Researchers looked at two different calorie-restricted diets for people with type 2 diabetes who were also overweight or obese. The study involved 67 participants in the Netherlands, with an average age of 60 and about 56% women. They followed either a continuous calorie-restricted diet (eating 750 calories per day) or an intermittent calorie-restricted diet (eating within a 10-hour window and 1300-1500 calories per day) for 3 months.
Both groups lost weight and body fat, while gaining fat-free mass like muscle. They also used less diabetes medication. The continuous diet group saw improvements in blood sugar control and resting energy expenditure, but the intermittent diet group did not show these specific changes. Importantly, there were no big differences between the two diets in terms of outcomes, except that more people dropped out of the continuous diet group (19% vs. 0% in the intermittent group). Safety concerns were not reported, but the higher dropout rate suggests the continuous diet might be harder to stick to.
This study has limitations because it was a post-hoc analysis, meaning it re-analyzed data from previous trials rather than being designed from the start to compare these diets. This makes the results less certain. Readers should know that both diets showed promise for short-term weight loss and health benefits in this small group, but we don't know if one is better long-term or for everyone. More research is needed to confirm these findings and understand the best approach for managing type 2 diabetes with diet.
