Sorry no pork scratchings :lol:
The diet contained a total of ~450 kcal/day divided over 3 sachets of liquid food providing all necessary vitamins and micronutrients (Modifast®).
Sounds familiar :wink:
Here is a fuller account
http://www.theheart.org/article/1320297.do
The study took place in the Netherlands and the university has partial open acccess to a doctoral thesis by M Snel who co-authored the paper.
https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/handle/1887/17801
Reading the summary (ch 9) just shows how much spin was put on this for the press.
There were 2 groups, VLCD and VLCD + exercise.
They were returned to normal care after the 16 week diet.
The diet reduced weight, waist size, but weight was regained in both groups..
The diet reduced fat around the heart, this improvement was sustained at 18 months.
It reduced blood pressure and improved lipid. Blood pressure went back to baseline levels by 18 months, some lipid improvements were sustained. (better in exercise group )
It reduced glucose levels and HbA1c .
BUT
18 months after the start of the intervention both fasting plasma glucose and HbA1c levels had returned to baseline values.
At 18m, Several of the diet alone group returned to taking insulin(don't know how many were on it in the first place). None of the diet/exercise group had returned to insulin and they had better insulin sensitivity ... they had also continued to do some exercise.(3hr+ a week)
We also observed that it is difficult to maintain weight reduction after cessation of the VLCD.It seemed that the addition of exercise to the VLCD had long-term beneficial effects on glycemic control and QoL but not on weight loss
So the good news VLCD diet might improve cardiac risk (at least for 18 months ) Exercise improves insulin sensitivity (but we knew that didn't we)
The bad news: VLCD didn't 'cure T2. Weight lost on a crash diet is regained. (no surprise there either)
rewritten as summary (wrote it first time as I was reading)
