If you are wondering, is it possible to reverse my diabetes? Diabetes is a condition in which you have blood sugar levels too high. And I can take the medication off, or you stay on for your entire life; here is your short answer from an expert.
“There is no cure for diabetes, but it is reversible in some cases,”- says Dr. Dave A Chokshi- Is a primary care internist at Bellevue Hospital and clinical professor at NYU. The presence of consistently higher sugar in the blood is diabetes.
When we eat carbohydrates body generates sugar. Insulin, the hormone generated by pancreatic cells, directs sugar to body cells, creating energy for us. In type 1 diabetes, the pancreas slowly stops producing insulin until it stops completely. The accumulation of sugar in the blood seriously damages body organs.
While research is ongoing, there is no cure for type 1 diabetes. It may be hereditary and a combination of environmental factors.
In type 2 diabetes, the body cells don’t respond well to insulin (insulin resistance). That forces the pancreas to make more insulin. Eventually, it can’t keep up, and blood sugar (BS) becomes high, resulting in pre-diabetes and Type 2 diabetes conditions. Higher than the acceptable normal blood sugar range damages your eyes, heart, and kidneys. You risk heart attack and heart disease, kidney and eye diseases.
Where am I? Pre-Diabetes or Diabetes
As per CDC, a blood test after fasting overnight can indicate your diabetes.
BS (blood sugar) = 99 mg/dl or lower- NORMAL
= 100 -125 mg/dL = Pre-diabetes
= 126 mg/dl or higher =Diabetes
HbA1c is blood sugar averaged over 2-3 months duration
< = 5.6 mg/dl or lower- NORMAL
>= 5.7-6.4 – Pre-diabetes
>= 6.5 mg/dl or higher =Diabetes
Let’s go through the journey to find out if we can correct blood sugar permanently to normal. It helps diabetes remission and may take off or reduce the medication overall. Stay with your Diabetes team (physician, dietician, and exercise training personnel).
Your body weight, nutrition, lack of exercise, sleep, stress, hydration, and vitamin D level affect ty2 diabetes reversal, not to mention regular check-ups with your PCP and the diabetes team.
Reducing body weight by 5-10% reduces your daily and average blood sugar over 2-3 months by 0.5-1% in HbA1c.
Surgery:
One can take off extra weight through surgery. However, all weight loss surgery needs a procedure. You change your body permanently and must sustain weight using strict healthy nutrition and regular exercise.
Create Calorie Deficit- Overhauling your diet, for example, substituting your food intake with 800 cal/per day when a typical diet is 2000 calories daily, may seem drastic. However, in a recent study, some patients reversed diabetes and maintained it for two years.
It is severe restrictions on you. You will think you are starving daily and never want to get used to this routine. The alternative is injecting insulin daily into your body and doing it timely. Which one would you prefer?
Diet and Nutrition: Is a vegetarian diet better?
The vegetarian diet helps reduce your body weight and lowers your cholesterol, reducing risks related to heart diseases. It lowers your blood sugar and the risk of certain cancers.
With various diet options available now, the vegetarian diet is better. It offers fiber, minerals, vitamins, and less fat than an animal-based diet.
It would be best to have a well-balanced diet to keep you energetic and get you through the day. Nutrients you need for growth and repair to keep your body strong and prevent illness and disease from the diet.
Turning vegetarian may make you feel better by giving you more energy, according to registered dietitian Eliza Zied, author of “Nutrition at Your Fingertips.” A plant-based diet is lighter than a diet that includes meat, making you feel less sluggish, Zied says. The meat-based diets increase inflammation and add body fats to essential body organs. They have no fibers. However, they carry the critical B12 vitamins. Many people love the flavor and find the vegetarian diet tasteless.
Choose the diet wisely. A diet with whole grains, fruits, veggies, beans, legumes, and greens is superior. The key is to avoid ultra-processed food as much as possible.
However, being a strict vegetarian can lead to vitamin B12 deficiency. B12 vitamin deficiency lowers the RBC count and hinders DNA formation. You feel tired and numb.
Including an egg, eating fish, or supplementing with B12 to a vegetarian diet helps lose weight while gaining overall nutrition control.
Choosing the proper exercise routine and pursuing it changes your blood sugar towards normal, boosts energy, and increases insulin sensitivity of the cells.
The blog reference to Exercises: for diabetes reversal
Another misnamed Vitamin is the sunshine vitamin, a hormone in its actionable form (25-OH-Vitamin D3). Vitamin D deficiency, an essential nutrient, influences body weight, diabetes type 2, immunity, and chronic diseases, including cancer.
It can be as easy as exposing a part of your naked body to sunlight for a few minutes to add D-fortified food to your meals. You are working from home and have a high-intellectual and labor-intensive job that requires sitting for long hours, having a vitamin D lamp, and exposing the light for a few short minutes. If you are already D deficient from your lab report, your PCP will prescribe the dose you need to take.
Stress :
Align your mind with your true self to heal and move ahead
55% of Americans are under stress for a variety of reasons. According to The American Institute of Stress, stress impacts life, and continued negative pressure leads to sleep disruption and daily work performance and depletes the essence of life. People panic and get depressed.
When you are stressed, your adrenal glands produce a stress hormone called cortisol. Excess cortisol can cause weight gain, irregular menstrual periods, high blood pressure, mood changes, and other reproductive hormones.
While you surface some stress, always at work, home, or social interactions, and you name it, the key becomes how to keep yourself calm and not internalize it to impact your mind.
Mediation, staying positive, learning about who you are, and finding your voice help heal stress and allow positive movement.
Less stress means better sleep and peace of mind. Continual stress can grow cancer cells.
Sleep
As a diabetic, you either sleep less than six hours or more than eight hours with disruptions during your sleep cycle. Because of higher blood sugar, you wake up a few times to urinate.
Depending on how bad your diabetes is and how long you carry the disease, tingling, burning, and numbness in your leg due to damage of nerves (loss of feeling) can cause sleep disruption.
Hydration
How much water do you need to drink?
Ayurveda
As per Ayurveda, drinking a glass of lukewarm water on an empty stomach is the first thing in the morning before brushing.
Choosing your lifestyle and practicing to make it your own helps the reversal.
Mindful meditation serves as the core of good mental health. Adding on to your routine helps with better diabetes health, handling stress, and exercise.
Herbs and Your Diabetes Health
Caution! While plenty of herbs and spices have medicinal properties that help reduce blood glucose, let your physician and diabetes care team know if you are planning to change your diet, whether it be adding blood glucose-reducing herbs when you are on medication or otherwise.
We wish you the best with your attempts to permanently cure diabetes.
