The Newcastle diet is a very low calorie diet - 600 calories, which was used as part of a clinical study by Newcastle University. Very low calorie diets should only be started with the approval and support from your doctor.
The diet gained a lot of media attention when the results were published in June 2011. The study, funded by charity Diabetes UK involved 11 participants with type 2 diabetes who were medically supervised throughout.
Newcastle study: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/diet/newcas...