What Would Count as a Cure for Type 2?

Brunneria said:

Absolutely.

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I have read this whole thread, really very interesting. And have seen the answers about the difference between controlling, reversed, diet controlled, medication controlled, eating a good diet not counting as a cure etc.
But it seems to me that these are all things that we can do to our bodies and make it behave in the way we want it to behave. The real test comes when your body does something that is outside of your control. That is the only real test of a cure. It doesn't matter what you choose to do, its what happens when you have no choice that counts.

I actually would be very interested to know what happens to those who have their t2d under control, cured etc when they are ill? Does it stay cured? Mine did not, yet my last hbalc was 39 , my fbgs were in the 4 and 5 s and I considered myself, at the very least, well controlled. Bit of a shock to find out that was not true.

I echo @Kentoldlady1 - I've also read the whole of this thread, and at the risk of appearing gushing and insincere (absolutely not the case), it has illustrated to me how informed, intelligent and erudite the people posting here and on the site. I am amazed at the in-depth, helpful and considered answers from @CherryAA and others; it is no wonder I and many others have benefited from the people who research and research and then pass on what they have learned to us. Thank you. Would that some GPs and DNs were as knowledgeable about T2.

Sue192 said:

I echo @Kentoldlady1 - I've also read the whole of this thread, and at the risk of appearing gushing and insincere (absolutely not the case), it has illustrated to me how informed, intelligent and erudite the people posting here and on the site. I am amazed at the in-depth, helpful and considered answers from @CherryAA and others; it is no wonder I and many others have benefited from the people who research and research and then pass on what they have learned to us. Thank you. Would that some GPs and DNs were as knowledgeable about T2.

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Quite. And again, not wanting to be insincere!!! I can quite honestly say that @CherryAA , @bulkbiker , @Guzzler and namy others have changed my life. Thankyou.

Having "wasted" hours of my time reading up on this stuff, I figure at the very least I might as well pass some of it on in the hope it helps others gets started.

I am by no means " cured" and I don't really expect ever to actually be " cured" however I'm a look on the bright side kinda gal and so far I'm not dead either !

On the Illness front - I've not actually had any illnesses since I gaveup the carbs - no idea if that's linked. I id fall over, break my nose, clavicle ad dislocate my shoulder - that added a bit to my blood sugar for a couple of days. I have also given a presentation in-front of an audience of 200 - so pretty stressful - nothing on the monitor !

Kentoldlady1 said:

Quite. And again, not wanting to be insincere!!! I can quite honestly say that @CherryAA , @bulkbiker , @Guzzler and namy others have changed my life. Thankyou.

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Well mine got changed by @bulkbiker and an unnamed lady in the first study I read on low carbing. I figure if the politicians, medic, pharma and foods won't tackle it - we must, and if every person who has been helped has a go at helping a few others, then eventually we will all join up and the professionals can all go home and sulk.

Kentoldlady1 said:

I actually would be very interested to know what happens to those who have their t2d under control, cured etc when they are ill? Does it stay cured? Mine did not, yet my last hbalc was 39 , my fbgs were in the 4 and 5 s and I considered myself, at the very least, well controlled. Bit of a shock to find out that was not true.

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I experienced higher than usual BS numbers when I had a rotten cold last year and my 91 year old mum had breathing probs so called an ambulance. For some reason on the report they had tested her blood sugar which was 7.9 mmol/l so pretty high for a non diabetic so I would guess that most people, diabetic or not, may have higher blood sugars when ill?

Kentoldlady1 said:

have changed my life

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THat's just about the only reason I am here.. well that and the arguments obviously.. hehe.
Well done to you though.. you changed your life we just gave you a nudge..
Edit to add... that goes for @CherryAA too

makes me laugh - I'm having an argument on Twitter with a guy
my tweet - basically said - " ditch the carbs - its not rocket science " - he;s got all upset about my unscientific approach , so i posted lots of studies, he thinks they are all biased - so far not one actual opposing study showing something else works better than what we do here! - the status quo is so strong people just can't see beyond it.

bulkbiker said:

I experienced higher than usual BS numbers when I had a rotten cold last year and my 91 year old mum had breathing probs so called an ambulance. For some reason on the report they had tested her blood sugar which was 7.9 mmol/l so pretty high for a non diabetic so I would guess that most people, diabetic or not, may have higher blood sugars when ill?

