I see Prof Taylor has published his results and they are good. I only heard snippets on the radio news but it did say that an 800 calorie diet did work in reversing T2 diabetes. No mention of low carb or healthy fats but I am sure we will be able to see the full report in due course.

Hi s-g. There is also this article on the BBC News website, with a link to The Lancet

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42154666

Was just coming on to post about this too! Liquid diet it says.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-42241072/how-i-beat-type-2-diabetes-with-a-liquid-diet

X

He’s due to talk at an international conference on his findings within the next few days so hopefully we’ll find out more after that.

So, clicked on the above link and he’s apparently given the presentation so hopefully we might get to see that at some point.

The Lancet article pretty much describes BSD but with the Newcastle diet shakes etc – and uses the word remission/reverse – which people on here have achieved – not cured. The different impact of varying levels of weight loss on blood sugar was interesting as was the bit about participants being on the programme for 3-5 months, (I’ve been on the 800 cals/20g carbs for four months). I’d like to know more about how they managed the ‘stepped re-introduction of food’.

The best thing about this for me is the potential to change GP/Primary Care thinking for future patients. Let’s hope.

Marie

Sunshine Girl/Theo/Marie 123: thanks so much for posting this info and the link to the BBC article. Very exciting. As you said, hopefully the health services and GPs take notice. I am taking a copy of it to my GP at my next visit in the Spring. Hopefully by that time I will have lost enough weight for her to take notice. Am now down 22 1/2 lbs since mid Oct (big loss the first week like everybody else….about 2 1/2 lbs per week since). If I can keep this up should have at least a 45 lb loss by the time I see her. This diet sounds so scarry to those who haven’t tried it….you only wish they knew how easy it is after you get past the first week.

Hi Luvtcook

Yes, I’m planning to do something similar. Today, I went to the first of a two-session diabetes self-management course offered by the NHS. (You get referred in on diagnosis). It was actually quite helpful, enjoyable even chatting to the other group members, but the diet advice was pretty stock NHS dietetics advice e.g. the importance of carbs, you can eat everything in moderation etc. There was no discussion of possible alternatives. I mentioned Michael Mosley’s book but after I came away I wished I’d shouted up more about the BSD. So my plan is, next week, to take the info on Roy Taylor’s findings, along with the BSD book, and do just that.

I’m also going to bring them, to go along with my Hba1c results, when I have my review with the Practice Nurse. When I next see the GP I’m going to give her a copy of the book, my Hba1c results, Roy Taylor’s findings and some info about the Southport GP (can’t remember his name) who saved his practice £40-45,000 from their drugs bill through treating his Type II patients with diet.

Marie

Good for you, Marie. Hopefully you’ll make some converts.

BTW I think the gp you mention is caled Dr David Unwin.

That’s it, Theodora. I was thinking Dave Irwin, but then realised that was an old friend of my husband’s.

Interestingly an article in Times today focussed solely on the reduced calorie element and didn’t mention low carbs at all. I don’t know if that’s because the Prof’s shakes aren’t low carb or if the paper just decided not to focus on it. For me the low carb thing is more important than the low calories (though I did have to do 800 cals to get started). I also confess to not reading the original papers, only The Times and the BBC articles. Are they misreporting, I wonder.

JackieM, I do think you need both the low carbs AND the low calories to lose signficantly. I originally lost 30 lbs on low carb alone but then my body seemed to “figure it out” and became more efficient at managing on no carbs….weight loss stalled big time. I kept plateauing and could not break through a floor of 213 lbs.

Adding in the low (very low) calorie element seems to have given it no choice but to lose below that old floor. I have finally cracked that floor and am at the lowest I have been in 10 years, and counting.

I expect that once in maintenance you can add back a good bit of the calories (up to your TDEE) as long as you stick to very low carbs so as to not trigger the insulin response that is needed to store additional body fat.

The BBC article failed to mention anything about carbs, but I have not seen where Prof Taylor has emphasized that aspect much. His proscribed diet was stated to be “3 diet shakes per day and 240 grams of non-starchy vegetables taking in between 600 and 700 kcal a day for 8 weeks”. So it sounds like it was low carb per the non-starchy veg, but no info on the nutrient composition of the shakes those subjects were given.

It is unfortunate that the low carb element is not addressed, because nearly everybody on this forum feels that this is a most critical factor in how we are losing this weight and that low calories alone will not do it.

Hi all again adding my 2 cents – no where in Prof Taylor’s research or in MM’s book do they state keeping carbs under a certain number. I, as a veggie have very high number of carbs however as in Prof Taylors research did a short sharp shock of losing weight very fast eight weeks and yes continuing to lose more slowly as I watch what I eat and yes as per Prof Taylors have added in foods I had restricted. A little bit of what you like ie. chips yum, roasties, rice etc but only on occasion and much smaller amounts and yes habc1 down to 37. I get my bloods done every three months and weigh myself every day to ensure i don’t fall back into something unaware. I know we are all different but I believe that it is the weight loss done quickly that was the definitive factor and as a veggie GOOD carbs are very much a part of my life and certainly add to over 100 daily and I’ll always stand behind that. Trick is to balance it at each meal and ensure some fat and protein is included which is something I had not known before this way of eating.

Luckylinda, thanks for sharing that. Do you also fall in the category of yo-yo dieter with substantial weight that had to be lost? Many of us that have 75 /100 lbs to lose are finding we just could not do it without the low carb. You example seems to show something different. Its hard putting all the pieces together to try to figure out the pieces in this equation. Anxious to know your particulars.

