Can a person who is diagnosed with Type II diabetes ever become non-diabetic? I am a diabetic and frequent a diabetic message board where this question came up. My understanding is that once you are diagnosed with Diabetes you are always diabetic. You can control your blood sugar to a point where it constantly falls within a non-diabetic range, even for years at a time, but I would not consider this a cure. I would appreciate any input from any diabetic dopers out there. Thanks…
I’m diabetic and I believe you are correct. I think it’s quite likely that an overweight type II could lose enough weight to get to a point where blood sugar levels could be controlled quite well by eating only moderately sensibly. Whatever method you use for glucose control, you’ll need less as you lose weight and may reach a point where you have good control even with a normal diet. It still would not hurt to check your glucose regularly and getting the hb1AC taken ever 6 months is still important. No matter how good your control is and how little you need do to maintain it, you’re still diabetic.
When I was first diagnosed with Diabetes, my doctor told me that in some individuals, if it’s caught early enough, the body can be “retrained” to manage it’s own blood sugar, and re-establish homeostasis of blood glucose levels, but only if insulin tolerance has not reached some yet-to-be-characterized threshold.
In other words, being “cured” isn’t unheard of, but it’s very uncommon, because you have to catch the disease early enough before it’s progressed beyond the point of no return. Unfortunately, early stages of diabetes are nearly symptom-free, so few people catch it before this point.
Of you had symptoms of diabetes that made you see a doctor, then it’s very unlikely that it is “curable” by “retraining” the body.
This is a very interesting question and I’d answer it with a “yes”.
In particular, treatment of high sugars has the effect of restoring some responsiveness to insulin (ie. decreases insulin resistance) as well as improving insulin secretion by the pancreas. So, treatment of diabetes can sometimes lead to a positive feedback cycle of lower sugar ==> less insulin resistance & more insulin secretion ==> lower sugar etc. The net effect can be to “cure” the diabetes.
Still, once someone’s had high sugar they will be forever at high risk of “becoming diabetic” again. Ongoing exercise and avoidance of overweight are CRITICAL.
As an aside, sometimes during periods of extreme physical stress (heart attack, bad infection), a person can develop high blood glucose. This can disappear when the stress has been treated and/or is no longer present.