Weve known for some time that losing even a small amount of weight can improve your health, lowering cholesterol and blood pressure levels and decreasing the risk of type 2 diabetes. According to a new Australian study just published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinolgy Metabolism, modest weight loss has another important benefit: it can reverse some of the damage often seen in the immune cells of people who are obese. The study also showed that, in particular, obese people with type 2 diabetes can reap rewards from dropping just a moderate number of pounds. This is the first time it has been shown that modest weight reduction reverses some of the very adverse inflammatory changes we see in obese people with diabetes, said Katherine Samaras, an associate professor at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney and one of the studys authors.
Excess body fat, particularly abdominal fat, can unleash whats known as pro-inflammatory immune cells, which promote coronary artery disease and other illnesses. Another type of inflammatory immune cell, called macrophages, is also activated within fat tissue. To gauge the effects of weight loss on these destructive cells, the researchers enlisted obese people with type 2 diabetes or prediabetes to follow a low-calorie diet (1000 to 1600 calories per day) for 24 weeks. At the 12-week mark, the study participants also had gastric banding to further restrict their food intake.
