Doctor 'cures' more than 100 type 2 diabetes patients with 'diet not drugs' approach
ITV News' Olivia Guthrie reports on how cutting carbs could be the 'cure' to type 2 diabetes
A doctor, who prescribes a diet instead of drugs for his type 2 diabetes patients, is celebrating the 150th to be cured of the disease.
Dr David Unwin from Norwood surgery in Southport began offering his patients the option of trying a "low carb" diet to try to reverse their condition 12 years ago.
The results of his experiment appear to be remarkable: More than half of the type 2 diabetes patients who tried the diet (51%) were cured of the condition without the use of medication.
Of the patients who had only had the condition for a year or less, 77% achieved drug-free remission. Among the patients that continued to need medication, 97% managed to get their diabetes symptoms under control.
Type 2 diabetes is a serious condition where there is too much sugar in your blood. Patients are five times more likely to develop heart disease or have a stroke.
Actor Sally Bankes, who has appeared on Coronation Street, was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes 20 years ago. Ms Bankes says she had a wake-up call when she was caring for her dying father last year.
"He was in hospital and there were all these people coming in to that ward in later life and 90% of them had complications with diabetes and the poor control of it," she told ITV News. "And I didn't want that to be me in a few years' time."
She began trying Dr Unwin’s diet and less than six months later, she is in remission.
"I'm three stone lighter," Sally said. "I'm off five of the tablets that I've been on for 20 years, which is utterly ridiculous... I'm just feeling like a whole new person."
Before launching his unusual approach, Dr Unwin had never heard of a remission from type 2 diabetes without medication.
He told ITV News he now believes he was practising "bad medicine", adding: "I saw type 2 diabetes as a chronic deteriorating condition... I expected over time for people to need more drugs."
Dr Unwin has developed a chart showing how many equivalent teaspoons of sugar there are in different foods, encouraging his patients to avoid any that raise their blood glucose levels.
He also monitors their progress running drop in sessions at his surgery every week to help them keep on track.
It’s estimated more than 4.5 million people in UK have type 2 diabetes and that figure is climbing all the time.
According to Diabetes UK, the disease costs the NHS £1 million an hour. Tackling the condition is a key part of reducing the burden on NHS budgets.
In the last six years, Dr Unwin’s practice has saved more than £370,000 on diabetes drugs. With the patients losing an average of 10 kilos in weight each, the surgery is also now saving money on weight loss drugs, blood pressure medication and statins.
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There are plenty of critics of Dr Unwin’s approach.
The NHS guidelines for patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes is to eat a wide range of foods, including healthy carbs “like pasta, potatoes and rice”, advising them to “keep fat to a minimum”.
Many NHS dieticians say there are risks to eating a high fat, low carb diet.
Dr Shivani Misra, an endocrinology consultant at Imperial says low carb diets have been linked to higher cholesterol levels.
"We know people with high cholesterol have a higher risk of future heart attacks and strokes," Dr Misra told ITV News.
"So does that mean that someone who does a low carb diet with high fat and then develops a high cholesterol, what does that mean for their risk? These are the sorts of questions that I want to answer and I don't think we know the answer to those at the moment."
Experts say more research is needed in this area before the low carb approach can be recommended more widely on the NHS.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which sets NHS guidelines, said its dietary advice is "under constant review".
The organisation said it will "consider new published evidence" - like Dr Unwin's - to see if the recommendations "need to be updated"
Dr Unwin insists his patients’ cardiovascular risk factors have all got better during his trial.
He’s now speaking to other NHS Trusts interested in replicating his results, potentially offering other type 2 diabetes patients hope for the future.
"I'd love it if every GP in the country could see as many cases of drug free type 2 diabetes remission as I do," he added.
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