Is Diabetes Reversible?

Most of the people who are diabetic, live on metformin tablets as their regular medication. Those on the extreme side of it use insulin shots to regulate the sugar levels in their body. There is a common myth among the people that once you turn diabetic, there is no way to stay away from medicines to keep the sugar level in control. Well, the truth is while Type 1 diabetes needs life long medication, Type 2 Diabetes is completely reversible and I am an example. If you or any of your family/friends is living with latter Diabetes, they have a golden opportunity to win over diabetes with simple lifestyle changes. Over next few posts, I intend to share insights to help you get familiar with diabetes, testing parameters, causes, prevalent treatment methods as well as what can be done differently to get rid of this condition altogether. Hope this inspires a lot of you to understand things better and take care of you and your loved ones health.

Before I get into all the details, let us understand the big question ‘What is DIABETES?’ Here is a definition of Diabetes from World Health Organisation (WHO) – Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces. Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood sugar. When we consume food, the energy from food in the form of blood sugar (glucose) levels rise, the pancreas releases insulin. This causes sugar to move from your blood to your cells, where it can be used as an energy source. As glucose levels in our blood go back down, pancreas stops releasing insulin. Insulin is very much required for the cells to use blood sugar for energy and it helps regulate normal glucose levels in the bloodstream. Hyperglycaemia, or raised blood sugar, is a common effect of uncontrolled diabetes and over time leads to serious damage to many of the body’s systems, especially the nerves and blood vessels.

Type 1 Diabetes is a condition where the pancreas are not able to sufficiently produce insulin. Due to this insufficient insulin production, it leads to uncontrolled blood sugar levels in the human body. Type 1 diabetes is non reversible. Where as in Type 2 diabetes, pancreas doesn’t produce enough insulin, or our body has become resistant to its action. This causes glucose to build up in the blood. It could be due to impaired body metabolism as well. Due to our lifestyle with unbalanced food habits and not being active physically, body gets to a state where it cannot regulate sugar level in blood stream. Both type 1 and 2 diabetes can be life-threatening. But if treated carefully, Type 2 Diabetes can be managed or even reversed.

Yes, you read that right, good news is that Type 2 diabetes can be reversed by switching over to healthy lifestyle including balanced food intake, physical exercises and losing excess weight. Healthy weight loss with balanced nutritious food and physical activities help you burn the excess fat in the body there by helping the internal organs function more efficiently. There are lot of research studies available on internet to read about this. I took one such path under the guidance of qualified professional doctors, lost a good amount of weight though I wasn’t obese. With right food and healthy lifestyle modifications, I am completely diabetes reversed as I write this. I have been off medication for more than 10 months now since I joined this diabetes reversal program and loving every bit of the transformation I have gone through as well as how my body responded back to the balanced food.

I will write about the entire journey and various aspects of this diabetes reversal in next set of posts. Stay tuned.