Type 2 Reversing type 2

Cocosilk

Well-Known Member
Messages
818
Type of diabetes
Gestational
Treatment type
Insulin
@Cocosilk your comment about "normal" diet and using the Mediterranean diet as the common example, made me Google "diabetes by country". I found this interesting list ( https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/SH.STA.DIAB.ZS/rankings).

This part of the list interested me
View attachment 33274
If you were to ask me which countries I thought of having a Mediterranean diet, I would include France, Italy and Greece. They are all ranked in the same zone as the United Kingdom. Spain, Lebanon and Israel (I did not look at all countries around the Med) have a higher percentage of people with diabetes than these countries.
I realise this is only one statistic, it includes type 1 and type 2 diabetes and no other health conditions, it does not consider any other socio-economic situations and I have made the huge assumption that people living in a country on the Med eat a Mediterranean diet but it suggests this could be looked at in a bit more depth.
You're right too about socio-economics playing a huge part in who ends up with chronic illness. It's quite complicated when you consider all the aspects that contribute to how a person decides what to put in their mouths. Convenience, affordability and availability; emotional feelings around eating and what constitutes the good life; addictions; a need to control something; the list goes on..
 

Resurgam

Expert
Messages
9,850
Type of diabetes
Type 2 (in remission!)
Treatment type
Diet only
I was slightly amused to find that the diet which dropped my blood glucose and Hba1c to normal was exactly the same as I ate when doing Atkins to control my weight. That is the way I have to eat to feel well, to do anything else would not be very clever.
 

Cocosilk

Well-Known Member
Messages
818
Type of diabetes
Gestational
Treatment type
Insulin
In my view you can’t eat “normally” again anymore than you ever could. You got diabetes once so you can eventually get it again. However, I’m one of those who believes that if a clinical diagnosis of diabetes cannot be made, and you are not medicated, then you don’t currently have diabetes. An intolerance to carbohydrate is not diabetes, and no one would question whether or not someone without diabetes should eat more carbohydrate just to be sure.

Diabetes (T2) is a symptom.
If it takes the best part of someone's life to end up diabetic, once you reverse it by eating the right things, do those who go back to eating the wrong things end up diabetic much faster the next time around? Or only as fast as it took you to reverse it, perhaps? If you eat the wrong things for 40 years, then in a few months bring your levels back to pretty good with a low carb diet, it makes sense that if you started eating the wrong things again, it might only be a matter of months before you end up in trouble again, right? But if you eat the right things for the next 20 years, you might get away with eating more carbohydrates again, depending on which ones and how much of them. Has anyone proven this theory? I mean, are there any documented cases of some older folk who were eating carbs again after years of healing their bodies on low carb diets, for example?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Krystyna23040
M

Member496333

Guest
If it takes the best part of someone's life to end up diabetic, once you reverse it by eating the right things, do those who go back to eating the wrong things end up diabetic much faster the next time around?

Very possibly. The trick is to never find out by eating the wrong things. The same strategy that would have prevented the onset of hyperinsulinemia in the first instance.
 

Cocosilk

Well-Known Member
Messages
818
Type of diabetes
Gestational
Treatment type
Insulin
Not so different from smoking and alcoholism...
There is a difference. We are not all expecting to smoke (especially not these days in Australia anyway) and live a long healthy life. Maybe when cigarettes were first introduced they were marketed as a calming drug that was good for you. Now they put photos of cancer on the packets. If they did that with processed carbohydrate foods, like breakfast cereals, it might allow people to see things differently, wouldn't it? Corn Flakes (photo of person with diabetic complications). Not so healthy now, is it?
 