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Thats a very interesting question. And I think, from my dim and distant nursing days, that the answer is a qualified "yes," non d's do have a higher fbg when ill, but it falls quicker and tends not to have associated problems. For example, I have also had thrush this month. (Tmi!) Also I think the fear response also triggers a higher bs, so there is an immediate rise, but it should soon drop.

But I dont think a non d would have fbgs still much higher than normal when having colds, stress etc for more than a couple of weeks, but I have. Another poster ( so sorry, can't remember who) had a foot op recently and her fbgs were up for a couple of days and then dropped. It would be really interesting to know if a non d would respond in the same way.

My oh, who obligingly lets me test his fbg on occasion, has had the same colds and worry and lack of sleep as me. He has not had a small op. His fbg has not changed at all, even with the colds and worry. Would a small op keep a non d fbg high for a month?

I dont know enough to answer this question with accuracy, but think if you have a prolonged illness and your bgs are low and stable then you are at the very least in remission. If you have the illness and are all over the shop (like me)then you are not. I am not sure that one cold for a couple of days would be long enough to know.

But its not something most of us get to really find out that often. Like @CherryAA I have had less illness since going lchf so hopefully will not have the opportunity to test this again any time soon.

CherryAA said:

happy analysis !

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Having now read through a few articles with links to studies involving genuinely low fat diets (~10%) and genuinely low carb diets (~4%) I think I'm convinced enough to give ketosis and fasting a go.

In many ways I'm liking the ND, really it just takes 2-3 days of adjustment and then all is fine. I'm only 4 days in and already I've done a couple of walks, don't have sugar cravings in spite of the sugary shakes, and am feeling pretty mentally alert. What I don't like is the regularly feeling that my teeth are rotting and needing to brush my teeth, and in particular, the ND is an approach where exercise is not recommended (particularly in the weight loss phase). While I find I can do an hours walking no problem on it, there's no way I'll be going into the mountains on 800 calories a day.

It felt very strange today to be looking out at a winter wonderland, and desperately wanting to be out on a big walk, but not feeling it was safe to do so. I don't think the ND plays well with my strengths at the moment, I'd much rather have a bit more energy and be getting out and about more. It feels like whatever help it may be doing in one way, it's taking away from something else I do which is healthy.

I do have reason to suspect I have an issue with genuinely very low carbing. When I went below 20g a day a while ago just because I was eating to my meter, I ended up in hospital with stabbing chest pains. And again just recently, when consciously making sure I added fat to compensate for the missing carbs, I was needing about 4,000 calories a day because of the walking I was doing, which translated to a lot of fat, and I didn't like the mild chest pains I was getting, or much else about how I was feeling. So I've had minimal carbs in two contexts: calorie restriction, and weight maintenance. It didn't go well.

So it's something I need to approach with great caution, but I think I'll ease myself into it much more carefully this time.

There's also one marker that I haven't been able to change in 4 months of weight loss. Yes my HbA1c has dropped dramatically, I've lost a ton of weight, and more satisfyingly my fasting bg when maintaining weight has come down, but when I do a regular modest carb tolerance test, I can either get a good result by making the most of the "last meal effect", or a bad result by not. That bad result has stayed the same in 4 months: I get a 2 hours postprandial rise of almost +3 mmol/l.

I'd have hoped to see that drop a little as the fat came off. But it hasn't. And the one thing I haven't tried is squarely combating insulin resistance. I am curious to know if that will have an effect on this number which I can't seem to change!

Fasting may also work well for me at the moment, if I can time the non-fasting days with getting out into the hills at the weekends.

