In recent years there has been a lot of talk about a diet capable of reducing blood sugar in most people with type 2 diabetes, namely the VLCD diet. This is a very low calorie diet, around 800 per day.
The diabetes mellitus diet menu includes only vegetables and lean proteins, in the form of protein shakes, mostly.
This diet, already endorsed for years by Dr. Taylor’s studies, has been described by Dcomedieta in detail or in numerous articles.
Click here for the study.  For the normal menu. Here for the meal replacement menu.
To work, Dr. Taylor’s diabetic diet works .

Already in the first two weeks, a significant reduction in blood sugar is achieved, thanks to the loss of visceral fat and in particular of the fat surrounding the pancreas.
But it has a considerable cost.

VLCD DIET FOR DIABETES MELLITUS: CONTRAINDICATIONS

• Staying at 800 calories a day for a full year at least, as required by the diet, is not a joke already for a healthy and normal weight person.

  Let alone for a person who is overweight, eating habits based on foods that he cannot give up easily. It is a type 2 diabetes which, being linked to insulin resistance, causes great difficulty in satiety and a desire for sweet foods.

  In fact, insulin is a hormone that not only regulates blood sugar, but also performs many other functions, the most important of which is the regulation of hunger. When insulin rises following a meal with carbohydrates, proteins, or both, we stop eating. But if we suffer from insulin resistance, we don’t feel full. I have met many people with type 2 diabetes, for work and in the sphere of friends and acquaintances: nine times out of ten, these people took drugs but at the same time ate excessively.

• In fact, the drug is thought to save us from the worst consequences of type 2 diabetes.

  And this often becomes the excuse to overeat or to eat foods rich in sugar and fat together.
  I will never tire of saying it: the problem of the type 2 diabetic is not (only) the food rich in carbohydrates or sugars. It is, much more, the food rich in carbohydrates and fats together : the large slice of cheesecake, the Nutella croissant, the four cheeses pizza, the packet of biscuits eaten like nothing, the french fries.

  

  Thinking about saying to these people, from tomorrow you are on 800 calories and continue like this for 12 months , means counting on their strong, very strong determination to want to change things.
  And this motivation does not necessarily last.
  So when you go from science to the practice of everyday life, things don’t go as you would expect.

• The other major side effect of eating an 800-calorie diet for at least a year is the risk of even serious nutritional deficiencies.

  For these reasons I find very interesting a new study that has found that it is possible to do a type 2 diabetic diet that lowers blood sugar without being so restrictive.

The diabetic diet that lowers blood sugar

In fact, researchers from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand have successfully tested an alternative approach. This involves just two weeks of a 600 calorie low calorie diet on a group of diabetic patients.

After this period, the diet continues with 4 non-consecutive very low-calorie (600 calories per day) days and 3 days of free diet. You can also opt for two days a week of a very low-calorie diet and 5 of a free diet if the subject has a normal weight despite having diabetes mellitus.
Or, after the first months with 4 days of restrictive diet, choose a maintenance regimen of 3 days of diet and 4 of normal nutrition with your doctor.

The important thing is that the restrictive diet days are not consecutive.

For example, for the 4-day model, you diet on odd days and eat normally on even days.
One third of the participants had symptom remission with this method, with blood glucose returning to normal ranges. Most of the participants at the end of the trial were able to say goodbye to drugs, especially in the case of continuing with the 4-day diet.
In all there was a significant reduction in blood glucose and insulin.
Clearly, the diet should be discussed with a doctor and with an endocrinologist or in general with a diabetologist.
Let’s see the menu on page two in detail.

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