Hi Steve,
Type 2 diabetes is characterized first by a constant flood of insulin. Later, the pancreas can lose the ability to produce insulin. This final stage of T2D may be irreversible. It may not be, but this late-stage "level of progression" is the level which threatens T2D curability.
Low carb is the most effective standard treatment, more effective than medicine. But when a low-carb type 2 diabetic starts back eating even moderate carbs, the symptoms return. This says the low carb treatment level is somewhere above the cause level.
I admit to being a bit of a cause nut. Placing the facts together is a matter of theory. There's strong evidence that T2D originates in the gut. Gastric bypass is fraught with problems. But for some amount of time, it cures type 2 diabetes in every T2D patient who tries it.
Type 1 diabetes is strongly associated with celiac disease. Patients consume sugar, and the gut grows microorganisms. The gut's immune system reacts by releasing the protein zonulin. Zonulin makes the gut walls porous, and dumps the undigested gut contents into the bloodstream for the blood's immune system to handle. Somehow the digestive immune system loses acuity, and loses the ability to distinguish gut microorganisms from certain agricultural proteins .......starting with gluten from grassy grains. The immune system then responds to ag protein ingestion by dumping the proteins, undigested, into the bloodstream.
For type 2 diabetics the loss of immune acuity is confined to the gut. For type 1 diabetics, it includes the circulatory system. In both types, the undigested ag proteins mimic bodily proteins. They mimic endorphin, plug into pancreas nerves and cause a flood of insulin. They mimic insulin, plug into adipose insulin receptors, and inhibit sugar and fat absorption.
The immune systems of type 1 diabetics respond, and attack the pancreas. The immune systems of type 2 diabetics do not respond. Type 2 diabetics just get stuck with circulating fat, sugar and insulin. Their mitochondria can't get to the food to process it.
So at this level, the cause is ingested sugar and genetics-dependent ag proteins. Instead of low carbing, type 2 diabetics can identify the ag proteins they react to. Stop ingesting all sugars, and the identified ag proteins. It does what low carbing can't do. It starves the blood of the causes of insulin release and insulin resistance. It restores digestion, and restores mitochondrial metabolism.
But wade further back up the cause stream. Remember? The gut's zonulin reaction is caused by loss of immune acuity, a loss propagated to the circulatory systems of type 1 diabetics.
There has to be a cause for this loss of acuity. This cause lies in the mechanics of how antibodies store information on attacking antigens, pass the information to the spleen and thymus, and create antigen-specific antibodies. These immune functions rely on a specific chemical transport mechanism common to the antibodies, and the nerves of the thymus and spleen.
It is the Kv1.3 voltage-gated potassium channel. It passes information from one entity to the other by moving calcium across cell membranes. The nerve system which maintains the potassium-channel platform is the orexin system. It is centered in the hypothalamus. It is subject to attack by several nerve viruses. The most notorious of these viruses are herpes viruses, specifically varicella zoster.
A system-wide cure of type 2 diabetes would necessarily include treating all cause levels, including a month-long course of antiviral drug(s), like Acyclovir or Valtrex ......perhaps in combination with Tamiflu.