News Tonight

A recent discovery made by scientists from Newcastle University has shown that previous assumptions about type 2 diabetes being a lifelong illness may be incorrect.

Diabetes UK funded the small study which included eleven participants with diabetes. For the study, participants had to keep to an extreme, low-calorie, diet for two months. This meant limiting their food intake to just 600 calories a day the researchers reported.

After three months, the researchers found that all eleven participants who had previously suffered from type 2 diabetes became diabetes free.

Although the study was small, it was still able to demonstrate that it may be possible to cure diabetes, at least temporarily, using a special diet rather than drugs or other forms of treatment.

This is big news for the nearly two and a half million people have been diagnosed with diabetes, the large majority with type 2, in the United Kingdom.

According to Roy Taylor, Professor at Newcastle University, who led the study, "This is a radical change in understanding type 2 diabetes. It will change how we can explain it to people newly diagnosed with the condition. While it has long been believed that someone with type 2 diabetes will always have the disease, and that it will steadily get worse, we have shown that we can reverse the condition."