to reduce in an almost step-like way at about 10 years (from diagnosis), but I don't recall it tackling the issue of assessing how long someone has actually had diabetes.

I haven't watched it again just now so I may be wrong - I just skipped through quickly to try to find the slide on bariatric patient remission chances.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I skipped to the 36min mark where he was taling about why he chose those who had had Diabetes <4 years. Hence my question of above. I was diagnosed a few months back but that does not mean I have had T2 for just those few months. It is a question I have asked before and I have wondered if of those who did not have great results on ND may have had T2D for a lot longer than was thought, just pondering here really.
 
Guzzler said:
Sorry, I skipped to the 36min mark where he was taling about why he chose those who had had Diabetes <4 years. Hence my question of above. I was diagnosed a few months back but that does not mean I have had T2 for just those few months. It is a question I have asked before and I have wondered if of those who did not have great results on ND may have had T2D for a lot longer than was thought, just pondering here really.
Click to expand...

I wonder that about myself also. My diagnosis is curious in that I worked it out myself - I had another issue which doctor's couldn't solve for months, so after a ton of reading around I began to suspect I had diabetes.

One thing I did was get a finger-prick glucose meter. Crucially the other thing I did was took 2 weeks off work, and spent every day walking up and down the stairs 10 times every hour and and doing 25 press ups, while cutting out all sugar and limiting carbs to 30g per meal.

So by the time I visited the GP to tell them I think I'm diabetic, I'd spent 2 weeks drastically lowering my blood sugar. I gather the HbA1c is influenced much more by recent levels than those 3 months ago, and it showed that I was firmly in the diabetic range. I'm pretty sure the HbA1c would have been a lot higher if I hadn't had those 2 weeks, suggesting perhaps I'd had it for a while.

For a few years before that I'd noticed some unusual health complaints (for me), many of them apparently more likely if you are diabetic.
 
AdamJames said:
I wonder that about myself also. My diagnosis is curious in that I worked it out myself - I had another issue which doctor's couldn't solve for months, so after a ton of reading around I began to suspect I had diabetes.

One thing I did was get a finger-prick glucose meter. Crucially the other thing I did was took 2 weeks off work, and spent every day walking up and down the stairs 10 times every hour and and doing 25 press ups, while cutting out all sugar and limiting carbs to 30g per meal.

So by the time I visited the GP to tell them I think I'm diabetic, I'd spent 2 weeks drastically lowering my blood sugar. I gather the HbA1c is influenced much more by recent levels than those 3 months ago, and it showed that I was firmly in the diabetic range. I'm pretty sure the HbA1c would have been a lot higher if I hadn't had those 2 weeks, suggesting perhaps I'd had it for a while.

For a few years before that I'd noticed some unusual health complaints (for me), many of them apparently more likely if you are diabetic.
Click to expand...

Interesting. As high bg is one of the last symptoms and the first for diagnosis then it seems to me that deciding exactly how long a participant has actually been Diabetic must have thrown up some conjecture. My only guess is that if one had a high A1c such as my own might this be an indicator? i.e does it take years/decades to get to that level or can levels that high occur in a much shorter space of time? Where is Ivor whenyou need him?
 
Guzzler said:
Interesting. As high bg is one of the last symptoms and the first for diagnosis then it seems to me that deciding exactly how long a participant has actually been Diabetic must have thrown up some conjecture. My only guess is that if one had a high A1c such as my own might this be an indicator? i.e does it take years/decades to get to that level or can levels that high occur in a much shorter space of time? Where is Ivor whenyou need him?
Click to expand...
Well I reckon levels go high pretty quickly when your body is starting to give up.

For several years earlier I would get a cold which would last all winter (never had them earlier in my life and not had one since sorting out my T2). I also had verrucas for years that I just couldnt shift but again they just cleared up on their own once my BG was sorted. However, 2 years before diagnosis my BG levels were normal
 
andcol said:
Well I reckon levels go high pretty quickly when your body is starting to give up.

For several years earlier I would get a cold which would last all winter (never had them earlier in my life and not had one since sorting out my T2). I also had verrucas for years that I just couldnt shift but again they just cleared up on their own once my BG was sorted. However, 2 years before diagnosis my BG levels were normal
Click to expand...

Again, that's interesting. My high level on dx caused none of the classic symptoms and only through learning from the information on DCUK have I come to realise that I did have symptoms but lesser ones that did not ring alarm bells. You know, of course, why I am interested in how long I might have been T2 before dx is because of Taylor's hypothesis that the earlier it is caught the greater chance of 'recovery'. I live in hope.
 
Fleegle said:
Not really if I am honest.
In one of the youtube video's he is being kind of interviewed by someone who did it and "reversed" their T2. In that video he says something about eating wedding cake something like "everyone loves a piece of wedding cake it is delicious"
There I also another well quoted piece where he says you might have to cut down your potatoes from x to y (which still sounded like a lot to me) but though I have read that too I haven't got it indexed.

