What Would Count as a Cure for Type 2?

Grateful

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We know that Type 2 can be controlled with diet and drugs or insulin. But we know that even with good BG levels, we still have the disease and the high BG levels would come back if we stopped the "treatment."

So what would count as a "cure"? It would have to eliminate a chronic and progressive illness. A onetime course of drugs that reverses insulin resistance forever? A daily pill that, taken for the rest of your life, would have the same effect, with no side effects at all? Allowing a return to a diet containing "normal" amounts of carbohydrates?

For more advanced cases, the "cure" would also have to fix a worn-out pancreas that is tuckered out from producing excess insulin for years....
 

Bluetit1802

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A daily pill that, taken for the rest of your life, would have the same effect, with no side effects at all?

Taking a pill daily forever isn't a cure. It's keeping at bay something that will come back if you stop taking it. Akin to diabetes drugs already available, and akin to a low carb diet forever. It is still a treatment.

Anyone that finds a permanent cure will become a very rich person.

Edited to add ...... oh! and there will be a lot of very dead mice and rats.
 
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Guzzler

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Welcome back, it's good to see you. Your absence was noted. Hope you had a grand Christmas and may I wish you continued good health for 2018.
 

NoCrbs4Me

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I have normal blood glucose levels and am not on any meds. I consider that cured.
 

Guzzler

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Yup, a short course of pills that would never have to be taken again and meaning never having to be tested again. A bit of a pipe dream as Big Pharma makes most of its profits from people who are sick but not so sick that they die before they've spent thousands on medication. Healthy people do not buy drugs nor do dead people. Call me cynical.
 

NicoleC1971

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If the root of the disease is unsulin eesistance then a cure could be defined as being normally sensitive to your own insulin and rhus not over producing insulin. The anount of carb that can be tolerated before a disrase pricess begins again Diabetes is only orogressive if you cintinue to eat the foiods that caused the cinditiin in the first place! The amount of such foods that would cause the disease to orogress varies and in some with burnt out beta cells it may be impossible to reverse the condition totally I suppose you cannot as yet cure a genetic intolerance of carbohydrate but can determine the exoressiion or not, of that intolerance via diet. Esoecially since there are no 'essential' carbohydrates.
Is that what you meant?
 
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AdamJames

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We know that Type 2 can be controlled with diet and drugs or insulin. But we know that even with good BG levels, we still have the disease and the high BG levels would come back if we stopped the "treatment."

So what would count as a "cure"? It would have to eliminate a chronic and progressive illness. A onetime course of drugs that reverses insulin resistance forever? A daily pill that, taken for the rest of your life, would have the same effect, with no side effects at all? Allowing a return to a diet containing "normal" amounts of carbohydrates?

For more advanced cases, the "cure" would also have to fix a worn-out pancreas that is tuckered out from producing excess insulin for years....

Really interesting question.

One approach is to compare it to other illnesses.

For example: If someone has cancer, and needs to have a part of their body removed, but that results in the cancer never coming back, then some people would say they are cured. However they still have a permanently damaged body because if it.

Similarly if someone has a half-functional pancreas and high IR, and their IR can be made to disappear and their pancreas becomes 80% functional such that they can eat what they want with the same safety level of someone who has never had diabetes, then some people would say that was a cure. However they would still have a permanently damaged pancreas.

I don't think any answer is going to satisfy every angle and every person.

I think the best answer for all of us is our own personal one, such as NoCrbs4Me gives.

For me, it would be if all the following were true...

* I didn't need to check by blood sugars
* I was not on medication
* I could eat what I want (which unfortunately for me means opening my mouth wide while rampaging around a cake shop) with no more risk of the problem resurfacing than someone never diagnosed.

...and therefore it is not reasonable to hope for a cure in my lifetime.
 

Bluetit1802

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I have normal blood glucose levels and am not on any meds. I consider that cured.

But are you still treating it with diet?

