In the eighteen years that my beloved father, who insisted that I become a physician, lived with Type 2 diabetes. I gained valuable insight to the anxiety and despair that often accompanies this disease. I finally gave in to his desire to go home after he again re-countered the futility of all the treatment regimen to give him a decent quality of life.  In his own words he told me “I am, at this point, content with the life I have lived, and I do not wish to be a burden any longer to you nor your young children who need you as you are in Medical residency”.

Frankly, my beloved father’s plate was full at that time dealing with three times a week hemodialysis session come rain or shine, terrible New York snow and blizzard conditions, insulin injections three to four times a day and four to six blood sugar pricks a day. His blindness, caused by diabetes, kept him from being able to enjoy reading books and newspapers. His hearing loss made it impossible for him to listen and enjoy his favorite television station, CNN. Dementia rendered him lucid some days and other days incapable of recognizing his beloved family. After returning home to Nigeria, Dad transitioned to the world beyond, bequeathing to me his love for mankind, a passion for treating diabetes, and the desire to help reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with Type 2 diabetes.

With the advent of weight loss surgery, I began to encourage my patients into this arena but one week, I noted two different patients of mine who progressed into diabetes after having the weight loss surgical procedure. In search of answers, I traveled to Arizona to a medical conference and learned that weight loss may reverse diabetes but weight gain after weight loss surgery will reproduce the same disease.  So, I mused, if weight loss surgery can help reverse diabetes, what can happen if we encourage our patients to lose weight?

With the stress of starting a new medical practice, moving to a new city and being the mother of four children, I lost my ability to exercise which had always worked for my weight loss in the past. In July 2016, a quick trip to the emergency room revealed that my blood sugar was over 140 after drinking cranberry juice. I became alarmed. I did not wish to have Type 2 diabetes nor the complications my father had encountered.

In August 2016, I finally added weight loss into my medical practice with myself as a patient. During my nine-month journey, I lost a total of about sixty pounds and I weighed in the clinic weekly. I also kept a log of my food intake; water intake and I supplemented my diet with vitamins and minerals.  During this journey, I received my answer to the prayers for diabetic cure twelve years prior. I observed that with my weight loss, my blood sugars were again in normal range with fasting blood sugars less than 86 and my A1C level, which is a three-month average of blood sugar, was less than 5.4 (Type 2 diabetes is diagnosed when the A1C level is over 6.5). Furthermore, I witnessed a client go from three diabetic medications to no medications at all. That same year, I met a gentleman with type 1 diabetes who had hardly any diabetic complications while being a diabetic for over fifty years. He confirmed that his excellent A1C results of less than 5.6, while on insulin, was as a result of following a very strict diet where he consumed less than 30 grams of carbohydrate in his diet daily.

My understanding, to date, is that Type 2 diabetes is no longer the chronic, progressive disease we taught medical students, doctors and, of course, our patients. I continue to see on a daily basis that when people make the right food choices, they can reverse Type 2 diabetes or even take less medications.