TBH I have read and watch so many vidoes, research papers it all blurs a bit. Sorry I cannot be more specific - if I come across it again I will be sure to post the link.
Click to expand...
Try Youtube Freedom from Diabetes Prof Taylor 2017 at least potatoes are mentioned here as 3/4 or 75% of your previous intake. Elsewhere he describes eating ' two thirds of your previous intake ' after losing the 15 kg or 15% of body weight ..
In Freedom he mentions eating cake , go on , but not too much !
 
andcol said:
Well I reckon levels go high pretty quickly when your body is starting to give up.

For several years earlier I would get a cold which would last all winter (never had them earlier in my life and not had one since sorting out my T2). I also had verrucas for years that I just couldnt shift but again they just cleared up on their own once my BG was sorted. However, 2 years before diagnosis my BG levels were normal
Click to expand...
Hi Andcol Thanks for putting in the units, very helpful ,... too many posters leave that out
 
localad said:
Prof Taylors latest results (DiRECT) BMJ 5 Dec 2017
Click to expand...
So to summarise, lose weight and then keep that weight off by following the NHS Eatwell Plate guidelines to give a statistically significant prospect of 'reversing' diabetes, would seem to be the gist of the results of Professor Taylor's researches. It is hardly earth-shattering news.
 
ringi said:
It is earth-shattering when most GPs only see 1 or 2 people who have "reversed" diabetes in their complete life!
Click to expand...
Very true @ringi! Too bad the QOF doesn't incentivise data gathering for dietary control. They gather data for everything else, escalating medications, statins use, etc. etc. Maybe, just maybe, if data on the number of patients with dietary control was sought then maybe GP's might recognise that this approach exists and is working for many.

When you think about it, all of the guidelines (in the UK and the US) include lifestyle and dietary measures as the first approach, but nobody seeks metrics on the success of this approach. It always give me the impression that they are just paying lip service to lifestyle measures, before they roll out the big artillery - the algorithm for starting and escalating medications to treat this 'progressive' disease.

Of course, the metrics would have to be sensitive enough to differentiate between the different dietary approaches, such as: number of patients achieving dietary control following the Eatwell guidelines, and: number of patients achieving dietary control following a LCHF diet/ND etc. etc.
 
I have recently been in hospital for an unrelated condition. A doctor, asking me questions about medications I take, could not believe I was not taking any diabetes medication, and was surprised my random blood sugar at the time was in the 5s. "Not even Metformin" was his response. I had an almost identical conversation with a nurse who came daily to take my BG. Neither of them asked me how I managed it, and I could not be bothered to inform them. It was clear they have never seen a non-medicated T2 with normal BS before.
 
Bluetit1802 said:
I have recently been in hospital for an unrelated condition. A doctor, asking me questions about medications I take, could not believe I was not taking any diabetes medication, and was surprised my random blood sugar at the time was in the 5s. "Not even Metformin" was his response. I had an almost identical conversation with a nurse who came daily to take my BG. Neither of them asked me how I managed it, and I could not be bothered to inform them. It was clear they have never seen a non-medicated T2 with normal BS before.
Click to expand...

I would hazard a guess that if the overworked doctor and nurse were aware that you had lost weight to the extent that your BMI went from 31 to 21(as indicated in your signature), then they would draw the conclusion that your normal blood glucose was due to that. In other words, you are glucose intolerant with a BMI of 31 but quite tolerant with a BMI of 21. This would accord with common sense and Prof Taylor's researches, but why £2.5 million has been spent on Prof. Taylor in proving that this happens is something of a mystery to me.
 
Last edited:
One issue is that lots of people who have had Type2 strictly keep LCHF also take Metformin as they believe it overall benefits other than just lowering BG. A lot of these people would still have normal BG if they stopped Metformin.

Then there are lots of people who are prescribed Metformin but don't take it, maintaining normal BG levels with diet, yet no one knows, and any stats done on GP records will never pick them up.
 
Syd said:
But why we have spent £2.5 million on proving this is something of a mystery to me.
Click to expand...

The latest study proved that in a GP setting, using a normal practice nurse for support the "shakes based diet" work at least to some extent. Before that study, there was no good evidence that results could be got outside of a research setting other than by a few self-selected GPs and people.

So the study showed that if NHS spend the money in this way, they would get some results. It's a real shame that LCHF was not included, as we will all be told there is no evidence that it works, as no "approved" studies have ever been funded to find out if it works.

None of us finds the results unexpected as we have been exposed to people who have been doing it themselves on this forum. Most GPs only spend time with people who are getting sicker.....
 
ringi said:
One issue is that lots of people who have had Type2 strictly keep LCHF also take Metformin as they believe it overall benefits other than just lowering BG. A lot of these people would still have normal BG if they stopped Metformin.

Then there are lots of people who are prescribed Metformin but don't take it, maintaining normal BG levels with diet, yet no one knows, and any stats done on GP records will never pick them up.
Click to expand...

Of those that are prescribed Metformin but do not take it there are some that are only collecting the tablets because being treated with Diabetes means that prescription charges for all other meds are free. This is something that could bear investigating. I was very surprised when at my first appt with DN she explained the exemption certificate to me.
 
Back
Top