Remission is good but is DT2 reversible ever?

Remission from Type 2 Diabetes is certainly possible by using lifestyle (even without any drugs and without any additional exercise). I'm one of over a thousand people in the UK have achieved this (as have tens of thousands worldwide).
Cure implies that if you will still be OK if you then start eating the garbage that made you Type 2 diabetic in the first place. To me this just sounds highly unlikely to happen and also something that any sensible person wouldn't even try!

 

A normal non-diabetic eats 300-350gs of carbs per day & has an A1c of 5.1% (32).

I had a low diagnostic level 6.9% (52).
I lost 5st rapidly, slowly increased carbs as per my meter & passed an OGTT 14 months post remission.
I've had background retinopathy & self diagnosed neuropathy, both of which have cleared up thankfully.
Was it a fluke, am I a unicorn ???? . . . who knows.

There's is no common diagnostic test, FBG, HbA1c, OGTT, that I would not pass with flying colours.
I ate 100-200gs of carbs per day while wearing a CGM back in may & it estimated an A1c of 4.5% (26).

In June of this year an Endo offered to remove my diagnosis, I still haven't accepted it nor do I intend to.
Remission/reversal are only words, they are not a blank cheque to resume your old habits, that is gone.
Grieve that share bag of Doritos, look longingly at the Snickers Bar on your way to the till, but they are gone & can never enter your thinking again.

 

I try to keep current on anything related to T2 from diagnosis levels (HbA1C) in different countries, internationally agreed remission criteria, paths to remission etc. I have never come across any actual medical study which says that says a cure is possible. In fact the majority of GP's have never seen a single case of remission, much less a patient being cured.
Though I have seen evidence of Type 1 diabetes being cured - but only by a pancreas transplant!

 

I don't claim "Remission" but I've been T2 for just over 8 years and apart from the first few months have kept my glucose at high normal-lower pre-diabetic levels by eating a (IMO fairly liberal) low carb diet, generally under 50g carbs a day. I've not needed any diabetic meds since 2017.

I've spent most of my life eating a moderate carb, normal full fat, diet and it was eating too high carb diet for a number of years that was one of the causes of my diabetes, so as long I can avoid those extra carbs, unless my ancient pancreas and liver give out, I see no real reason why I can't remain pre-diabetic.

 

Living proof here that slipping into old ways doesn't work!

Got my hba1c from over 100, got it down to the 30s and kept it there for a year.

Things slipped - not on purpose and with that my bg has gone up and up again.

I know that's common sense really, that lots of carbs won't keep you down. But even as they were creeping up with some more healthy carbs the destination was locked in and it was hard to back track. That included lentils and beans. But I think the introduction of carbs triggered my brain.

For me, a lentil became a chip became 5 chips, became a packet. No wonder it went up!

 

I had been on a 'cholesterol lowering' diet before diagnosis - the grain and potatoes etc were all considered healthy, but they are just as much carbohydrate as sweets and cake. They are also very fattening. I was almost spherical.

 

I have a nuanced view to some of the other comments. I never follow the crowd anymore, or mainstream "experts", as my food choices got me a 134. I look at what normal really is, not what I am told. When I was 10 even on a council estate there was a butchers with saw dust on the floor a animals in the window = normal; now a 10 year would recoil in digust.

I believe persons such as Ivor Cummins, Dave Feldman and Ted Naiman, who approach food habits with the forensics of a technical background and an open mind have help shatter what is normal with a mathematical / technical approach compared to science. I also thought science had an explicit mathematical basis e.g. 1 add 1 = 2, but experience in the food sector has taught me that science aligns with commodity products.

If you follow the science for Type 2 reversal, you will just eat less move more, high carb, low fat, animal food as a condiment. If you follow the technical people it will essentially be meat and 2 veg on a spectrum.

(mod edit for strange glitch or cat on keyboard)

 

In my opinion diabetes is either there or it isn't. If you can't be clinically diagnosed then it's gone. I broke my ankle once and I'm sure I could manage it again if I tried. An inability to deal with carbohydrate is not diabetes. Diabetes is what happens when you continue to eat it anyway. I think one's perspective depends on whether or not you think eating literal kilos of glucose every week is a normal human diet. If you do then you're going to be forever disappointed.

 

My take is that there are gazillions of people who eat whatever they like and don't develop diabetes, and therefore are not diabetic. There are loads of people whose BG would present in the diabetic range and sustain this if they ate a normal diet (however healthy or unhealthy that diet might be) but goes into remission if they are very careful with their carbs/sugars or go ketogenic. These people will always be "diabetic" in that the potential is always there if they don't regulate their diet. But if they do regulate their food intake (by type not amount) they can consider themselves in remission as long as their BG remains at non-diabetic levels.