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Diabetes Reversal

Do you think type II diabetes can be reversed?

  • Total voters
    64
  • Poll closed .
Sometimes I get the feeling that this is looked at as a Competition

Dismal failure here.

No medication, HbA1c of 22, FBG's solidly in the 4's. post meal readings always well below the recommendations, but I've still got T2D, and always will, so the Lifestyle I have adopted to get my BG under control will have to continue.
 
I totally agree that Diabetes can be defeated. I used to take 3x500mg Glucophage and 3x Diaglucide per day. I now follow the LCHP diet and within a few days I stopped all medication. I also exercise for approx. 30 minutes per day. I read a book called 'Diabetes Defeated' by Manogran Govender and this inspired me to follow the LCHP diet.
 

Defeated or controlled/managed?
 
I personally feel that 'reversed' and 'cured' are not altogether helpful words, I have controlled my diabetes down from using multiple daily injections of insulin and metformin to just metformin and I am now free of all diabetes medication altogether and eat a pretty normal diet.

But I still dont eat any white bread or highly processed potatoes ie mashed etc and I only rarely eat pasta now, my hba1c's have been in the mid to low 5% for something like 7 years now but I am acutely aware that if I put back the weight I lost and started to eat the lousy diet that I used to eat then I am sure my diabetes would return, so I am more conservative with my use of words and prefer to say that I am well controlled but not necessarily cured and to me reversed seems to indicate a cure.

Its just semantics I guess but I see no point in kidding myself and the stigma being a diabetic has never bothered me it just scared me into losing weight and controlling it
 
I've managed, since February 2016 to go from a high BG of 20+ down to a regular 4.5-7MMOL, depending on fasting/eating. My GP is astounded by my HBA1C results (30) and is more than happy to reduce my Metformin from 2000Mg a day to 1000Mg a day, with a view to further reductions in 4-6 months.

Perhaps i'm lucky, I made lifestyle changes, made dietary changes (low carb, low calorie, low sugar, low salt - but not exactly LCHF) - swapped Beer/Cider for Red Wine, and cut the Takeaways, Pizza and other rubbish, for a more simple, Salad + Meat (chicken/Beef) based diet. Chocolate is Lindt Dark, and in small amounts, and pretty much cut out Potato, Rice, and Pasta.

Wont work for everyone, but i can control things, occasionally want Chips, but i avoid that by getting Tesco Sweet Potato Fries instead. Not eaten a Potato in 6 months, no Crisps, No Junk. The most i allow is a pork Pie, but only the meat bit, everything else goes in the bin

I'm not perfect, i don't always stick to the rules, and i do "Punish" myself when i have been bad, but it's working.
 
I personaly had no success with low fat or low gi foods as my BS response was always in double figures. Now LCHF my Hba1c has been 5.3% for about a year. Whilst this is in the normal range i'm happy to continue on 2 metformin a day for other health benefits other than my diabetes. Whether this is considered controlled or reversed I really do not care. however for newly diagnosed I would always say you can live your life with no limitations. Had I not been diagnosed type 2 I would have continued with quite an unhealthy lifestyle to the one I now live, the outcome of which may have been far more serious than type 2. I consider myself to be a very lucky man.
 
Doesn't your doctor want to take the pills off you?
 
Yup, you sure are. You are not the only one either. It's just marvelous what you can achieve when you get a wake up call. I think one thing that is not given enough credit for weight loss/remission etc, is the importance of a good exercise routine with a solid resistance component. Glad you mentioned that metformin is not all evil.
Best of luck with your current regime.
 
dbr10 said:
Doesn't your doctor want to take the pills off you?
Click to expand...
Hi dbr10. The doctor is still probably a bit humble as, after a good 8 years of their (NHS) treatment my health was in serious decline and he advised me insulin was the next step. I did some research June 15 and decided upon LCHF and upon further research came of the statins much to the doctors disdain. Here I am 14 months or so later with my memory back the aches and pains gone and good blood sugar control. He will not admit he was wrong but he knows that I know that for me his standard treatment was heading me to disaster. So no he will not be taking my meds off me as I told him I also disagree with the NHS guideline around blood sugar levels for diabetics etc. That however, is another story. Incidentally when I came of the statins my cholesterol did go up to around 7 (total) but my HDL went from 0.8 to 1.5. Its now at 6.4 (total) but to be honest after reading the Ancel Keys debacle i'm not overly fussed around cholesterol just hedging my bets a little
 
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hi, and yes I weight train 3 times per week as reducing my insulin resistance is an absolute priority in order to get the most from the insulin I produce. My initial goal for weight training was to bench press my own weight (down from an initial 108kilos to a now much healthier 80kilos) I can now bench my own weight easily. Whilst I wouldn't necessarily advocate exercise for weight loss it is absolutely necessary for healthfulness.
 
Sorry but I don't exercise at all apart from walking the dog most days.. still lost a shed load of weight. Its all about diet really. Exercise makes you healthier not thinner imho.
 
Hi. Thanks for your reply. I think your experience mirrors that of many others here - certainly mine. I am convinced that the HCLF diet advice and the lack of intensive care when it comes to medication guarantees progression to serious complications. Also the post meal BG guidelines are higher than those needed to slow down progression.
Been arguing with every doctor and nurse at the practice for over a year now about them wanting to take the metformin off me.
 

It appears that visceral weight loss can be best targeted through severe calorie restriction. (I guess this logically makes sense - put very little in, and the liver is the first place that is accessed to fuel the body)
Have you seen this movie? Approx 20mins in, there is an interesting graph (if you think graphs can be interesting!) which shows a 30% reduction in liver fat content over a period of 8 weeks of severe calorie restriction. Fat levels in the pancreas fall too.
I think it's pretty interesting...

(Apologies, I began another thread and poll around diabetes reversal - I'm just catching up with the fact there's a thread already running!)
 
There is a thread for Success stories, on there you will find many stories of people putting their diabetes into reversal/remission - including mine. I had been diagnosed type 2 for 9.5 years when I normalised my bg levels by eating lchf and upping my exercise to 2x 40mins walk per day. Good luck!
 
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