Weight reduction during a 3 weeks rehab stay in patients without or with add-on type 2 diabetes

What is it about?

Obesity comes with several add-on diseases, including type 2 diabetes (T2D), cardiovascular disease, cancer, gout, and many more. This paper reports clinical and metabolic observations on 560 obese patients, either without or with add-on T2D, matched for weight, attending a metabolic rehabilitation clinic (RC) for three weeks. During their stay, patients were offered a diet rich in fruits and vegetables (ca. 1,200 - 1,600 kcal per day) and sporting activities/physical exercise (hiking, swimming, gymnastics) equivalent to an energy expenditure of 400 - 600 kcal per day. Medical examinations (clinical and lab tests permitting calculation of risk scores) were performed at admission and at the end of the patients’ 3 weeks stay at the RC. Thereby, it was shown that those with add-on type 2 diabetes had significantly worse liver test values and more marked signs of inflammation than patients without T2D. This also applies to ABSI, a risk score for premature death, which was higher in patients with T2D than in those with plain obesity only. Nevertheless, both patient groups were able to significantly improve not only body weight but also their tested clinical and metabolic variables and the calculated medical risk scores at low cost if compared with that encountered in standard hospitals.

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Why is it important?

The importance of our observations rests in the fact that i) obese patients, both without and with type 2 diabetes, respond even to simple and moderate changes in lifestyle with a substantial improvement of their health condition, and ii) such short-term exposure to an adapted lifestyle at low cost could well serve as an appropriate clinical tool to imprint patients with type 2 diabetes to adapt their lifestyle habits at home accordingly and thereby achieve long-term betterment of their respective clinical condition.

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