Less than half a teaspoon of fat is all it takes to turn someone into a type-2 diabetic, according to a study that could overturn conventional wisdom on a disease affecting nearly three million people in Britain.
Researchers say it is not so much the overall body fat that is important in determining the onset of type-2 diabetes but the small amount of fat deposited in the pancreas, the endocrine organ responsible for insulin production.
A clinical trial on 18 patients with type-2 diabetes found that the loss of just one gram of fat from the pancreas could reverse the disease to the point where patients could control sugar levels in the bloodstream using their own insulin.
The scientist behind the preliminary findings, which were released at the World Diabetes Conference in Vancouver, Canada, said the discovery opened the door to a new understanding of type-2 diabetes and raised the prospect of better treatments and possibly a cure.
“We have shown that there is excess fat in the pancreas of people with type-2 diabetes that is not present in people without diabetes,” said Roy Taylor, professor of medicine and metabolism at Newcastle University. “If this special pool of fat is removed, then the pancreas can become able to make insulin normally.”
However, other experts have urged caution. “The implication that 'disappearance of fat from the pancreas' on an MRI scan has any real meaning for diabetes is largely unsubstantiated,” said Professor Stephen O'Rahilly of Cambridge University.
The Independent