Remission, reversal and cure are emotive words in the diabetes community - for all types for a plethora of reasons.I know that we can get it into remission, or reverse it, but not cure it.
I also know that insulin resistance is a precursor to type 2 diabetes, and here are some "reasons" that I've heard for insulin resistance / type 2 occurring:
* Fat (saturated, or seed oils, depending on who's theory you read) which gets deposited in the muscles thereby inhibiting the muscles to take up blood glucose.
* Too much insulin which, over time, the body reacts to gradually, making the muscles (and mostly everything else) insulin resistant, so more insulin is secreted, akin to how the body needs more and more of a drug over time to have the same effect.
* By exceeding your personal fat threshold, whereby the safe fat storage areas (under the skin) become full, and fat starts to be stored around the liver, pancreas and other internal organs.
So if we address the above issues, by not eating fat so as not to deposit it into muscles (which I don't buy), or reducing the insulin (by lowering carbs), or just losing non-subcutaneous fat (the unsafe fat), then why can't it be cured?
Here are my simple answers to my simple questions:
Q. If a cure is not possible, then is permanent remission possible?
A. Yes, as long we keep the carbs low.
Q. Why can't we cope with high carbs?
A. Because a high, processed carb diet hasn't been around long enough for us to adapt to it.
Q. Why can some people eat whatever they like without developing insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes?
A. Their genes can cope with it?
I still don't really understand what causes insulin resistance, and therefore type 2. I know our bodies are generally smart, and they must know what they're doing. But I guess that constant carbs in the diet, carb-heavy snacks (chronic elevated insulin) and never really going without food for more than couple of hours (to allow the insulin to drop), all takes its toll over the years, and something's got to give.
If anyone has any thoughts on the above, or any links which might explain things better, then I'd be grateful to hear them.
Thanks for the reply. I know that there are far worse LTCs to have.I feel my dietary adjustments are now a way of life. I have minimal insulin resistance and now eat more carbs than I did in the early stages, however, I am still low carb, and in more recent years, I have gone gluten free (on medical advice).
I don't go with the "allergic to carbs" mantra, but I do go with "Certain foods don't suit my body" in my current lifestyle.
I do think a large part of how we do over the longer term, with any long term condition depends on our mental attitude. To be permanently "missing out" or to consider ourselves unwell does us no favours. Trust me, there are far, FAR worse long terms conditions to live with.
From the resources I've read, everything seems to come back to insulin resistance when it comes to the question you've posed.Too much insulin which, over time, the body reacts to gradually, making the muscles (and mostly everything else) insulin resistant, so more insulin is secreted, akin to how the body needs more and more of a drug over time to have the same effect.
Personally speaking, I feel the evolution argument is overplayed and flawed. Every diet going, be it keto, low carb, Paleo, low PUFA, WFPB, or whatever you want to pick, all try to claim "this is how we're meant to eat, it's what Caveman Dave ate!"Q. Why can't we cope with high carbs?
A. Because a high, processed carb diet hasn't been around long enough for us to adapt to it.
I understand that at puberty, for example, insulin resistance is deliberate, so it must be by design. The critical mass theory works. Just like there has to be a critical mass of salmonella, or other bacteria, ingested before we can deal with it and it makes us ill. I'm sure there are other examples.From the resources I've read, everything seems to come back to insulin resistance when it comes to the question you've posed.
However, my basic understanding is that everyone is insulin resistant to some level, even if that's just a low level resistance. Some people, likely due to a combination of genetics, lifestyle, and (maybe) diet are at higher risk of developing higher resistance to insulin. Once that resistance reaches critical mass, you're T2 diabetic and multiple factors then come into play on top.
That's good. I hope a few other people do too, and throw a few ideas in here.However, I love threads like this, so thought I'd throw my understanding out there as a basis of further discussion/critique.
That's what I meant about the ultra-processed food that is so prevalent now. If we had been eating it a lot longer than the last 50 or so years, then maybe we would have adapted to handle it, to a smaller or larger degree, depending on the population group.I think the issue is that food manufacturing and production is based on using ingredients that don't naturally occur, or don't in the quantities being used in mass production processes.
What they all seem to miss is that for early humans and modern day tribes, nothing comes easy. They didn't/don't have sedentary jobs. They didn't/don't have a sofa in front of a TV. They didn't/don't have a kitchen stocked full of food, which was bought with little/no effort from a shop, which they drove to without expending any energy.
Hi @IanBish - this is part of something I posted on Facebook yesterday. Hope it's of interest!Thanks for the reply. I know that there are far worse LTCs to have.
