You’ve seen the question in social media clickbait...
For 20 years, experts have
considered type 2 diabetes
to be a predictably progressive
disease: Once you’ve been
diagnosed, you may slow the
progress, but you can’t stop it.
But what if that downward
spiral isn’t inevitable? What
if you can reverse type 2? Well
new British research suggesting
exactly that is making headlines.
CURE VERSUS REVERSAL
Those words might seem
interchangeable, but they
aren’t when it comes to
type 2 diabetes. As of yet,
there is no ‘cure’.
However, type 2 can be put
into remission with your meal
plan, physical activity and
medications – but if you stop, it
will return. For that reason, most
experts prefer the term ‘reversal’.
“Cure means you won’t
contend with this issue any
longer,” says Ann Albright,
director of the Division of
Diabetes Translation at the
Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention in the US.
“If you can stop taking
medications, you’ll still need
to eat healthy foods in suitable
portions and move more to keep
type 2 diabetes in remission.”WHERE THE RUMOURS
CAME FROM
While scientists investigate
possible treatments, such as
stem cell or faecal transplants,
currently only one thing
has been shown to reverse
type 2 diabetes.
“It’s very clearly about weight
loss,” says Roy Taylor, director
of the Magnetic Resonance
Centre at the University of
Newcastle in England.
Taylor caused a stir recently
with research suggesting that
eight weeks on a 2510-kilojoule-
a-day liquid diet, followed
by careful transition back toIS TYPE 2
CURABLE?