When people go on a diet, most of them will say it is because they want to lose weight. But when it comes to diabetics, that is not the case - instead of trying to lose weight, going on a diet could mean curing their disease.

According to Dr. Sebastiaan Hammer of the Department of Radiology at the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, a low-calorie diet eliminates insulin dependence and leads to improved heart function in obese patients with type 2 diabetes. Hammer added that lifestyle interventions have more beneficial cardiac effects than medication.

The researchers explained that fat around the heart can be detrimental to cardiac function, especially in those with metabolic disease. With that in mind, Hammer and colleagues studied the long-term effects of initial weight loss by means of calorie restriction in obese patients with type 2 diabetes.

In their study, the researchers used cardiac MRI to analyze the cardiac function in 15 patients - seven men and eight women - with type 2 diabetes before and after four months of a diet of only 500 calories every day. In addition, their body mass index, as well as their pericardial fat, which is a visceral fat compartment around the heart, was measured.

With only 500 calories daily, a decrease in BMI from 35.3 to 27.5 over four months were observed. When it comes to the pericardial fat, it decreased from 39 milliliters to 31 ml, with an improvement in the E/A ratio, a measure of diastolic heart function, from 0.96 to 1.2.

After the initial period, an additional 14 months of follow-up on a regular diet was done. The researchers found that though BMI increased to 31.7, the pericardial fat only increased slightly to 32 ml, with an E/A ratio of 1.06 after the follow-up.

With these results, Hammer said that it is striking to see how a relatively simple intervention of a very low calorie-diet cures type 2 diabetes mellitus and that its effects are long term.

The doctor added that it is of utmost importance to follow such a complicated intervention under strict medical supervision especially as patients may be able to stop all anti-diabetic therapy from day one.

It is hugely important to be under the supervision of a doctor when attempting a low calorie diet. According to TheDietChannel.com, people who are interested in going on this sort of diet should first consult a physician.

Since a low-calorie diet only allows 800 calories or less a day, it should be overseen by a physician. It is commonly done for a relatively short period of three to six months, because anything longer than that could have serious health complications.

Following such a low-calorie diet does have a number of side effects. Some of the side effects are fatigue, nausea, diarrhea and constipation; however, these side effects do tend to disappear over time.