Some people handle carbs better than others; I know that. I guess I was interested in the how and why that is. As well as the actual cause of IR.
It is so frightening that I have to agree with everything you say .But the question should be what causes the lack of Leptin, and what causes that to be non existent or insufficient.and on and on.
The medical profession etc only research how to treat the symptoms. It needs an engineers approach ie what causes the symptom in the first place.
Since virtually all the research is funded only by those with a vested interest in keeping people ill, so they can continue selling ever increasing amounts of medication. a cure is not the goal, and never will be. In fact if by pure chance a cure was discovered, it would certainly, and even may already have been suppressed.
If you had a squeaky hinge, the medical professions approach would be to put some oil on it, and when it does it again use more oil, or up the ante and use grease, and rinse and repeat as often as needed. The engineers approach would be whats causing it to squeak, find out why, and rectify that, then there is no problem to cause a squeak.
Food is far too readily available. People my age and older, were bought up to eat at meal times, (snacks would ruin your tea) etc, and eating in the street was frowned upon. So by default, living like that, our circulating Insulin levels were much lower than nowadays.
Eating anything causes a first phase Insulin response regardless of whether carbs are involved, so frequency of eating IS IMPORTANT, without enough time between consumption, Insulin levels cannot dissipate, so all the cells in the body, stay resistant to it.
Thanks for the reply. I know about that hormone. In fact, Dr Paul Mason, mentions something that gets secreted higher up in the gut, that ultra-processed food bypasses, which helps with suppressing appetite. I forget what it was, and will have to look again.Hi @IanBish He mentions the discovery of the hormone Leptin, discovered in 1994 by Professor Jeffrey Friedman. This hormone controls our appetite. In 1997 it was demonstrated that a lack of Leptin causes obesity because of an unsatisfied appetite.
I agree. I was brought up like that, but over time did exactly what you mention. I now know, now it's too late, that that was the correct was of eating. High insulin causes your blood sugar to crash, causing you to eat to get your blood sugar up, because your brain thinks you're hungry. Not because you eat all the time because you're a glutton. I wish I'd known that earlier.Food is far too readily available. People my age and older, were bought up to eat at meal times, (snacks would ruin your tea) etc, and eating in the street was frowned upon. So by default, living like that, our circulating Insulin levels were much lower than nowadays.
Eating anything causes a first phase Insulin response regardless of whether carbs are involved, so frequency of eating IS IMPORTANT, without enough time between consumption, Insulin levels cannot dissipate, so all the cells in the body, stay resistant to it.
Thanks for the reply. I know that there are far worse LTCs to have.
Some people handle carbs better than others; I know that. I guess I was interested in the how and why that is. As well as the actual cause of IR.
This bit struck a chord with me. Although keto has reduced my appetite significantly, I do still get hungry. However, it's that traditional hunger most of us think of, where I get hungry in the hour or so leading up to a meal time. I don't feel the need to snack - and I was the Snack King before diabetes! Following diagnosis in July and starting low carb / keto, it occured to me as my diet progressed and I felt that traditional hunger sensation, that I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt hunger of any form before I was diagnosed. I was just constantly topping up, grazing my way through the day essentially, but using convenience and processed foods/snacks due to life. I must have been doing it for years. Like others commenting, it flies in the face of my upbringing, yet I came to consider it normal to never be hungry or go longer than an hour or two without shovelling something into my face.Food is far too readily available. People my age and older, were bought up to eat at meal times, (snacks would ruin your tea) etc, and eating in the street was frowned upon. So by default, living like that, our circulating Insulin levels were much lower than nowadays.
So it's carbohydrate intolerance, a phrase that I've heard a few times. I guess, for now, we have to go with that.As for the reason there is no cure, is because we have no reset button to how we could tolerate carbs.
We all have a tolerance level for carbs, and this is why, some can tolerate a lot...
And I wrote this without using scientific big words!
That's a good idea. Don't get bogged down by the science so much, but try to live in harmony, individually, with the condition.To be honest, my steer would be to learn as much as you can about YOUR diabetes and how to manage that. That, for me, was key to accepting the condition and learning to live amicably with it.
Just as a curved ball, in the US, they have various statuses for T2, including a state which is after X amount of time maintaining a A1c of less than Y, without diabetes meds, which they label "Operational Cure".
I have heard that myself but it is too narrow in its reasoning, that is why doctors call it glucose intolerance. Not only for the test but because of the response, to the glucose derived from what goes in your mouth.So it's carbohydrate intolerance, a phrase that I've heard a few times. I guess, for now, we have to go with that.
I can handle big scientific words. I just need to google some of them!
PS. I love your signature.
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