The goal of lifestyle treatment for type 2 diabetes is to reverse it, drive it into remission,

meaning normal blood sugars on a normal diet without drugs.

And exactly that can be achieved optimally with a whole food plant-based diet, as I've reviewed before.

For individuals who have had type two diabetes for more than eight years,

often having faced multiple complications, remission may be harder to achieve because a

significant number of insulin-producing beta cells in their pancreas are already depleted.

Even though full remission may not be possible for all patients, most everyone may still be able to find their way towards better health

and improve blood sugar control without adding more medications and could even reduce the medications

they are already on. You've heard of prescribing meds, but what about deprescribing them?

Deprescribing medications among patients with type 2 diabetes is actually something that's more

common in lifestyle medicine, because intensive, therapeutic, lifestyle change works pretty

effectively and can result in substantial and rapid drops in blood glucose. In order

to avoid blood glucose dropping too low, which results in hypoglycemia, medications need to be adjusted.

And the potential benefits of deprescribing meds in older individuals is extensive, including

reduced harm from taking many drugs at one time.

It not only reduces risk of adverse drug reactions and lowers medication costs,

but it actually improves people's ability to take the drugs they need to be taking

because they aren't overwhelmed with managing so many.

De-prescribing medications is individualized to each patient,

but generally, most medical practitioners will first target the meds most likely to cause dangerously low blood sugars,

such as sophonorrhea drugs like glucotrol or micronase, and insulin.

When lifestyle medicine practitioners were surveyed,

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