Diabetes affects 1.1 million Australians and costs the country $14 billion dollars annually. The International Diabetes Federation estimates that just under one in 10 adults, or 382 million people, have diabetes. This is expected to rise to 592 million people by the year 2035.
WHAT IS DIABETES?
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Diabetes is a disease that develops when the body either stops producing the hormone insulin or when the insulin that it produces is not working properly.
Insulin acts like a key to open the doors to the cells to let in glucose from the blood. Glucose is a form of sugar used in the body’s cells for fuel and to perform all different kinds of work.
There are three main types of diabetes: type 1, type 2 and gestational. Whatever type of diabetes you have, one of the foundations of successful management is healthy eating and drinking.
IS IT POSSIBLE TO REVERSE DIABETES?
Diabetes is a lifelong condition and there is, as yet, no cure.
While we haven’t yet found a cure, we know how we can prevent or at least delay the development of type 2 diabetes; it can be put in to remission in people who have been newly diagnosed if they are able to lose a significant amount of body weight and keep it off.
We use the word ‘remission’ rather than ‘cure’ because diabetes may return years later, either due to people slowly regaining weight or simply due to advancing age.
Clinical trials show that around 1 in 8 people can put type 2 diabetes into remission for 2 to 10 years by losing a significant amount of body weight and regular physical activity as a result of following a healthy lifestyle.
In addition, there is very strong evidence from observational studies that healthy, low-glycaemic index (GI) and low-glycaemic load (GL) diets may decrease the risk of developing diabetes by up to 45 per cent.
