‘Two-meals-a-day’ prof to drive diabetes fight
In the first move of its kind, the medical education department appointed well-known preventive and social medicine professor Dr Jagannath Dixit as the state’s brand ambassador for tackling obesity and diabetes on Monday.
Dixit, head of the department of community medicine at Latur medical college, said his theory is based on the diet plan drafted by late Dr Shrikant Jichkar between 1997 and 2004. “Unfortunately Dr Jichkar is no more, but I decided to take his research further,” said Dixit. Since increase of insulin in blood, usually released after meals, triggers obesity, insulin-resistance and type-2 diabetes, Dixit advises restricting all eating during the day to just two meals.
“We appointed Dixit as brand ambassador after we found that his diet plan to tackle obesity and diabetes is yielding results,” said BJP leader Girish Mahajan, who heads the medical education department.
Dr Jagannath Dixit, who has been teaching for 26 years and has won several national and state awards, explained that if insulin level rises in blood, it can trigger many health hazards (see box). Once insulin level rises, the body uses glucose for energy; and if insulin level falls, the body uses fatty acids. As baseline insulin secretion cannot be controlled voluntarily, one option is to control the number of times insulin is secreted into the blood after every eating episode. As more or less the same amount of insulin is secreted every time, irrespective of the quantity of food consumed, reducing eating frequency can reduce the insulin level. So, Dixit’s advice is to eat twice when one is hungry; in between two meals, one can drink water, diluted, home-made buttermilk, green or black tea (without sugar), coconut water and one tomato.
Dixit claims the simple lifestyle modification is effective in losing weight as well as diabetes reversal. “If one follows the two-meal practice, I am sure there will not only be weight loss, but it will help in controlling diabetes. Reversal of diabetes is also possible,” said Dixit.
Since taking over as minister, Mahajan has taken a lead in organising medical camps, especially aimed at tackling obesity, diabetes and kidney ailments. After naming Dixit the ambassador to spread awareness about fighting lifestyle diseases that are proving to be a huge burden for India as well as the state (see box), Mahajan told TOI: “We have launched a campaign to tackle obesity and diabetes. Dr Dixit has done his own research on the diet plan, obesity and diabetes. He has delivered lectures across the state and international platforms, too, and has come to certain conclusions. We felt it will be appropriate if we appoint him our brand ambassador, it will go a long way in promoting the message to fight obesity and diabetes.”
Dixit has been a tireless campaigner for weight loss and reversal of diabetes for the last 10 years, spreading his message through 250 WhatsApp group and other social media platforms. He has more than 50,000 followers from 37 countries.
