At least some overweight people with Type 2 diabetes have their blood sugars return to normal if they lose weight.It happened to me.I was told to lose 30 pounds and did so.Once that weight was gone I was taken off my diabetes medication *and* I was taken off all but one of my blood pressure meds and the one that wasn't discontinued was reduced to the lowest recommended dose.I asked my doctor about it and he said that it was very common to see those results after a noteworthy weight loss.
Good for you.
But I know people who lost 100 lbs and didn’t make a darn bit of difference in their diabetes, cholesterol and blood pressure.
I think genetics is more important than lifestyle.
They should study people who don’t get these diseases despite their “unhealthy” lifestyles.
Also knew people who were thin, exercised, ate healthy and died of a heart attack when middle-aged.
OK. How’d you do it? I am STARVED all the time; with winter coming and stress out the wazoo. How? I need to lose 25 or 30 lbs.
A friend of mine lost 60# and was freed of diabetes, too, and he had been on the pump.
Genetics is a powerful force in one’s health but we still have to exercise.
Weight loss and exercise will affect the numbers, the surrogate measures of the disease, and so will the pills. However, no one has yet proved that making the numbers go in the right direction will alter the course of the disease in terms of morbidity and mortality. That would take decades, and no pharmaceutical company wants to run a study that long, so they go for results just in terms of the A1c or lower cholesterol.
The one large study done in the UK many years ago supposedly demonstrates a benefit, but it is measured in terms of reduction in relative risk which can be very deceiving. Also, they did a lot of massaging of the data to even show that small benefit.
There has not been one good study that has proved that weight loss will lengthen one’s life. People may want to lose weight (and most will not be successful in the long run) because it makes them feel better, etc. but there is no guarantee that it will make one live longer.
There is much more we don’t know about obesity and diabetes than we do know, but this deviates from Holy Writ concerning these conditions. People need to keep an open mind and see some real proof, not just in adjusting various numbers in tests, but actual benefit to the patient, before they swallow the accepted wisdom.
Recommend The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos (he is a bit of a lib and goes off on tangents at times, though) and any book by Dr. Nortin Hadler, MD. His latest on aging is excellent.
One more... Overdiagnosed by H. Gilbert Welch.