Type 2 diabetes: 5000 patients to test feasibility of “remission service”

The NHS is to pilot a low calorie diet programme that can put type 2 diabetes into remission as the first treatment option for patients with a new diagnosis of the disease. The approach will involve GPs prescribing a liquid diet of just over 800 kilocalories a day for three months, then a period of follow-up support, NHS England’s chief executive, Simon Stevens, announced on 30 November. It will first be offered to 5000 patients before being rolled out nationally. The announcement followed a series of recent studies that have overturned the widely held view that type 2 diabetes is incurable and must be managed with medication. Most recently, the DiRECT trial, funded by Diabetes UK, showed that low calorie diets …