Fasting-Mimicking Diet Promotes Ngn3-Driven β-Cell Regeneration to Reverse Diabetes

Researchers gave mice a 4-day Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD) and tracked gene expression in the pancreas, then tested repeated cycles in mouse models of both type 2 and type 1 diabetes. Separately, they applied fasting conditions to pancreatic islets taken from people with type 1 diabetes and measured signalling activity, gene expression and insulin production. They also tested whether IGF-1 treatment, or inhibition of PKA and mTOR, changed the results.

The authors reported that in mice the diet induced a stepwise expression of Sox17 and Pdx-1, followed by Ngn3-driven generation of insulin-producing beta cells, resembling the pattern seen during pancreatic development. They reported that diet cycles restored insulin secretion and glucose homeostasis in both the type 2 and the type 1 diabetes mouse models. In the human islets they reported that fasting conditions reduced PKA and mTOR activity and induced Sox2 and Ngn3 expression and insulin production. They reported that the effects were reversed by IGF-1 treatment and reproduced by inhibiting PKA and mTOR.

The restoration of insulin secretion and glucose control was observed in mouse models, and the human part of this work was done on isolated islets in a laboratory rather than in patients. No person was given the diet in this study, and it is not a study of Prolon. The word reverse in the paper's title refers to mouse phenotypes and to cells in culture, and nothing here establishes any effect on diabetes in people.