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Reversing diabetes

Dudette1

Well-Known Member
Messages
259
Location
England
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Dislikes
Bad attitude
Hi guys,
I’ve read lots of stories about remission, but a question I can’t seem to find is, can you actually reverse it completely and eat what is considered normal (carbs) and your blood sugar stays within normal range.
I’ve been low carb and my sugars are between 4.8 and 5.8 after meals.
I understand if you put weight on and be glutinous there is a real possibility it will come back.
I’m talking a Sunday dinner, odd bar of chocolate, chips for tea..not over indulge but having more carbs but exercising and keeping the weight down..I can’t imagine anyone wants to test this theory (or maybe secretly I do
) but suppose curiosity is a thing for me tonight, it was because I ate a shortbread biscuit (it was amazing by the way
) then guilt set in and I tested after 1 hour and was 5.1 then 2hours and I was 5.2 after dreading to look at the meter
and being slightly shocked
.
I was 17stone 7lb I’m now 11st 9lb walk around 10 miles a day and can really see the difference in low carb, not as hungry lots of energy, but you know the feeling, I can’t be the only one who wants fish and chips sometimes, or a nice hot chocolate from costa, I don’t eat fast food anyway like McDonald’s and stuff because it taste like a rubber shoe in a bun
Is it weight that can reverse it or is it just remission and that’s it. Or can moderation & keeping the weight off be, what I would call, back to how you were before diagnosis of diabetes. Sorry if this has been asked before.
A link anyone could share for tonight’s reading if anyone has one.
I was diagnosed as steroid induced after a chest infection if this makes any difference, thought was best to add that in.
Thanks guys
 
Had kebab and wedges for tea pre meal 6.2 now 6.4 on omad and lost 3 st
Since Feb
So weight is making my bs pre diabetic range
You can eat what you want
But in moderation
 
Dudette1 said:
back to how you were before diagnosis of diabetes
Click to expand...
Well as that's what led you to T2 in the first place I'd say if you went back full on carbs you know where you'd end up.
For me low carbing has changed my relationship with what I eat completely so there's no way I'd consider going back to what I used to eat (even though it was mainly wholesome and home cooked but with lots of bread and pastries .. living in France hard to avoid). I guess it depends how "controlled " you can be in lapses. Personally I don't want to test it so avoid foods I know I had a problem with.
 
As @Lilylala said weight can make a positive significant with blood sugars and an occasional dietary rebellion is good thing. When I do find myself in a situation where I might be eating carby things I plan for it. This Thanksgiving I swam 2 miles in the morning so I could have a normal dinner with all of the goodies. One thing I was careful with portion size.

I do not mean to discourage you but once you diagnosed a diabetic you will be always a diabetic. I was in remission once before and thought I could eat what I wanted and created a real mess. This time around I might have something carby, but only if the numbers allow me. Keeping my numbers normal requires constant vigilance on my part,.

Best of Luck

Dave
 
Stunning weight loss btw.
In my case it took about 8 months post remission and a 5 stone weight loss before my first phase insulin response kicked back in.
I had spaghetti meatballs for dinner the other day with biscuits for desert, about 150g of carbs.
I was 5.9 at 1 hour and 4.8 at 2 hours.

It depends on the cause of our insulin resistance and how quickly we acted to turn it around.
It would appear that our disfunction was purely down to visceral fat.
We removed the stress on the pancreas and gave the body a chance to heal.
Now we'd better not do it again
 
Hi Dudette1. After 15 years of managing diabetes and being prescribed ever increasing doses of Metformin in an attempt to keep T2D under control, I stopped eating meat. After 2 3/4 years I've gone from 2000mg of Metformin to 500mg. All under the guidance of GP and regular A1c tests - am norm range, plus or minus. Connection? I'm leaning towards strong influence of uric acid levels caused by eating purines. Was diagnosed with gout 5 years before T2D diagnosis. A ver high proportion of T2Ds will suffer from gout (>70% and this is stated somewhere on this site). The highest levels of purines is in meat. Purines are metabolized in to uric acid in the body and normally passed when one pees. If it doesn't, it builds in the bloodstream.

So do a search on "uric acid insulin resistance" and you'll come across research connecting high uric acid with insulin resistance.

Into remission I think. Going back to where I was? I don't believe I want to go there! As someone on a forum once said "being diagnosed T2D was probably the best thing for you".

