Recent research has concluded that two days a week of a medically supervised energy-restricted diet may lower blood glucose levels in adults with overweight or obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
While daily calorie restrictions and increased physical activity improve glycaemic control and induce diabetes remission in patients with Type 2 diabetes, these approaches are challenging to adhere to. Accordingly, researchers tested whether two days a week of either a very low-calorie formula diet or a “weekend warrior” physical activity pattern would be effective and more convenient.
This IDEATE study enrolled 326 Asian participants with overweight or mild obesity and Type 2 diabetes and randomly assigned them to receive a diet intervention, an exercise intervention, or routine lifestyle education (control group) for 12 weeks.
The diet intervention group received an energy-restricted diet of 790 kcal/d on two days each week, and the exercise intervention group performed high-intensity interval training (four minutes of aerobic activity, with a 10-minute total warm-up and cool-down) and resistance training twice a week (four exercises, two sets of eight to 12 repetitions).
Compared with the control group, patients in the diet intervention group achieved greater reductions in HbA1c after 12 weeks, whereas HbA1c reductions in the exercise intervention group did not differ significantly from the control group. The likelihood of achieving diabetes remission was also higher in the diet intervention vs the control group but not in the exercise intervention group, while body weight, body mass index, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels were more effectively controlled in the diet intervention group only.
However, participants in both the diet and exercise intervention groups showed reduced adiposity, liver fat content, and diastolic blood pressure compared with those in the control group.
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