Can diabetes go away without drugs?
Reversing Type 2 Diabetes: A Narrative Review of the Evidence
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Diabetes remission rates on low-carb diets (54% at 2 years) rival those of surgery (36–45% at 5 years), without any invasive procedure.
Most assume only surgery can achieve lasting results. This shows diet alone—when properly supported—can match surgical outcomes.
Practical Takeaways
If you have type 2 diabetes and aren’t on insulin, try a low-carb diet (<50g carbs/day) with weekly coaching for 3 months and test your HbA1c.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Diabetes remission rates on low-carb diets (54% at 2 years) rival those of surgery (36–45% at 5 years), without any invasive procedure.
Most assume only surgery can achieve lasting results. This shows diet alone—when properly supported—can match surgical outcomes.
Practical Takeaways
If you have type 2 diabetes and aren’t on insulin, try a low-carb diet (<50g carbs/day) with weekly coaching for 3 months and test your HbA1c.
Publication
Journal
Nutrients
Year
2019
Authors
Sarah J Hallberg, Victoria M Gershuni, Tamara L. Hazbun, Shaminie J. Athinarayanan
Related Content
Claims (5)
Cutting back on carbs—like bread, pasta, and sugar—can fix type 2 diabetes, help you lose weight, lower blood pressure, and clean up a fatty liver, even if you don’t change how many antioxidants you eat.
When very overweight people have weight-loss surgery, many of them stop needing diabetes medicine within months—even before they lose a lot of weight—because their body starts using insulin better and their gut sends out helpful signals. About a third to almost half still stay diabetes-free five years later.
If you have type 2 diabetes and eat very few carbs (like less than a slice of bread per meal) while getting ongoing support from a doctor or coach, you might lower your blood sugar so much that you can stop taking diabetes meds—and for many people, that improvement lasts a year or even two.
Two major diabetes groups say eating fewer carbs or cutting calories for a short time can help people with type 2 diabetes lose weight, but they don’t officially say you can ‘cure’ diabetes this way.
If an obese person with type 2 diabetes eats only 600–850 calories a day for a few months, about half of them will no longer have diabetes after a year—and about a third will still be diabetes-free two years later, especially if they lost a lot of weight early on and haven’t had diabetes for very long.