Having a discussion with a friend who says she no longer has type 2 diabetes. She was diagnosed three years ago and prescribed meds and went about changing her diet. She now no longer eats pastry, bread, pasta, cakes, sweets, potatoes. She gave up alcohol and doesn’t have milk in her hot drinks. Her diet is basically fish, meat, eggs (lots!), cheese (lots) salad/veg with full-fat yoghurt as a treat with blueberries or strawberries. She has a little bit of dark chocolate now and again. She has lost loads of weight and has stopped her medication and says she’s ‘cured’. I am full of admiration at how she’s turned things round again.
However she got slightly annoyed when I said you haven’t ‘cured’ your diabetes, you’ve just found a way to manage it. The comparison I gave was someone with a nut allergy hasn’t ‘cured’ their allergy because they no longer have allergic reactions - the reason they don’t have allergic reactions is because they don’t expose themselves to the allergen. So she doesn’t have high blood sugars anymore but that’s because she’s not eating hardly any carbs ( other than those found in veg) If she ever has a piece of cake she feels exhausted afterwards and tests her blood sugars and they’re sky high - same if she has potatoes. That to me is not being ‘cured’. Her body’s system for managing glucose via the pancreas/insulin is still broken.
I didn’t diminish the amazing thing she’s done for her life - and she knows me well and knows I’m genuinely happy for what’s she’s achieved but I’m right aren’t I? I just feel it kind of minimises the seriousness of Type 2 diabetes to treat it like something that you can get and then get rid of and be completely cured.