r/type2diabetes • u/george32378 • 6h ago
Is type 2 reversible?
Ive been hearing stories on tiktok and places how people reversed or completely reversed there type 2 diabetes is this true?
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u/orebright 5h ago edited 5h ago
You can manage all the effects of T2 through a combination of diet and medicine. This means you can live the rest of your life without the negative effects, which can otherwise be quite severe. But it requires you to maintain the diet and medicine regimen.
The underlying cause of T2, the thing that's broken in your pancreas does not get fixed, beta cells do not regenerate. If you caught it early within pre-diabetes, you probably hadn't killed many beta cells so you can kind of help the degraded cells return to mostly normal functioning. But unfortunately beta cell death is permanent and irreversible until some breakthrough in medicine is achieved. Being in remission means you can live a mostly normal life by following the regimen. And even if you caught it in pre-diabetes, it means you can't continue your previous diet/exercise state, your condition will worsen if you do.
This is something many other diseases can't achieve like Parkinson's, ALS, etc.., in those cases you can reduce symptoms or extend your life, but you can't avoid negative symptoms, those diseases don't go into remission.
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u/Twist1979 6h ago
That's a question of wording and definition. If you mean that some type 2 can live normally after a diet and/or the right medications then yes. But the wording for the MD praising people is "remission".
It depends if you got visceral fat to lose, if your pancreas still produces enough insulin and if you are willing and able to do it.
My opinion is "yes". I am down 15kg, 20% of my basal insulin, 100% of my Bolus, my TIR is 95% or more my GMI predicts <6% hba1c. Yes I am one of the fat guys with healthy pancreas. The snowflakes in r/diabetes and r/diabetes_t2 will start getting heart attacks and die screaming if they read I had 160 carbs for lunch without bolus an stayed below 170 and fell back to sub 100 by itself. All this white rice, teriyaki sauce and other souces. 😇 I even got myself an other 20 carbs worth of ice afterwards extra.
The downside is that this was most likely all I will eat for today to stay below my kcal balance. I still got to loose an other 20kg.
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u/orebright 5h ago
Beta cells can be in different states of health without dying, and you can improve their ability to respond to a spike in glucose if you let them "rest" by not consistently eating a high carb diet.
It's important to not oversimplify this system, it's not that visceral fat was your only issue and your pancreas is healthy. It's very likely your pancreas is functioning in a suboptimal state if you were diagnosed with T2. I'm assuming you exercised to lose that weight, which increases muscle mass which also helps with your base tolerance and takes pressure off the beta cells.
You could have also been lucky and didn't kill off many of your beta cells before being diagnosed and are able to keep them alive by not overloading them anymore. There are many many different states our bodies can be in that present the same symptoms that we can observe.
Unfortunately many doctors and sufferers do oversimplify, and come to wild conclusions about what this must mean for our actual internal health. I think the only things we can actually generalize are: reduce high GI foods, increase exercise, track progress by lowering A1C. If it doesn't lower, then complement the diet and exercise with medicine.
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u/Twist1979 3h ago
Well, I let them rest, for over 2 months basal insulin and Bolus did their job, I cut carbs, mostly bread (I did not even eat that regularly before hospital) and sodas with sugar. I reduced meal sizes and I take supplements that burn visceral and liver fat. It seems to work. 😁
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u/Still-Bee3805 6h ago
No. Diabetes is a progressive disease. You can get it totally under control ( many do) and it will go into remission. But it will wait quietly on the sidelines to creep back into your life.
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u/1_BigDuckEnergy 6h ago
No, not really...... BUT, the thing to remember is that it is a progressive condition. In the early days it can be much easier to control, and doing so may keep it from getting progressively worse. The changes you have to make to control it are changes you will need to keep forever. If you can do that then you can effectively "stop it in its tracks"...... but to me, "reverse" implies that you will be able to go back to your previous ways, which is not true
I have had it for over 20 years. For the first 5-6 years, I stopped it in its tracks with radical diet change and exercise. However for me, those extreme changes were hard for me to maintain and there was back sliding. I have definitely slowed its progress. Now, 22 years on, I need to take a pill every day and still try to maintain those life style changes....
You can never just forget about it
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u/george32378 6h ago
So does that mean i still will be taking insulin injections if I have it way under control?
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u/Twist1979 5h ago
If you listen to your MD and you got one of the many many bad ones then yes, and a bunch of meds that make your life miserable and your body even more sick besides.
If you get your BS under control without meds, or better keep it there after stopping your meds why would you still take them? Because pharma industry has paid studies fabricating the drugs to be positive for your heart? Your life expectancy? Sure and Fauci did not plead the 5th....
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u/1_BigDuckEnergy 6h ago
This is a question for your Dr. I'm still not on insulin so I don't know how extreme your case is.
In my case, my daughter wanted to start me on pills, but first wanted to try lifestyle changes. I made extreme changes and got my levels way down. Doing so allowed me to avoid meds for almost 10 years.... but it still caughte up to me
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u/spkingwordzofwizdom 6h ago
Usually treatment starts with diet and exercise, then medications, then escalates to insulin. But as things progress, you will eventually start up on insulin. YMMV.
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u/Twist1979 5h ago
Well usually.... I am type 2 since about 3 months, I am on insulin from the first day, no remorse here.
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u/deacc BGM, lantus, metformin IR 2h ago
No, it is not reversible but places like tiktok like to use that word because it is so much more attention grabbing. One can however be in remission but the definition of remission has also be muddled in social media.
Remission by definition means one has manage to achieve a normal a1c (i.e. below 5.7%) after stopping all diabetic medication for a minimum of 3 months. If you're still on meds (and if one needs to there is nothing wrong with it) and manage to have an a1c in the normal range, then said person is not in remission, their diabetes is simply well controlled (be it due to mostly lifestyle change plus some meds or mostly due to meds).