> Well, my general impression is that doctors live under this illusion that patients will somehow succeed in making lifestyle changes that will cause the disease to go into regression or disappear altogether.
Well in the last 3 months, I DID learn new eating habits, lost 15 kilos and had my meds cut from 6.5 tablets per day to 0.5 tablets a day working with a doctor and having good control on blood sugar. The big AHA is that progressive changes have to be made in how you eat rather than necessarily so much in what you eat.
In general, unless you have significant beta cell death already, it IS possible to mitigate or reverse effects of type 2 diabetes and this is vastly preferable to pushing organs beyond limits through drugs or insulin.
Here is a recent book on the topic by Dr. Joel Fuhrman: "The End of Diabetes: The Eat to Live Plan to Prevent and Reverse Diabetes".
A more general book with good advice on nutrition that is perhaps easier to follow -- but not specific to diabetes -- is "The Whole Foods Diet: The Lifesaving Plan for Health and Longevity" by John Mackey , Alona Pulde, and Matthew Lederman.
Good luck to you and your mom! It helps a lot in making lifestyle changes when family, friends, and neighbors are supportive. See also the book "The Blue Zones of Happiness: Lessons From the World's Happiest People" for a bigger picture view on that.
Good sleep is another part of the puzzle -- see Matthew Walker's book "Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams" on that. Essentially, good sleep gives you better self-control during the day -- as well as helping your health in many ways including regarding diabetes.
Basic principle is to try to build new habits of how we eat gradually changing only 1 or 2 things every week and re-enforcing what works/cutting what doesn't. Typical diets (in my community) are 70 percent carbs, 30 percent veggies. We started by basically reversing this ratio. We also completely eliminated sugar & processed carbs (ie. flour - basically no breads & only whole grains) - but apart from this, I didn't fundamentally change what I ate. Then we progressively started reducing eating window over 10-12 weeks to < 6 hours in a day and started adding 2/3 day fasts. However, there are many routes & it works best if customized to individual.
Well in the last 3 months, I DID learn new eating habits, lost 15 kilos and had my meds cut from 6.5 tablets per day to 0.5 tablets a day working with a doctor and having good control on blood sugar. The big AHA is that progressive changes have to be made in how you eat rather than necessarily so much in what you eat.
In general, unless you have significant beta cell death already, it IS possible to mitigate or reverse effects of type 2 diabetes and this is vastly preferable to pushing organs beyond limits through drugs or insulin.