however in principle it should be possible for most type 2s to completely reverse it with extreme caloric restriction.
Just some anecdotal personal experience.
Having successfully ditched the Gliclazide and Januvia by cutting out bread, pasta, potato and rice so that my carb intake was down to about 40 gms a day (so my WeightByDate software says), usually, I was very disappointed when my Christmas HbA1c was much more than it should be.
Fortunately my GP didn't insist on more medication straight away although it became obvious it didn't matter how strict I was with carbs, my body was quite happy converting protein and fats to glucose. Thanks to the Freestyle Libre I cold see that was happening many hours (sometimes as much as 8 hours) after eating. Basically my BG was all over the place.
Reluctantly tried Januvia again but the side effects were a pain in the backside. In fact my BG was even worse when I took Januvia, much worse, so no idea what was happening there, so I stopped. The depression which might have been coincidence was awful, even a lovely holiday didn't help.
I came back from holiday on May 20th, 6 kgs lighter than when I departed, 3kgs was probably down to dehydration, despite drinking lots of water on the flight. I took the decision to have a go at the Newcastle diet, severe calorie restriction, but decided to go into it slowly. I found that shakes were making my BG spike and although I should have investigated further to find something suitable decided to go without. Then I removed protein from lunch (had usually been chicken or fish), then removed protein from dinner (all meats, Quorn).
The one thing I have noticed is that my BG is now very stable and will even tolerate a bit of meat now and again, whereas that had normally caused a spike. So, still only in the 4th week and although I've not been ultra strict (I sometimes nibble on celery LOL) there has obviously been a dramatic improvement in BG levels. The weight has dropped off slowly but nothing to make me shout whoopee, I experienced much greater losses when I started low carb.
I'll keep going for another 4 weeks or so and then will try and re-introduce protein, bit by bit. As for complete reversal? Only true if I can eat the 250gms of a carb a day as recommended by NHS/NICE, otherwise I'm type II.