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WEDNESDAY, Sept. 30, 2020 (HealthDay News)<\/p>\n
Reversing type 2 diabetes<\/a> can restore the pancreas to its normal size and shape, a new study finds.<\/p>\n Previous research found that with remission of type 2 diabetes<\/a> through significant weight loss<\/a>, natural insulin<\/a>-production can return to levels similar to people who have never had diabetes<\/a>.<\/p>\n The new study is the first to show that reversing diabetes<\/a> can also affect the size and shape of the pancreas, the researchers said.<\/p>\n The study included 64 people with type 2 diabetes<\/a> and a control group 64 people without diabetes<\/a> whose pancreas health was monitored for two years. At the start of the study, average pancreas volume was 20% smaller and organ borders were more irregular in people with diabetes<\/a> than in the control group.<\/p>\n After five months of weight loss<\/a>, pancreas volume was unchanged in people with diabetes<\/a> who’d gone into remission (responders) as well as those who had not. But after two years, the pancreas had grown by an average of one-fifth in responders, but only about 1\/12th in non-responders, the findings showed.<\/p>\n Responders also lost a significant amount of fat from their pancreas (1.6%) compared with non-responders (around 0.5%), and achieved normal pancreas borders, the study found.<\/p>\n Only responders showed early and sustained improvement in beta-cell function, which is key to making and releasing insulin<\/a>. After five months of weight loss<\/a>, responders were making more insulin and levels were maintained at two years. There was no change in non-responders.<\/p>\n The findings were presented recently at an online annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes<\/a>. Research presented at meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.<\/p>\n “Our previous research demonstrated the return to long-term normal glucose control, but some experts continue to claim that this is merely ‘well-controlled diabetes’ despite our demonstration of a return to normal insulin production by the pancreas,” said study leader Roy Taylor, a professor of medicine and metabolism at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n “However, our new findings of major change in the size and shape of the pancreas are convincing evidence of return to the normal state,” he added.<\/p>\n Taylor noted in an association news release that large amounts of insulin cause tissues to grow or at least maintain their size.<\/p>\n “Normally, inside the pancreas the amounts of insulin present after a meal are very high. But in type 2 diabetes<\/a> this does not happen. This new study suggests that achieving remission of type 2 diabetes<\/a> restores this healthy, direct effect of insulin on the pancreas,” Taylor said.<\/p>\n It’s not clear why diabetes remission doesn’t occur in all patients who lose weight<\/a>, said Elizabeth Robertson, director of research at Diabetes UK, which funded the study.<\/p>\n
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