New Study Offers Encouraging Results for Younger Adults

By Annette Pinder

November is Diabetes Awareness Month, and new research offers an encouraging message: For some people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes at a relatively young age, remission may be possible with significant lifestyle changes.

In the randomized RESET for Remission trial, researchers studied 96 adults aged 18 to 45 who had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes within the past six years. Participants were assigned to either usual diabetes care or an intensive program combining a low-calorie diet with structured exercise.

The results were striking. After 24 weeks, 54% of participants in the lifestyle-intervention group achieved diabetes remission, compared with 4% receiving usual care. Remission was defined as an HbA1c below 6.5 percent while taking no glucose-lowering medication for at least 12 weeks.

The intervention was intensive. For the first 12 weeks, participants followed a meal-replacement diet of 800 to 900 calories per day and completed supervised aerobic and resistance exercise twice weekly, along with one independent exercise session. Over the next 12 weeks, participants gradually reintroduced regular foods while continuing to exercise.

Importantly, the benefits extended beyond the scale. Researchers found reductions in visceral and liver fat, along with improvements in muscle strength, blood pressure, triglycerides, resting heart rate, quality of life, symptoms of depression, and diabetes-related distress. More than half of participants with hypertension in the intervention group also achieved remission of hypertension.

The study is especially important because early-onset type 2 diabetes—diagnosed before age 45—can progress rapidly and expose people to decades of increased risk of heart, kidney, eye, nerve, and other complications.

Still, the findings shouldn’t be taken as a reason to stop diabetes medication or to try an extremely low-calorie diet on your own. The study involved a carefully structured, supervised program, included only 96 people, and followed participants for just 24 weeks. Researchers say longer studies are needed to determine how well remission can be maintained and how much additional benefit came specifically from exercise.

The encouraging takeaway during Diabetes Awareness Month is that type 2 diabetes is not necessarily a one-way street. For some people—particularly when addressed early—substantial lifestyle changes may dramatically alter the course of the disease.

Source: Kristen Monaco, “Low-Calorie Diet, Exercise Reversed Type 2 Diabetes Without Meds,” MedPage Today, October 5, 2026. The RESET for Remission trial was presented at the 2026 European Association for the Study of Diabetes Annual Meeting and published in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas.