Is diabetes reversible?

I think that one is open to many different opinions jdm. Personally I don't believe it is reversible at present, not the condition itself in the long term.

I know that people have obtained normal bg levels but the question is can that be sustained for life or will a return to previous eating habits cause a return of the high bg's?

Jury is out on that I think.

There are some who seem opposed to the idea that diabetes is reversible on principle.Those who have completed Professor Taylor's diet,with good results,would beg to differ.

You are quite right to say that once you are back on track you have to establish a new and healthier lifestyle,then hope the results you have achieved stay with you.

Exercise today:3 mile run,30 lengths swim,45 minute dog walk.Calories so far (2 meals) @1400.

youngmanfrank said:

There are some who seem opposed to the idea that diabetes is reversible on principle.Those who have completed Professor Taylor's diet,with good results,would beg to differ.

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Diabetes is NOT curable, once you are diabetic you will always be diabetic. Reversible? divine reversible? If you mean can you maintain low bg levels yes, lots of diabetics do both T1's and T2's but that is NOT cured, it is merely well controlled.

So 'reversible' is a word that is open to confusion, when you say "I have reversed my diabetes" many people will assume you are no longer diabetic, but you are, unless you never were in the first place, if you mean I am well controlled then perhaps thats what you should say, then there can be no confusion and no one will be opposed to the idea on principle

Sid Bonkers said:

youngmanfrank said:

There are some who seem opposed to the idea that diabetes is reversible on principle.Those who have completed Professor Taylor's diet,with good results,would beg to differ.

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Diabetes is NOT curable, once you are diabetic you will always be diabetic. Reversible? divine reversible? If you mean can you maintain low bg levels yes, lots of diabetics do both T1's and T2's but that is NOT cured, it is merely well controlled.

So 'reversible' is a word that is open to confusion, when you say "I have reversed my diabetes" many people will assume you are no longer diabetic, but you are, unless you never were in the first place, if you mean I am well controlled then perhaps thats what you should say, then there can be no confusion and no one will be opposed to the idea on principle

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I agree! (yes Sid you can be shocked :wink: ). I am on the Newcastle diet and getting fantastic results. However I don't believe that we can in anyway reverse diabetes, we can do things to give our pancreas a fighting chance and keep our BG low, stable and steady, but a cure - no!

I think there's a very grey area between being pre diabetic and being full T2. There is a whole spectrum between each extreme. To me reversing depends on how much insulin production you have left. If you are still producing a reasonable amount but its just not working because of insulin resistance then losing that resistance by losing weight can mean you have reversed to some extent or other. Does that mean you were really just prediabetic and were misdiagnosed T2? I really don't know. I would expect that in most people even if they do lose all the resistance they will have some permanent damage to their beta cells so they probably couldn't cope with a full on carb fest each day in any event.

xyzzy

I think you have hit the nail on the head with your post.Diabetes is a progressive condition in that your insulin insensitivity gets worse and at particular points the medical profession draws a line in the sand and says you are pre-diabetic and then diabetic on your current blood sugar measurements,however in practice the condition does not have these steps.

I have never agreed with Sid Bonkers point of view and to nail my colours to the mast believe that caught early enough diabetes can be reversed,and provided you change your life style,will remain reversed.You were not born diabetic,you most likely got there because of the choices you made in life.The Newcastle diet seems to re-set your insulin sensitivity and give you another shot at getting the balance right.I also detect from their posted blood sugars and weight loss that some low carbers have so restricted their calories that they too have improved their insulin sensitivity,suggesting that there is more than one way to achieve an improvement,the Newcastle diet simply being the quickest.Possibly the optimum strategy is to Newcastle for 8 weeks and then low carb and calorie count until your weight comes down into a sensible BMI.I sometimes wonder if some of the tight control that the low carbers achieve is in fact due to their having normalised their insulin sensitivity,and what would happen if they kept up their diet but came off meds.

Yesterday was awful,rain and wind,and I took the day off everything.I got up ate breakfast,cooked some lamb pasta meals for lunch and the deep freeze,went shopping,finally walked the dog for 20 minutes,came home for tea which was cheese and tomato on crumpets (!) and then watched TV until bedtime.I woke up this morning with my average fasting blood level of 5.2,indicating that in the background my insulin was working away normally.I could have even had the proverbial sausage,mash and beans for tea and still got the same result.What we all know is that based on my previous history if I adopted that as my lifestyle I would eventually slide back into diabetes,but not today or next week,but at some time in the future.

Some people have assumed that I developed diabetes relatively recently.I cannot be sure when it kicked in,but I had cataracts in both eyes diagnosed in 2004,and the first question I was asked by the eye consultant was "are you diabetic".It is a known complication of diabetes and I have no family history of early cataracts.I was not diagnosed as pre-diabetic until some years after that,probably about 2006 or 2007,so I guess I had been sliding down the slope towards insulin insensitivity for a long time in that cataracts do not develop overnight.

I think my final word on this would be to say that we need to define reversible.If you accept that diabetes is a condition which primarily arises due to your bodies inability to use its own insulin (intolerance or insensitivity),then to reverse diabetes due to this cause you have to improve your insulin sensitivity back to normal levels.In the absence of a medical test for insensitivity (?) then you can only do this by testing your blood sugar levels.When your Hb,GTT and Fasting bloods are all coming back within the NICE defined levels for normal non-diabetics then you have succeeded.After that comes the difficult part,guessing what caused it in the first place and preventing it in the future.

I actually think Sid, youngman, defren and xyzzy are all saying the same thing.

I believe the line that says pre-diabetes is about insulin sensitivity, and the pancreas having to over-produce insulin as a result. This ultimately damages the pancreas (kills off beta cells which aren't replaced). At this stage, we become diabetic (as opposed to pre-diabetic)
If you improve your insulin sensitivity by losing weight, exercising and reducing the foods that increase your BGs and demand large amounts of insulin, AND you do this before the Pancreas is damaged, then you can reverse your diabetes. So xyzzy and youngman are right in my view. However, so are Sid and Defren because at this stage you are not diabetic, so it's correct to say you can't cure diabetes; you have in effect cured a pre-diabetic hyperglycemic situation.
Once you do damage the pancreas, i think that is the stage at which you become properly diabetic, and you can't "cure" that as you can't rebuild the damaged (or lost) beta cells, but you can manage your BGs to non-diabetic levels as lots do.
I do also think that the pre-diabetic "cure" still requires, as already stated, a modified lifestyle to prevent re-occurence. The individual obviously is more prone to insulin resistance than some people.
So in my view, everyone is right :thumbup: but terminology needs to be better defined. You can possibly "reverse" pre-diabetes, but you can only "manage" diabetes.

youngmanfrank said:

You were not born diabetic,you most likely got there because of the choices you made in life.

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What an astonishing thing to say. I was born with a genetic predisposition to diabetes of both types. I'm not responsible for choices made about my food intake when I was a child. The choices I made as an adult contributed to diabetes in my case, but the same cannot be said of everyone with T1 or T2. Choices are only one of several possible factors. When I was diagnosed, some (non-diabetic) people chose to tell me their uninformed belief that diabetes "can be reversed". It was not only hurtful and inappropriate, it was also just plain rude.

But if some one healty and eat rubish will end up eg. diabetic, as we most of the t2 are

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Not all Type 2 diabetics become diabetic through eating junk. And many who eat junk and are overweight do not become diabetic. Some, like me, have a genetic link. I can trace back to 4 generations of my family who became type 2 in their 40's and early 50's, regardless of what they ate or their physical condition.

So just avoiding junk food can neither prevent nor 'cure' some diabetes. But it can help to control it by continuing to avoid junk foods.

I think, maybe, that it is possible to have long term control. But the pre-disposition will always be there.

If you are diagnosed with pre diabetes then making lifestyle changes may stop a future diagnosis of diabetes IMHO. I say may because a genetic predisposition is something that could happen regardless of food choices. Genetics, stress, medications for other complaints, other health conditions including limited mobility all have a part to play and I find it extraordinary that some people put it all down to lifestyle. That is a stereotypical image that Type2's see daily in the media.

You can go into "remission" whilst still being a Type 2 as many on the forum have proved but what the future holds is something that none of us know. We are giving it our best shot and as control becomes easier we can have an occasional feast but do it on a daily basis and we will be back where we started again IMHO. You only have to read about people being unable to make sensible food choices, falling off the wagon etc.

Correct me if I am wrong, I thought the majority of people who are doing their own interpretation of the Newcastle Study diet all had weight to lose in varying amounts and those who have finished emphasise that they cannot go back to their old ways of food choices. Many of us here who have lost weight by various methods also find that we do not have to limit ourselves as much as we did once the weight loss started working.

Following this thread with interest .I am type 2 diagnosed 3 years ago I was under weight and have always been skinny ie I have never been overweight. I always ate fresh food freshly prepared except for the odd take away .My mother developed DB in her 50s she also was small and of slim build My brother developed DB in his 40s he is of medium build and never over weight .Right so can I "reverse" my DB I cant do Newcastle diet because if I lose any more weight I will be invisible :cry: I reduce carbs and try to eat lots of protein and good fats unfortunately I have too much calcium in my blood so I have had to cut down on cheese which was my food of choice for keeping my weight up.I was advised by GP to reduce my Metformin from 1000mg x2 to just one 1000mg unfortunately my BGs have risen slightly so I may have to change the dosage after my next HbA1c in 6 weeks I am going to try to increase my exercise to try to lower BGs in the meantime (when it stops raining).So the norm for most of losing weight and limiting carbs is a no no for me and as I have got my HbA1c from 15s to 6.4 at last test I think I have got as far as I can go but I would be glad of any comments
CAROL

I believe that keeping BG NORMAL, mainly by low carb diet can improve T2. I can now tolerate a few carbs, which I couldn't some years ago. I'm sure I'm still diabetic, but my bg tests don't show it [meter average for 7 days is 4.8]
Also I've kept up this diet for a number of years and don't intend to change it. It isn't difficult now I'm habituated to it
Hana

I don't think diabetes is reversible, but you can wrestle it into remission. However if you let your control slip then it will rear up to bite you again.

didie said:

I don't think diabetes is reversible, but you can wrestle it into remission. However if you let your control slip then it will rear up to bite you again.

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That's how I see it too Didie.
It's knowing the difference between 'Excellent control' and 'Cured'-'Cured' would mean that you could eat what you like and your own Endocrine system would deal with your BG's efficiently like my wife who can binge on whatever she likes but I've never seen her BG go above 7.3.