Anyway, more reading to do to see how to go about it sensibly.

One of the issues for all of us , is that I do think we set ourselves pretty standards that may well be outside " normal ranges" anyway.

We know for example that in non-diabetic patients they will spend 91% of the time under 6.7 mmol and 99% under 7.8 mmol and that they may well rise briefly to 11 mmol in a non fasted state. We know that we can pretty much achieve the same or similar through low carbs.

The date I presented on non diabetic sub athelete - showed them regularly swinging by 4-5 mmols.
My own non diabetic friend spends most of his life at between 3.9 and 4.2 - yet he can rise to 7.8 based on certain foods or exercise is an increase of 4 mmol.

We try to control our movements in post meal spikes by 2 mmol and that is entirely good and I'm sure that we are all healthier for it. However we then assume that when we do eat carbs, if that results in a swing of more than 2 mmol we must still be very diabetic. All the evidence I've seen is that entirely non diabetic people may also see such a swing.
As a result I would try not to be too concerned about interpreting the result of a big carb load giving more than a minimal increase in blood sugars.

You asked the question about whether ND or Low Carb worked best for glycaemic control. This lecture is pretty to the point on this by Volek.

Look at it from 30 minutes in . Its basically saying that even on a very low calorie diet (650 cals) , the study showed better results in terms of glycaemia if the 650 cals was ALSO low carb .

actual research papers below
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.828.149&rep=rep1&type=pdf
http://annals.org/aim/article-abstr...ucose-levels-insulin-resistance?resultclick=3
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17447017

at 40 mins in Volek shows a chart of changes in all sorts of markers as a result of a keto diet . I have my own charts of all this stuff ( infact 43 markers of health) showing similar positive effects.

CherryAA said:

You asked the question about whether ND or Low Carb worked best for glycaemic control. This lecture is pretty to the point on this by Volek.

Look at it from 30 minutes in . Its basically saying that even on a very low calorie diet (650 cals) , the study showed better results in terms of glycaemia if the 650 cals was ALSO low carb .

actual research papers below
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.828.149&rep=rep1&type=pdf
http://annals.org/aim/article-abstr...ucose-levels-insulin-resistance?resultclick=3
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17447017

at 40 mins in Volek shows a chart of changes in all sorts of markers as a result of a keto diet . I have my own charts of all this stuff ( infact 43 markers of health) showing similar positive effects.

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Great video. I like the way he presents stuff.

I thought the most interesting bit was the point about the difference between a high intake of saturated fat (= not a problem), and having a high level of circulating fat in the blood (= problem). And how circulating fat correlates to carbs, i.e. if you intake carbs along with the dietary fat, that increases circulating fat.

This suggests that what a lot of Type 2 diabetics are doing, i.e. still having quite a few carbs (say 50-100g a day) and increasing the fat, might not be ideal. This is what I've been doing, by and large, for months. Reading around this forum, it's quite common.

I know it's not always the way that our bodies give us warning signs, but so far, if my heart *is* giving me warning signs via chest pains, it's telling me that whenever I fill my body with dietary fat, it's not happy. That did make me wonder if really, you have to fully commit to virtually eradicating carbs in order to get the best from a high fat diet. I.e. you have to make your body, in no uncertain terms, switch from one fuel type to another.

Coming at it from another angle, a surprising thing I noticed about all my own measurements over the last few months, is not only that varying carbs between 40g to 300g a day makes no difference to my fasting levels, but the days on 40g of carbs had similar meal spikes to the days on 300g. I put this down to the 'last meal effect'. That also made me think that reducing carbs from 300g to 40g really is not the full picture, and I asked the question in a couple of threads whether one really has to commit to virtually eliminating carbs to get best results.