Hi luvtcook – was never a Yoyo dieter but have/had a lot of weight to lose. Am down 54lbs and have another 20 to go. Other auto immune health issues have improved also so it works for me and finally very good cholesterol reading so am a very happy lady at the moment. Anything you want to know just ask – everyone was so helpful when I started this and got great advice but I also had to find my own path as the 30-50 carbs was just not going to work for me.

Hi there it’s interesting isn’t it – I know there’s no fixed amount in Mms book, but he does emphasise reducing carbs, I thought (I have lent it to a friend!) but says to quickly get your health back restrict the cals to ease pressure on the pancreas as fast as possible. But you would get there on restricted carbs alone. Or am I mis-remembering?

Regardless, this woe works really well for me as cravings and hunger and obsessional thinking about food have gone. And that didn’t happen on a full fat, organic omnivorous diet with carbs. I know my friend whose dieting to reduce fat round her liver using low fat methods is really struggling.

I was always overweight, unless I worked obsessively hard at it, until diagnosed as insulin resistant and have since lost 3 stone in 4 months and am now healthy weight.

It seems that what this forum proves is that the approach is flexible and you can try different things until it suits you.

I think in the first 8 weeks you will not find any refined carbs if you use the menu planner, you also cannot add very much starchy carb if you want to be around 800 cals and they soon eat (s’cuse pun) up the cals. What he does say is that things like pasta or rice should be seen as an accompaniment to the diet and suggests a small handful of pasta as a portion, not quarter of a plate.

I agree what some say about carbs being the most important part of this plan FOR DIABETICS not necessarily for weight loss. However, the press have not mentioned this. I also believe that Prof Taylors shakes will not be full of starchy carbs. In my own experience the initial weight loss in the 8 weeks shocked my body into seriously improving my blood glucose results, down from 8.4 to 6.2 HbA1c in 3 months. I continue with the no carb rule but not always the 800 calories although most days I do. If I go out for a meal, say once a month, I will exceed 800 that day but not touch the starchy carbs. I know I am on this plan for life but being diabetic for 12 years and on insulin do not expect the reversal or remission result any time soon. My plan is for another year. To be honest the alternative is too hard to even think about, going back to high BG, threat of amputation as I had already lost feeling in my toes – that has now returned. Possible sight problems, no names but someone on here had serious macular degeneration and told she would lose her sight, now cured. And so on. For me there is no alternative until medical science finds a cure – Oh hang on, what else is Prof Taylors research trying to do. I am sticking with it.

I agree totally sunshine girl if you are following MMs suggested menu plan very little carb however I had to adapt Prof Taylor’s experiment to my own belief system (I don’t eat animals) so my fish (tofu seasoned and wrapped in seaweed) would be higher carb than fish itself. My meatloaf(lentils nuts oats) would be higher carb than usual meat – so I had a lot of adjusting to do. I did cut out pasta and rice and root veg which were staples in my diet and anything refined and it worked for me. As I said in earlier post we are all different so we need to experiment with what works for us. What I have discovered is that the amount of fibre in unprocessed carbs seems to negate the bs spikes and I didn’t have to compromise what I believe in so all round happy camper 🙂

Hi Luckylinda, I am in total agreement but I was just saying that none of the newspaper reports have mentioned the lower carbs or even the higher level of ‘healthy’ fats. I also think that the low calorie in the first instance provides the body with the shock it needs to return the pancreas to some sort of working. So I am not discounting the low cal aspect.

Hi
Found this post via a Google search, having read the Diabetes code recently, I’m looking into everything low carb and any further information to help my type2.
A friend got me watching Prof Taylor and I am quite excited about recent BBC programmes finally realising that low carbs are working.
I’m tweaking things around my busy life at the moment, the weight is dropping and cutting food to a minimum works when I’m at my desk job and increased optimally during busy weekends where I need more to get on with house renovations/gardening. Lifestyle changes are great when you understand the science and control it.

Hi Cee66
I’m a fan of Roy Taylor’s, too. I knew of his work before I discovered I had diabetes so he and Michael Mosley’s TV work are what brought me here also.

I remember seeing a couple of Roy Taylor’s presentations (on YouTube, I think) where he talks about his research trials and the theory behind them i.e. the impact of quick weight loss on diabetes. I noticed in one of Jason Fung’s early presentations that he referred to Roy Taylor’s work. (I’m also a fan of Jason Fung – have you seen his YouTube presentations? ). There is a thread on this forum called ‘Take a Look at This’. If you type it into the Search box at the top of the page you’ll find it. It identifies a whole range of different resources that people on this Forum have come across and found helpful – like you say it is great when you understand the science!
Have you got the Blood Sugar Diet book, if not I’d also get a copy of that. I started doing BSD in August when I was diagnosed with diabetes (hba1c 106) and by November I’d got my blood sugars back into the normal range (35) following this way of eating and staying low carb (<20 g). There are lots of stories on here from people past and present who have achieved the same.
Good luck with everything. Hope to see you posting again. It’s a lovely, warm and supportive forum
Marie

it seems things have moved on since I first posted this last December. However, it has been slow. The media a really ramping up the low carb aspect with a couple of TV programmes (The Truth About Carbs being one of them) and can we really hope that the medical profession are sitting up and taking notice. The 2 programmes about diabetes with Dr Unwin and others will maybe make a difference even if it is just the money saving aspect. Report said the NHS could be saving billions. How true, I have saved my doctor about €300 a month alone and that’s just little me. Although the liquid diets worked well under medical supervision I think they need to become familiar with our real food diets and see how easy it is to go down to 800 cals. When my doctor asked how I did it I just said I no longer eat the rubbish part of the meals and eat more of the good stuff – more calories in chips than a courgette!!!!

Lets hope we are seeing the start of a low carb revolution, not just for diabetics but for the whole population.