Good luck
Tony
 
Weight reduction helps, but it's the lowering of carbs that makes such a huge impact. It is what kickstarts the weight loss and reduces blood glucose levels and effectively treats insulin resistance for T2's

Congrats on the weight loss. And...LOL... at the McDonalds comment... rubber shoe in a bun is a good description.
 
Thanks for the responses

I was not saying to go back on full carbs..
Sorry if I wasn’t clear, I was saying in moderation.
So for example low carb breakfast and dinner then say shepherds pie for tea and so on everyday..
So still heavy carbs for tea more than probably most our limit for the day.
How would you ever know if you was ‘cured’ is the word to use if no one has ever tried. We know carbs are bad but once they are introduced and levels stay normal continuously for the rest of your life would it say you are cured? And remission is just for people who maybe binge and gain weight.
just a thought on thought,
Some things I personally would never go back too, no to milk, only almond for me, I don’t miss bread anyway so doubt I would go back to that either..I think once you are low carb you stick with it, but in moderation and levels are normal who is to say it’s not reversed? because no one ever tries the carbs again for fear of high levels.
It’s 4am I don’t know if I’m making any sense
but I know what I’m trying to say
 

People do try eating more carbs or fall of the wagon so to speak and the result is they are no longer at non-diabetic levels. Their levels jump, hba1c jumps up higher. Then it's back to what works again, back to reducing carbs. If you want to try it, test and see what happens.

You can put T2 into remission or into a well controlled state, but you cannot cure it, it will still be there.... just well controlled which is what you want to avoid complications down the road.
 
I have needed to eat low carb all my life to feel well - but the consensus has always been that I should eat less, less fat, less protein and more carbs because I weighed too much - well I was very active and muscular. In my days as a roadie I could dead lift a dead drunk rhythm guitarist no problem, but when the ideal was Twiggy I had no chance of being thought normal.
Where I am now is probably the best case after a lifetime of trying to eat what is proper for me but getting the wrong advice and encouragement for decades - I am going to be 70 next spring.
Having been pushed well into the type 2 range I think I am lucky to have got back to where I am now, so have no plans to eat a higher carb diet as my 'normal' and to have higher carb foods only rarely, and then not much of them.
At Christmas I will be having Christmas pudding, but with 'real' custard, and the Yorkshire puddings will be a lower carb option than standard. I actually feel that I have the best option.
 
I normally have between 100 - 130g of carbs per day and have managed to maintain my hba1c at non diabetic levels for approx 7 years.
 
I've made exceptions, on purpose and accidentally. You're talking about daily/systematic upped carbs, but I got spiked with one-offs. Even after being in the normal range for quite some time. Such a spike from carbs wouldn't go as high as it did at diagnosis, as my insulin resistance improved over the years, but still... They were spikes. I'll never be cured, just in remission/well controlled, and I'm okay with that. People who low carb follow it halfway religiously, but none of us is perfect. Birthdays, holidays, weddings, they happen. Or sometimes you get served your husband's sugary beverage and he's got your diet version.... So very few of us are Saint Keto, as life happens, and we've felt what effect it had. (Spikes make me feel ill, anyway). You could experiment, but personally, I'd skip it, as it could very much be detrimental to your health. Entirely up to you though!!! If you have a deep seated need to know... Depends wholly on how intense your desire for answers about your particular T2 is. Just be safe and test lots if you do.
 
This is the way I look at it.
You now have the knowledge that you are one of the 10% who posses the trigger to be full blown diabetic.
Even if you're in remmison or reversed or whatever there is a tipping point in the future where you could go back.
If you relapse to old eating habits or become sedentary again you'll pull that trigger.

Some see it as the Sword of Damocles to keep them on the straight & narrow.
Some see it as a blessing that gives them a second chance to live a long & happy life.
 
@dudette - there are people here who have been able to revert to "normal eating", even over the longer term.

I can think of one specifically, and bearing in mind his analytical, data driven background and the integrity exhibited over time on forum, I am content he is telling the truth.

I'll not tag him in, as he has another, unconnected, condition demanding much of his time at the moment.

Personally, I get away with a lot, but I'm not bothered about most of the heavy carbs, and since having to go gluten-free, and not fancying many of the gluten-free substitutes, I just plough my own furrow, with my A1c dancing around 30.

Only you can decide how you balance your "risk/reward scale" - how much risk you are willing to take, versus a potential for regressing the fantastic progress you have made.

I don't think folks not wanting to go there is necessarily fear; sometimes there's just a feeling of "can't be bothered".

