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How to achieve Remission?
- Thread starter Muktar
- Start Date
- Messages
- 4,074
- Type of diabetes
- Treatment type
- Diet only
Hi Muktar and welcome to the forums.
Remission is a tricky subject. It's been made more complicated recently because there's now been "international agreement" on what 'remission' will mean in future. This group proposed ‘remission’ as the most appropriate descriptive term (rather than "reversal" or "cure"), and HbA1c <48 mmol/mol (6.5%) measured at least 3 months after cessation of glucose-lowering medication as the usual diagnostic criterion. Here's a link to the paper:
link.springer.com
The problem with this is that this would have defined me as "in remission" while I was still having severe diabetic symptoms. In other words, I don't think this is a definition for patients, but for medical bureaucracies. It's the loosest definition of "remission" I've ever seen. I would expect the "number of patients achieving remission" to rise a lot, which looks good but might not be useful for patients.
In contrast, my GP practice (in 2020) used a definition of remission being one year without glucose-lowering medication, and normal (ie HbA1c less than 42) blood glucose readings for the entire year. Much tougher but better from this patient's point of view.
I got there by doing one thing - reducing the amount of carbohydrate in my diet to 20g or less a day. This means no bread, rice, pastry, pasta (anything flour based really), sugar, most fruit, and root vegetables. I also cut back on beans, lentils and legumes, but I've since found I can handle a small amount of these. I use a glucose meter to test for the impact of foods and food combinations, and cut out anything that provokes an unacceptable rise in BG.
Exercise didn't feature - I'm exercising now because I enjoy it and want to, but it played no part in my blood sugar regulation or weight loss.
There is more than one way to do this and you need to find the thing that works for you. If you read the "Success Stories" part of the forum you'll see accounts from many people about what they did.
Best of luck.
Remission is a tricky subject. It's been made more complicated recently because there's now been "international agreement" on what 'remission' will mean in future. This group proposed ‘remission’ as the most appropriate descriptive term (rather than "reversal" or "cure"), and HbA1c <48 mmol/mol (6.5%) measured at least 3 months after cessation of glucose-lowering medication as the usual diagnostic criterion. Here's a link to the paper:
Consensus report: definition and interpretation of remission in type 2 diabetes - Diabetologia
Improvement of glucose levels into the normal range can occur in some people living with diabetes, either spontaneously or after medical interventions, and in some cases can persist after withdrawal of glucose-lowering pharmacotherapy. Such sustained improvement may now be occurring more often...
link.springer.com
The problem with this is that this would have defined me as "in remission" while I was still having severe diabetic symptoms. In other words, I don't think this is a definition for patients, but for medical bureaucracies. It's the loosest definition of "remission" I've ever seen. I would expect the "number of patients achieving remission" to rise a lot, which looks good but might not be useful for patients.
In contrast, my GP practice (in 2020) used a definition of remission being one year without glucose-lowering medication, and normal (ie HbA1c less than 42) blood glucose readings for the entire year. Much tougher but better from this patient's point of view.
I got there by doing one thing - reducing the amount of carbohydrate in my diet to 20g or less a day. This means no bread, rice, pastry, pasta (anything flour based really), sugar, most fruit, and root vegetables. I also cut back on beans, lentils and legumes, but I've since found I can handle a small amount of these. I use a glucose meter to test for the impact of foods and food combinations, and cut out anything that provokes an unacceptable rise in BG.
Exercise didn't feature - I'm exercising now because I enjoy it and want to, but it played no part in my blood sugar regulation or weight loss.
There is more than one way to do this and you need to find the thing that works for you. If you read the "Success Stories" part of the forum you'll see accounts from many people about what they did.
Best of luck.