For my own circumstance, I really wish I knew for sure why things have gone so wrong for me whenever the carbs have got very low. The doctors in the hospital couldn't work it out, nor could 2 GPs. I've been desperately trying to work it out myself, and it is actually possible that I was having too much salt. Recent logs tell me that, when I'm not deliberately adding salt to my diet, I can be getting anything from 2 to 9g a day. So when, a while back, I realised that I was almost certainly in ketosis at 20g of carbs a day, I read around and saw the advice about adding magnesium, potassium and sodium. So I added e.g. 1g of salt a day deliberately. But I was also eating a lot of things like flavoured nuts with a lot of salt in. It's quite possible I was having too much salt. Anyway that's an example of what I mean about needing to be much more cautious and trying ketosis sensibly - I need to get there gradually and monitor what I'm eating carefully. It could turn out that my body just can't do it safely. I wouldn't be the first to report not taking well to a keto diet, and we are all very different. I'd like to give it a fair try however.

CherryAA said:

One of the issues for all of us , is that I do think we set ourselves pretty standards that may well be outside " normal ranges" anyway.

We know for example that in non-diabetic patients they will spend 91% of the time under 6.7 mmol and 99% under 7.8 mmol and that they may well rise briefly to 11 mmol in a non fasted state. We know that we can pretty much achieve the same or similar through low carbs.

The date I presented on non diabetic sub athelete - showed them regularly swinging by 4-5 mmols.
My own non diabetic friend spends most of his life at between 3.9 and 4.2 - yet he can rise to 7.8 based on certain foods or exercise is an increase of 4 mmol.

We try to control our movements in post meal spikes by 2 mmol and that is entirely good and I'm sure that we are all healthier for it. However we then assume that when we do eat carbs, if that results in a swing of more than 2 mmol we must still be very diabetic. All the evidence I've seen is that entirely non diabetic people may also see such a swing.
As a result I would try not to be too concerned about interpreting the result of a big carb load giving more than a minimal increase in blood sugars.

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My biggest takeway from my own observations, is just how little one can rely on a single observation in order to guage a safe "meal" or level of carbs. I've now learned enough about my own body that I can reasonably reliably, for exactly the same 34g carb intake, get a 2 hour postprandial of either +3 mmol/l or +0.5 mmol/l. Tests performed in as identical circumstances as possible. Always morning after the same amount of sleep, always sitting down for the 2 hours, always 3 readings before and after to minimise noise from meter inaccuracy.

Having now observed my own data for days on end . I can say with some certainty that whilst actual meals affect the numbers hugely . What happened in the two or three days previously still impacts on how one responds to that meal no matter what the actual starting glucose level was.
Ie starting at 4.5 will produce a bigger spike for the same meal if I had higher figures the previous day for any reason . One's system is clearly quote ' turbulent ' when anything ruffles itv@

One thing i would say, once one truly is " fat adapted" which I think I now am, when I do have a carb heavy meal, my blood sugars go a bit haywire for a few hours, but the ketosis carries on going and the following day the hunger pangs do not reappear - so my system now truly does just think its a fat burner and the carbs are a side show. very gratifying !

This thread is really,really long. I've forgotten; what was the question again?

CherryAA said:

makes me laugh - I'm having an argument on Twitter with a guy
my tweet - basically said - " ditch the carbs - its not rocket science " - he;s got all upset about my unscientific approach , so i posted lots of studies, he thinks they are all biased - so far not one actual opposing study showing something else works better than what we do here! - the status quo is so strong people just can't see beyond it.

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Maybe he works for kelloggs?

I was diagnosed at 85 HBA1C last Sept 2017.

Then dropped to 46 last Dec. Further dropped to 38 last week, Feb 2018.

My Consultant Endocrinologist said it’s a miracle and I’m now in “remission” and it all happened in just over 4 months!

I’m down to just one Metformin pill per day. Thank God.

As a devout Christian, I had plenty of prayers, healing for the sick and anointing of oil in our church.

Strong faith and belief in what our God can do are also important to get healed.

“Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.”

James 5:14 (KJV)

My diabetic team said in all 8 years of their clinical practice and experience they have not seen anything like it.

However, I would say my diabetes is well controlled and I’m very much aware if I neglect myself again, it would come back!