Fasting-Mimicking Diet a Potential Diabetes Cure, Research Says

Weight-concious indviduals who tend to go on extreme fasting ought to rejoice as a new research shows that a kind of diet, named fasting-mimicking diet, could cure diabetes.

The new study, conducted by researchers from the University of Southern California, says that the fasting-mimicking diet is also effective in repairing damages in the pancreas.

Lead researcher Valter Longo told Science Alert that his team was able to trigger renewed development in the pancreatic cells of mice after pushing them into a kind of fasting.

A fasting-minicking diet tricks the body into thinking that it is undergoing fasting. This is done by eating carefully-selected food each day for a few months. Fasting-mimicking diet has been proven effective that, it in fact, it may even be able to reboot the key functions of the pancreas to restore insulin production.

This is important as both types of diabetes are connected with the body's production of insulin, a substance that's responsible in sugar regulation. Type I diabetes happens when the pancreas cannot make insulin anymore, while Type 2 diabetes is when the body becomes resistant to insulin.

During the study, the mice were put into some sort of trick fasting for four days every week over the course of a few months. It was found that this was actually enough for them to regenerate beta pancreatic cells, which means that their pancreas can get cells that allow them to store and release insulin.

When they applied this to cell cultures from human donors, the fasting-mimicking technique also helped them produce the Ngn3 protein that is required by the pancreas.

The fasting-mimicking diet has helped people lose weight and even reduce factors for cancer and heart-related diseases. The diet has also proven effective in reducing symptoms of multiple sclerosis.

However, the diet still needs to be tested to ensure its efficiency. The fasting-mimicking diet needs calories and some types of food that are very carefully measured in order for the diet to work.

Regardless, there may come a time that only a therapy or certain diet will be needed to cure diabetes.