AN MSP and a top scientist both insist that Scotland could overcome its growing diabetes problem by going on an 800-calories-a-day diet for eight to 12 weeks, after it was revealed more people have the disease than ever before.

Midlothian North and Musselburgh SNP MSP Colin Beattie no longer has Type 2 diabetes after he decided to take action and lose three stone on a radical weight-loss programme

And Professor Mike Lean, a human nutrition expert at Glasgow University School of Medicine, is behind the programme, called Counterweight, which is already available in a number health board areas in Scotland.

Both of them say that if every health board in Scotland “stopped trying to reinvent the wheel” and stuck to the tried-and-tested programme, it could save lives and the NHS millions of pounds.

Diabetes Scotland has just released figures to coincide with the start of Diabetes Week, which aims to raise awareness of the condition.

The charity revealed the number of people registered with the condition reached an all-time high of 276,000 last year.

About 17,200 of these had been newly diagnosed and 10 per cent of the total had Type 1 diabetes, with the majority of the remainder diagnosed with Type 2.

The charity also said an estimated 45,500 people were living with undiagnosed Type 2 diabetes in Scotland.

Lean said Type 1 was down to hereditary factors and being unlucky and there was little patients could do, but Type two was a totally different matter.

He said: “Ninety per cent of all diabetes is Type 2 and that’s because people are overfat. You can be overfat without being miles overweight, so people don’t notice it because most people are overweight.

“If you don’t want the horrible complications of diabetes you have to keep your waist circumference down – for women below 32 inches and for men below 36.

“If you have been diagnosed with diabetes, the evidence says you need to lose between two and three stones to take the diabetes away. Not tables, more exercise or fad diets.

“It is time all the health boards in Scotland stopped trying to reinvent the wheel because the Scottish Government has done the research. Let’s get it out there to everybody.

“The Counterweight programme is the best we’ve got and it has been supported by the Scottish Government. This is a good news story and Scotland is leading the world in this.

“If you want to turn that disease round and become not diabetic again you have to lose about a couple of stone in weight on a very well-designed, restricted diet that will get you to lose two stones in weight. Everybody can do it. They just need to bite the bullet and eat less for long enough.”

The Counterweight programme is a liquid diet approach that takes about 12 weeks to lose three stones in weight.

Lean said about 300 people had already been on the programme and now they did not have diabetes.

He added: “Many more younger people are developing Type 2 diabetes – people in their 40s who would hope to have at least another 30 or 40 years of good life ahead of them.

“If you develop diabetes in your 40 or 50s you are going to lose up to 10 years of your life. The reason for this is because you have a whole load of chronic progressive things happen to you, secondary to you being overweight and having diabetes.

“They have a catalogue of other things that go wrong like heart failure, strokes, fatigue, depression, damage to the eyes, kidneys and nervous system and it is also a cause of dementia and impotence. Most of the complications are impossible to treat."

Beattie went on a similar diet last January after being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and has managed to keep the weight off.

He said: “You can never guarantee it’s never going to reappear but at the moment I am within normal levels and I don’t have diabetes. I am in remission.

“I stopped my medication part way through the diet and by the end of the eight weeks I had chucked all the pills.

“One of the big incentives was that diabetes can do a lot of damage to you. It can make you go blind, lead to your hands and feet being amputated and conditions of the heart, kidney and liver.

“Diabetes is costing the health services about 10 per cent of its budget. If they tackled this and used this it would release huge sums of money. This one is within the grasp of every individual to do.

“I would say don’t do it without consulting your doctor because you never know what other conditions people have got. It is harsh, but it is worth the pain and at the end of the eight weeks they may be in remission.

“I lost 3.5 stone and went from a 40 inch waist down to between 34-36. I would like to lost another 10lbs to get down to my target weight, which is nearly 13st.

“I had an advantage in that my wife is a doctor and she was strict at home. I told everybody I was on this diet including the local newspaper, so I had a lot of peer pressure and I wasn’t going to fail. I feel good and better in myself because I’m not carrying this enormous paunch about.

“My weight crept up over the years and I was eating a traditional diet of steak pie and fish suppers, the usual things we destroy our bodies with in Scotland.”