Hi Raspin,
I'm also doing the Newcastle diet and have reached week 5 today. I'm still taking 2 x 500mg Metformin everyday. I was going to stop taking it, but I'm finding it the most wonderful appetite suppressant, and it's really helping me stick to the diet, so I'm a bit reluctant to stop taking it at the moment, as I'm enjoying the significant weight loss!
I found my BS followed what the study predicts, after 1-2 weeks my fasting levels had come right down. My understanding is that it takes the full 8 weeks to then maximise the improvements to the insulin response, and that the glucose tolerance test is a way of indicating that. About 10 days ago I did a home-made GTT. I just bought a box of glucose powder and used 75g in water as the drink, as that seems to be a common recipe from looking on the web.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucose_tolerance_test
I think it's around 300Kcal for the drink, so I also kipped my normal shake for the morning to compensate a bit. I measured fasting BS at the beginning of the day, drank the glucose drink, and then took hourly readings for 3 hours to see how the BS spike looked. From various sources I think the fasting level should be less that 6.1, the +1hr should be less than 11.1, and the +2hr should be less than 7.8.
I seemed to be well within normal levels from what I could see, but it might be the Metformin helping? I'm not really exactly sure what impact that makes on this test. I was so encouraged to see progress made so far though, and it has spurred me on to complete the 8 weeks and gain maximum benefit. I will probably do another test this weekend and compare results 2 weeks on.
After the end of the 8 weeks I'll stop taking Metformin and see what effect that has. I also want to get my doctor to repeat the tests in order to confirm my own measurements. If the fasting BS, the GTT and the HbA1c all come back as normal, given they were the measurements used to diagnose me in the first place, then I'll have more confidence that it has been "reversed", or is "in remission". Don't really care what people want to call it, so long as it has the desired effect.
The funny thing is I have my DESMOND course next week (8 weeks after initial diagnosis). It'll be interesting to see if I actually learn anything I haven't already found out through sites such as this! Also be interesting to see if they mention the Newcastle study.
Andrew