Type 2 diabetes: remission in just a week

Excerpt

We have learnt that type 2 diabetes can be prevented by maintaining a healthy lifestyle [1, 2]. Such therapy is inexpensive and without side effects. Regarding patients with established type 2 diabetes, we often dream of a magic pill that would permanently solve the problem. We might perhaps view type 2 diabetes as a point of no return when we look at long-term data such as those provided by the UK Prospective Diabetes Study: progressive deterioration of glycaemic control and beta cell function irrespective of therapy, be it pharmacological or non-pharmacological [3]. Even the most exciting new drugs, such as dipeptidyl-peptidase IV inhibitors or glucagon-like peptide 1 agonists, seem to fail to produce persistent improvements in beta cell function [4, 5]. On a positive note, the study of Lim et al. in this issue of Diabetologia reminds us that type 2 diabetes and its pathophysiological defects are indeed entirely reversible, at least in the short-term [6]. …