View Single Post
  #10   ^
Old Tue, Jul-08-03, 13:35
c6h6o3 c6h6o3 is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 312
 
Plan: Bernstein
Stats: 203/171/170
BF:
Progress: 97%
Location: DC Metro
Default What is "diabetes"?

Ever since I was diagnosed, I've wrestled with the question: "Just what is diabetes?" The only thing I can see common to both Types and all people who have it is: some impairment of the ability to produce insulin. Using this definition I'm not sure that funpist can be said to have had diabetes because he (she?-apologies if you are female) apparently had high blood sugar caused solely by insulin resistance. Therefore, there was really no "diabetes" to "reverse". If he had kept up the high carbing there certainly would have been sufficient damage to significantly impair insulin production, but he doesn't seem to have gotten there yet.

I don't think that diabetes can be reversed, because once beta cells are gone, they're gone. If you haven't destroyed enough of them to impair insulin production to the point where you don't make enough to cover your meals, you don't really have diabetes. Pre-diabetes, impaired glucose tolerance, whatever. But diabetes, to whatever level you have sustained it, is irreversible. Pancreatic beta cells do not regenerate and that would be necessary for reversal. Symptoms reverse. Their underlying cause never does.
Reply With Quote