Being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes can make it sound as though the condition will inevitably progress for the rest of your life. But one of the most important questions people now ask is: can type 2 diabetes be reversed?
For some people, major changes in diet, body weight and lifestyle can bring blood glucose back below the diabetic range without glucose-lowering medication. In conventional healthcare this is generally described as remission rather than a permanent cure, because blood glucose can rise again if the underlying metabolic problems return.
What Is Actually Going Wrong in Type 2 Diabetes?
Type 2 diabetes involves problems with the way the body regulates glucose. A major part of the process is insulin resistance: cells become less responsive to insulin, so the body has increasing difficulty keeping blood glucose within its normal range.
Over time, the pancreas may have to produce increasing amounts of insulin and can eventually struggle to keep up with demand.
Is Type 2 Diabetes Always Permanent?
No. Type 2 diabetes does not inevitably move in only one direction.
Some people achieve substantial improvements in insulin sensitivity and blood glucose control after significant lifestyle change. Remission is possible, although not everybody will achieve it and the likelihood varies according to factors including how long someone has had diabetes and their individual circumstances.
What Does Remission Mean?
Remission means blood glucose has fallen below the diabetic range and remains there without glucose-lowering medication for a defined period.
It does not mean that somebody should stop monitoring their blood glucose or assume the problem can never return.
Does Diet Matter?
Very much so, but diabetes is not simply a matter of “eating too much sugar”. The overall dietary pattern, energy intake, body fat distribution and insulin sensitivity are important.
This distinction matters because concentrating exclusively on avoiding sweet-tasting foods can miss the larger metabolic picture.
The Natural Hygiene Perspective
Natural Hygiene looks beyond controlling an isolated blood-glucose reading and asks what conditions have contributed to metabolic dysfunction in the first place.
The focus is on simplifying the diet, reducing heavily processed foods, eating appropriate amounts of simple fresh food, maintaining sensible activity, getting sufficient sleep and rest, and addressing lifestyle patterns that continually place unnecessary demands on the body.
Fruit is sometimes feared after a diabetes diagnosis simply because it contains natural sugar. But fruit and refined sugar are not nutritionally identical foods, and the wider dietary context matters. Anyone using insulin or glucose-lowering medication, however, needs to monitor significant dietary changes carefully because their medication requirement can change as blood glucose changes.
How Do You Know Whether Things Are Improving?
Symptoms alone are not enough. Type 2 diabetes can improve or worsen without producing an obvious day-to-day sensation.
Blood-glucose readings and HbA1c provide objective information about the direction in which glucose control is moving. Changes in waist measurement, body weight where relevant, energy and other metabolic markers can provide additional context.
How Long Can It Take?
There is no universal timetable. Blood glucose can begin responding to substantial dietary and lifestyle changes relatively quickly, while longer-term metabolic improvement takes time.
Someone who has recently developed type 2 diabetes may also be in a very different situation from somebody who has lived with it for decades.
What About Diabetes Medication and Insulin?
This is particularly important. If your blood glucose is falling while you are taking insulin or certain glucose-lowering medicines, the existing dose can become too strong and cause hypoglycaemia.
Do not independently stop insulin or prescribed diabetes medication. Significant dietary changes should be accompanied by appropriate glucose monitoring and medication should be adjusted with the clinician responsible for your diabetes care.
So Can Type 2 Diabetes Be Reversed?
Type 2 diabetes can improve dramatically, and some people can reach remission where their glucose levels remain below the diabetic range without glucose-lowering medication.
The more useful question is therefore not whether everybody can achieve the same result, but how much of the metabolic dysfunction can improve when the conditions that contributed to it are changed — and what your own measurements show as those changes are made.