I am on insulin for my diabetes and I am overweight. If I lose weight, will I be able to stop the insulin shots?
Encouragingly, the answer is yes. It is often a pleasant surprise to learn that you do not have to lose a dramatic amount of weight for this to occur. Even a loss of between 5% and 10% in your weight can have remark-able benefits on your blood sugars.
Some patients often experience a significant reduction in the amount of insulin they need after only a modest weight reduction. Lowering the insulin dosage helps to control appetite and further helps efforts at weight reduction. Lowering the insulin dosage reduces appetite by reducing the likelihood of hypoglycemia, which must be treated by food intake, thus limiting the success of weight loss efforts.
Unfortunately, even with such an incentive, the majority of people with diabetes who start insulin will need to remain on it, due to the difficulty of achieving and sustaining successful weight reduction and also to the fact that the body’s own insulin production may by now be quite deficient (see Question 43). Available approved medications for weight reduction are also seldom helpful long term, due to limiting side effects and lack of effectiveness.
However, patients who have undergone bariatric surgery (see Question 5) are often able to achieve sustained weight loss and discontinue insulin for the medium to long term. This approach is being increasingly used for people with severe degrees of obesity and serious health problems related to it, including diabetes.