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Asked by mim to Charlotte, hannahmoir, Majid, Richard, Sam on 9 Mar 2016.
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Richard Sulston answered on 9 Mar 2016:
Diabetes can be either type 1 or type 2.
Type 1 diabetes is caused by the body’s immune system attacking the cells which make insulin, people with this form of diabetes have to inject insulin to control their blood sugar. In this case, people eat healthily in order to help control their blood sugar but they will have the disease all their life.
On the other hand, type 2 diabetes is caused by things such as obesity and lack of exercise making patients bodies less able to respond to insulin. There is evidence that changing to a healthy diet and doing more exercise can help reverse the effects of type 2 diabetes and reduce some of the symptoms. Some people even improve so much they no longer need treatment.
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Hannah Moir answered on 9 Mar 2016:
Our perspective of what is diabetes is changing and traditionally we considered type 1 and type 2, and type two was an ‘older’ person condition, but the issue is it is a spectrum and the condition develops overtime, some children as young as 6-9yrs old have been diagnosed as type 2 diabetic. What happens is you start to develop insulin resistance and become ‘pre-diabetic’ if we can target this early with exercise and healthy eating, we can reverse this decline. Also if someone becomes type 2 diabetic, exercise and diet can be used to manage the condition without the need for medication. Research has shown exercise is and can be as if not MORE effective than the drugs used and the research I conducted showed how it can help without insulin. So there is hope to make things better. The issue is if left too long the condition becomes so severe that medication is needed. By keeping physically active and eating well, diabetes can be prevented.
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Charlotte Green answered on 9 Mar 2016:
Brilliant answers Hannah and Richard I can’t really add anything more here as they have covered it so well. Exercise is a very powerful tool and is even looking promising in prevent recurrence of some cancers like breast cancer.
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Majid Ahmed answered on 9 Mar 2016:
Great responses from the other scientists.
What I will add from my point of view as a doctor is that we always advise people who suffer from or are at risk of developing disease likes diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity to make lifestyle changes. Lifestyle changes can include changes to a person’s diet, harmful habits like smoking and drinking too much alcohol and increasing levels of physical exercise.
Lifestyle changes are always the first step and, very importantly, we still advise changes when people are on medication for such diseases and the combination of lifestyle changes with medication is better than medication alone.
In direct answer to your question, it is possible to reverse diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity through eating healthily and exercising more often (but this will depend on the cause). This is more likely when the severity of the disease is low or the person is at risk of developing these diseases. When the severity is high, these changes are unlikely to cure the disease, but making these changes can reduce the severity and the damage caused by these diseases.
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Sam Smith answered on 10 Mar 2016:
Really interesting answers from everyone. I can’t add much beyond these responses. Thanks for asking the question!
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