Mbaker

Well-Known Member
Messages
4,339
Type of diabetes
Type 2 (in remission!)
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Available fast foods in Supermarkets
For me, it just means that while I have good control of my bloodsugars, no medication and no complications, I am still diabetic. That is to say, I remain carb intolerant, and if I go face-first into a cake and suck it down, my bloodsugars will hit the statosphere. Being a-symptomatic because of my diet hasn't magically cured me, (Sorry Jim, have to disagee with you on semantics here, but that's about all, and I do see your point), but if I stick with this diet I am not going to suffer the same complications my familymembers did, some of which were lethal, to a point where there's only one diabetic left in my family other than myself, and she's pretty far gone, alas. Loss of limbs, kidneyfaillure, livercirrosis, heartfaillure, ruptured aorta, neuropathy etc... I could walk under a bus tomorrow, but I feel fairly safe in stating T2 isn't going to kill me any time soon. If I ever end up in a nursing home where I don't have a say in my diet I'll kick the bucket right-quick though. But here's to hoping. So, to me.... It's just being really well-controlled through diet, permanently, and avoiding nastiness that way. I don't expect to ever be on speaking terms with birthday cake again. (And I strangely don't mind all that much...)
Why not. Birthday cake in general raises everyones blood glucose due to the underlying ingredients, so why don't we make low gi the norm. The highly refined white flour is ultraprocessed and of course there is the sugar.....what if the flour was low glycaemic and the sugar didn't budge glucose or insulin (allulose is looking promising for those with a sweet tooth). Normal is contextual, with over 50% of UK food being ultra processed, I would say that is abnormal. "We" have tried to force our mini pancreas's to cope with a bus load of glucose over the last 50 - 60 years, whilst also increasing frequency.
 

Cocosilk

Well-Known Member
Messages
818
Type of diabetes
Gestational
Treatment type
Insulin
There is a difference. We are not all expecting to smoke (especially not these days in Australia anyway) and live a long healthy life. Maybe when cigarettes were first introduced they were marketed as a calming drug that was good for you. Now they put photos of cancer on the packets. If they did that with processed carbohydrate foods, like breakfast cereals, it might allow people to see things differently, wouldn't it? Corn Flakes (photo of person with diabetic complications). Not so healthy now, is it?

In my mind, I'm just starting to imagine the central isles of a supermarket as a kind of rat trap (I'm the rat). If I look for food around the periphery, where you can usually find the veges, meat and dairy products, then I might find something I can safely eat. If I get attracted to the isles in the middle, I'll end up with Ratsak instead.
 

Cocosilk

Well-Known Member
Messages
818
Type of diabetes
Gestational
Treatment type
Insulin
Hyperinsulinemia and hyperglycaemia. Both are measurable, although the NHS doesn’t even routinely test for insulin, so I paid to have it done myself :)
How long does it take for your insulin sensitivity to come back when you stick to low carb?
 
M

Member496333

Guest
How long does it take for your insulin sensitivity to come back when you stick to low carb?

How long is a piece of string? :D

It took me a little over two years. By the time I got around to testing my insulin sensitivity, I scored HOMA-IR of 0.3, which some will know indicates extreme insulin sensitivity. However, I’m under no illusions as to what this means. That is my insulin sensitivity based on my current diet. If I started having birthday cake for breakfast every day, I’m very sure it would soon plummet. But, to me, that is irrelevant, since birthday cake is not human food and my body was never designed to consume it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: HSSS

1spuds

Well-Known Member
Messages
375
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
In my mind, I'm just starting to imagine the central isles of a supermarket as a kind of rat trap (I'm the rat).
That is so true.Only thing I get that isnt on the perimeter is canned veggies and canned meats.
 
M

Member496333

Guest
In my mind, I'm just starting to imagine the central isles of a supermarket as a kind of rat trap (I'm the rat). If I look for food around the periphery, where you can usually find the veges, meat and dairy products, then I might find something I can safely eat. If I get attracted to the isles in the middle, I'll end up with Ratsak instead.

I sometimes wander down the central aisles just for a laugh. It’s disgusting. All I can smell is sugar and cardboard. Gross :***:
 

Krystyna23040

Expert
Messages
7,067
Type of diabetes
Type 2 (in remission!)
Treatment type
Diet only
@Cocosilk your comment about "normal" diet and using the Mediterranean diet as the common example, made me Google "diabetes by country". I found this interesting list ( https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/SH.STA.DIAB.ZS/rankings).

