Research
Energy balance
VLCD does not prevent the development of type 2 diabetes or impaired fasting glucose in the long term (15 years) for the majority of participants.
VLCD might put diabetes into remission for a short time, but it rarely prevents it long-term. You must maintain a healthy weight to keep blood sugar stable.
ModerateRefutesMEDIUM confidence
Neither diabetes incidence nor diabetes free survival were related to percentage body weight lost during VLCD.
Why this rating
Retrospective observational data.
Source
Body weight, diabetes incidence vascular events and survival 15 years after very low calorie diet in community medical clinics in the UK
Richard Paisey et al. · BMJ Nutrition Prevention & Health · 2022
DOI 10.1136/bmjnph-2021-000363
cohort · n=325Cited 1×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Long-term maintenance of significant weight loss (>10%) following a Very Low Calorie Diet (VLCD) is rare, with only 5.9% of healthy participants sustaining loss after 15 years.Moderate
- Greater weight loss achieved during VLCD is associated with a higher incidence of cardiovascular events in the 15 years following the intervention.Moderate
Related findings · Energy balance
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