Most folks like to live in some degree of routine. Over time the routine of just swerving many of the big carbs becomes something of our normal routine.
 

Thats so true, I feel exactly the same.
 
If you're allergic to wool, and have managed to keep wool out of your life so that you don't get allergic reactions any more, that doesn't mean the allergy is "cured". It just means you avoid the unpleasant bits, at the price of no woolly gloves etc. I can't see why I'd ever want to go back to a higher carb intake knowing in advance what it does to me. I don't magically expect to no longer be insulin resistant. But everyone's different.
 
I don’t think people are understanding the question,
if you have normal sugars and they don’t spike when eating “normally” not binge eating your way through life!! why does everyone think I mean stuffing your face with carbs, we know excessively it will come back, so we have remission and that’s proven.. forget that,
so for reversed,I’m meaning in moderation for years and with no spikes at all, who is to say this is not fully reversed we only have hba1c to show us we are in normal range but what if remission doesn’t count and you are just cured, you can now eat non Diabetic normal..How would we ever know if it is reversed? Because we are told it’s proven carb eating again it will come back, no one will do it so we can never know..but what if you eat carbs everyday for the rest of your life they stay in non diabetic range surely that would be a reversal..I’m annoying myself saying reversed
the ones who eat low carb now probably never eat anymore than what they can handle everyday, I suppose it would take someone to do it to have the answer, **** I’ve basically just answered my own question
so say after 5 years for example,and you ate low carb but added a few extra and your sugars stayed normal and you carried on for the rest of your life who’s to say it’s not reversed, then say u had carbs all day NOT IN EXCESS but a sandwich for dinner and jacket spud for tea and so on as I would call normal eating.suppose that’s excess for people like us, trying to think of easy fix meals, and the next 5 years you eat like that with no change to your sugars and that’s it they are always normal from then on.
what if your normal ish eating never faulted. your not in a remission stage any longer and you have fully reversed it..thinking maybe a vodka is needed, it sounds better in my head than when I’m typing it out
sorry guys. I want to punch me as well ‍
 
Hi Dudette1
I feel your frustration in what you are trying to say, I'm the same when trying to put things into words. Maybe the question you need to be answered is: Can you cure type 2 diabetes? I believe the answer to that is no, unfortunately; I wish that were not true. Basically, if you are able to eat a diet which is considered "Normal" ie potatoes rice, pasta and fruit and your sugar levels remained perfectly normal then I would assume you didn't have diabetes!! For me personally, my levels can be higher than they should be when I've eaten the same meal but on a different day or time. I think it may be possible for some people to improve their insulin so that they are able to tolerate more carbs/sugar but maybe that tolerance might change if they continued this way, I don't know as I don't do it. I've enough problems so I don't want to add to them lol. Anyhow, not sure if I've explained myself that well either but wish you well in whatever you choose. Take care.
 
Yeah, okay... A lot of us who low carb experience something called "Carb Creep" after a while. So while it's not intentional and not an experiment, some of us have more carbs a day than we started out with when we hit normal blood sugars and were really anal about following this brand spanking new diet. It's a gradual thing, not a load of binges or anything. Just a few extra nuts here, an extra square of chocolate there.... Maybe 5 to 20 grams more than previously. Not something anyone else would have to give a second thought, but we might have to. And usually it results in higher blood sugars and weight gain. I know that's not much of an answer either, but really... I don't have anything better on offer. Sorry.
 
Those who have had the greatest success reintroducing carbs are those that became insulin resistant due to visceral fat & sedentary lifestyle.
It would seem that if they act fast enough & lose enough weight then their insulin resistance can be reversed & their blood sugars return to normal.
The longest term study I could find was the Swedish Obesity Subjects (SOS) study online.
These were obese patients with T2 who received bariatric surgery & were followed up 15+ years later.
The following is the remission data:


The average weight loss was about 18kg from memory & as you can see those who acted the fasted post diagnosis had the most successful outcomes long term.
Many of these subjects had their surgery back in the 80's before LCHF eating became a thing so that makes their longevity of remission even more impressive.

So back to your original question, can you truly reverse T2 or even consider the "c" word ?
The only time I've ever seen the c word used in a medical study was the report attached below:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4411432/





It's not a term the medical community seem comfortable with.
But what have we established, is it possible to put T2 into long term remission ? yes it is.
Is it possible to achieve normo glycemia again ? yes it is.
 
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