This part of the list interested me
View attachment 33274
If you were to ask me which countries I thought of having a Mediterranean diet, I would include France, Italy and Greece. They are all ranked in the same zone as the United Kingdom. Spain, Lebanon and Israel (I did not look at all countries around the Med) have a higher percentage of people with diabetes than these countries.
I realise this is only one statistic, it includes type 1 and type 2 diabetes and no other health conditions, it does not consider any other socio-economic situations and I have made the huge assumption that people living in a country on the Med eat a Mediterranean diet but it suggests this could be looked at in a bit more depth.
OMG - this is not what I expected at all.
 

Mbaker

Well-Known Member
Messages
4,339
Type of diabetes
Type 2 (in remission!)
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Available fast foods in Supermarkets
Although I have type 1, not type 2, I am considered amongst friends and family to be a "diabetes expert" so I find this an interesting conversation.
From reading these posts, it seems that "in remission" is the current description. I like the analogy with alcoholism - you are still an alcoholic even if you don't drink any alcohol.

With that in mind, I notice there are people with "I reversed my Type 2" in their profile although there is also an option for "Type 2 (in remission)" and wondered what your motivation is for this?

(Feel free not to answer, I am only asking to satisfy my own curiosity.)
In the UK there are 2 official terms "Remission" and "Cured" used within the NHS; there are codes for these every doctors surgery can use and forms part of a medical record. With this in mind reversed is understandable but not official (in the UK at least). I like remission as it effectively means, there is a potential for re-occurrence if a path is not continued.

There is the biggest elephant in the room however, I keep seeing from the likes of Ivor Cummins that only 12% of persons in the States can cope with the metabolic impact of the current food, even if this is 50% out, for me this shines a light on where "we" really are.
 

HSSS

Expert
Messages
7,465
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Hyperinsulinemia and hyperglycaemia. Both are measurable, although the NHS doesn’t even routinely test for insulin, so I paid to have it done myself :)
Now see I see those things as two of the most measurable symptoms of diabetes, which I think of as the a metabolic inability to process carbs efficiently.

Social conditioning does indeed play a part in how many a person should expect a body to be able to process though. I guess in your case yours processes as many as you want it to. However should we not have a fundamental issue with carbs and they caused no hyperinsulemia or hyperglycaemia or other damage (ie we weren’t diabetic) would we really restrict them as much as we currently do?
 

Mr_Pot

Well-Known Member
Messages
4,573
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
If it takes the best part of someone's life to end up diabetic, once you reverse it by eating the right things, do those who go back to eating the wrong things end up diabetic much faster the next time around? Or only as fast as it took you to reverse it, perhaps? If you eat the wrong things for 40 years, then in a few months bring your levels back to pretty good with a low carb diet, it makes sense that if you started eating the wrong things again, it might only be a matter of months before you end up in trouble again, right? But if you eat the right things for the next 20 years, you might get away with eating more carbohydrates again, depending on which ones and how much of them. Has anyone proven this theory? I mean, are there any documented cases of some older folk who were eating carbs again after years of healing their bodies on low carb diets, for example?
This is assuming people developed diabetes by eating the wrong things. If you developed Type 2 due to some genetic reason, or if, as I suspect is the case with many people diagnosed late in life, their pancreas is "wearing out", then you are just in the controlled state rather than in remission, like someone with a peanut allergy who avoids peanuts.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Flora123
M

Member496333

Guest
However should we not have a fundamental issue with carbs and they caused no hyperinsulemia or hyperglycaemia or other damage (ie we weren’t diabetic) would we really restrict them as much as we currently do?

Well that’s a matter of perspective and personal choice. Had I not got diabetes then for sure I’d have continued as I was, but with hindsight I wouldn’t have, because it was all nutritionally deficient junk (processed grains). With a HOMA-IR of 0.3 I could very easily choose to experiment with carbohydrate reintroduction, but I don’t want to because I genuinely don’t miss any of them and none of them are essential macronutrients.

Again, it’s all personal views and semantics, but one thing I am very sure of is that, at this time, I do not have diabetes, and I have the blood work to prove it :)