I also had normal glucose levels and no meds but after being ill, a stay in hospital, stress over the type of illness diagnosed, and tablets that are well known to raise levels, I am experiencing higher levels. I don't like it. Would this happen if I were "cured" ? I don't know the answer to that.
 

Rachox

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A cure would be something that makes you better, like a course of antibiotics for tonsillitis.
You could only consider yourself cured if you had normal blood sugars whilst eating whatever you liked and on no medication

PS nice to see you back @Grateful
EDIT to add the medication clause
 

Boo1979

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Given that T2 diabetes is a disease characterised by metabolic dysregulation featuring relative ( compared to the ‘normal’ non diabetic population) inability to metabolise carbohydrates and presennting with the prime symptom of elevated blood sugars I would only see a cure as being something that a) fixed the underlying metabolic dysfunction and b) mainained that ‘fix’ in the face of inccreased stress testing ( increased carb content,subject weight, withdrawl of medicatin(s) etc). I would see anything that reduces the symptom of high blood sugars without changing the underlying metabolic dyfunction, as being control of the disease rather than acure
 
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LouWilk059

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But...if you had always naturally eaten a low carb diet and never had any issues, never been tested, could you still be diabetic and not know it?
 

Rachox

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But...if you had always naturally eaten a low carb diet and never had any issues, never been tested, could you still be diabetic and not know it?
I’d say no as you’ve never worked your pancreas hard, but it’s pure speculation!
 

Guzzler

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But...if you had always naturally eaten a low carb diet and never had any issues, never been tested, could you still be diabetic and not know it?

Interesting. Considering the Inuit, Masai and Saami tribes who were exposed to the western diet developed the condition and it being unheard of previously in their cultures. This is one of the reasons why I find the genetic predisposition theory holds water.
 

LouWilk059

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Interesting. Considering the Inuit, Masai and Saami tribes who were exposed to the western diet developed the condition and it being unheard of previously in their cultures. This is one of the reasons why I find the genetic predisposition theory holds water.
I tend to agree with your view, quite logical.
 
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Jaylee

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Interesting. Considering the Inuit, Masai and Saami tribes who were exposed to the western diet developed the condition and it being unheard of previously in their cultures. This is one of the reasons why I find the genetic predisposition theory holds water.

Hi Guzzler,

Wouldn't a diatary change to suit a "genetic predisposition" with positive results be more of a "reversal" than a cure..?
(Sorry to throw this in the "mix.")

Welcome back @Grateful by the way! :)
 

Grateful

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Welcome back, it's good to see you. Your absence was noted. Hope you had a grand Christmas and may I wish you continued good health for 2018.

Thanks. I was away for Xmas, then came back to a mountain of (most welcome) work, hence little time for forum. This, after many previous months of declining sales for my small business. So 2018 looks pretty good! May yours be good too!

PS nice to see you back @Grateful

Thank you.
 

Resurgam

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But...if you had always naturally eaten a low carb diet and never had any issues, never been tested, could you still be diabetic and not know it?
I think that I was diabetic for a long time, but as I was for long periods eating low carb foods I was never detected - when I went on the diabetes education sessions I was given urine test sticks to use, and never got anything but the smallest of alterations in colour (and I have acute colour vision) on two occasions in over a month of testing.
I am now eating the same diet as I used all those years - a little less carbs, but I have weight to lose. I would not be at all surprised if I got back to eating exactly the same diet as I did twenty years ago, and I might even get back to the same weight again
 

Guzzler

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Hi Guzzler,

Wouldn't a diatary change to suit a "genetic predisposition" with positive results be more of a "reversal" than a cure..?
(Sorry to throw this in the "mix.")

Welcome back @Grateful by the way! :)

Yes! Perhaps in the future a genetic test that showed positive for the predisposition could be an early warning sign and in the far future maybe gene therapy could put this to rights but I have a sneaky suspicion that it could be a cohort of genes that are involved. The science of genetics is still very young so I am sure both of these ideas (and they are just my personal ponderings) could only come to fruition a century from now. Too late for me and my cravings for Walkers Crisps, Prawn Cocktail flavour of course.