It appears that people suffering from type 2 diabetes who lose weight shortly after their diagnosis is put are up to twice as likely to maintain control of their disease than people who keep their body weight at the same level or who put on weight, the findings of a new study suggest.

Researchers from the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research also found that even they regain the weight, as most participants in this study did, the long-term success doesn’t disappear.

"If you lose weight after diagnosis, you can achieve some long-term benefits in terms of blood pressure and glycemic control that extend even beyond the point at which you regain weight," said Gregory A. Nichols, co-author of the study.

The team of researchers tracked the weight patterns of more than 2,500 individuals who were recently diagnosed with the abovementioned metabolic disorder. They carried on the study in order to find the impact of how much weight they had gained or lost during a period of time, and then check how it impacted the disease.

They disclosed that most of them lost no weight during the study, whereas an estimated 76 percent were at a steady weight for four years, and only 12 percent gained weight.

After four years of following the participants, researchers found that those who managed to lose the most weight proved to have better control over their blood pressure and blood sugar levels.

The research was published online Aug. 12 in the journal Diabetes Care, the highest-ranked research journal devoted to preventing and treating diabetes.