PS - In the UK and Canada at least at the moment there is a "no drug" Diabetes Remission Program that can be accessed through specific doctors

And the way the "experts" have designed it is:

With close supervision and weekly doctor visits you are put on an 850 calorie a day diet and monitored until you get to target weight

The Doctors "know" that if you have any hope of seeing Remission you have to lose the weight "first" - there is nothing more important.

The NHS Type 2 Diabetes Path to Remission Programme is a joint initiative between NHS England and Diabetes UK. This programme provides a low calorie, total diet replacement treatment for people who are living with type 2 diabetes and obesity or overweight: the NHS Type 2 Diabetes Path to Remission Programme.

The programme, previously referred to as the NHS Low Calorie Diet Programme, is based on research showing that a 3-month specially formulated ‘soup and shake’ diet followed by healthy lifestyle support helped people living with type 2 diabetes and obesity or overweight to lose over 10kg in weight, improve their blood sugar levels, reduce diabetes-related medication and, in almost half of participants, put their type 2 diabetes into remission.

(The Canadian Program is identical and both are based on the UK DiRECT Study that figured out how to do it)

So the programs are slowly getting out there, but the fact is only about 2% of Type 2 have the motivation to actually do the work

Type 2's are better at making excuses then actually taking action

Yes, I'm judgmental because you either Do or Do Not - Try is a word that means "Not Doing"

It sounds like you are using a good collection of traditionals/naturals that have been shown to provide some support for blood sugar

You do need to remember that the reason we have pharmaceuticals now (over the past 100 years at least) is because the natural/traditionals, while "helpful" were never able to actually provide a "therapeutic" benefit - diabetics still died horrible deaths, the (treatment) simply bought them a "little bit of extra time"

If you want to do it without pharmaceuticals or at least minimize the need then you need to stick with your weight loss journey

I'm not talking body positive, or people who call it fat shaming or those that think their weight is just societies judgement of them, the absolute truth is, if you want to do the "most you can" to effect your diabetes you NEED to get down to normal weight

Being overweight as a Type 2 Diabetic, which is a metabolic disorder, is the greatest impairment to effectively managing your diabetes

Being over weight results in your highest levels of insulin resistance - it prevents your body from using insulin to convert the sugar into energy

Being over weight results in fat around the pancreas (impairs insulin production), results in fat around the liver (which stores/releases blood sugar)

Being overweight "impairs" the very systems in your body that "would have regulated your sugar levels normally" if you were not over weight

And it is weight that "triggers" the diagnosis of Type 2 in way over 80% of those diagnosed

Most of us here NEVER would have been diagnosed if we had have maintained Normal Weight, and that is just a fact

So the biggest thing Type 2's could do to help themselves is stop using the excuse that their "weight" is not a problem and simply some judgement issue by others. If your Doctor tells you that you need to lose weight they are not "fat shaming" - they are trying to save your life

You have a metabolic disorder that is directly related to weight - ya it sucks that 4 of your other neighbours can carry 50 extra pounds and are "healthy at any weight" - unfortunately we are not one of "them" - our bodies said enough is enough

So stick with your supplements, they help a little, but if you get down to normal weight (BMI 18.5-25 with 21/22 being ideal) you may even find that you don't even need the naturals/traditionals

My A1C has been between 5.4 and 5.6 since February of 2017. I only take a daily probiotic, milk thistle and chromium. I do add fiber to my diet to try and get to the recommended 35 grams/day for a male T2 in the form of chicory root (inulin fiber found generic or in Benefiber brand) - I have never taken diabetes meds

But none would have been possible until after I lost the 60 pounds and got my BMI down to 22 - that did more than anything else I did

Thank you. That is mostly the info i have found too. I did find a youtube talk mentioning gout occasionally resulting from intermittent fasting. I have decided to just slow the weight-loss down and try to loose around 2kgs a month instead of the 4.5kgs i was loosing a month. I started this about a week ago and gout is settled. I hope this is not just coincidence. Thank you for caring.

@A DiabetesTeam Member - Gout is not something I have ever taken an interest in, but I have access to a few data bases (health based - NIH, Harvard, Springer etc) and I did run a keyword search for weight loss and gout flares and can say your observation, if correct in your case, is abnormal

All of the studies and observations have found it to be similar to this statement:

A prospective observational study from the US Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial database has demonstrated that, in individual patients with gout, there is a positive relationship between changes in BMI and the risk of recurrent gout flares, and therefore, weight loss may potentially contribute to gout management.

They all seem to conclude (and there is dozens of studies) that lowering BMI lowers the incidence of flares

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A Diabete...

Thanks Clive.I have already been limiting my red meat intake as well as anything with high purine content. I am however finding that that is not enough. I feel that whenever there is a bigger weight loss I get a gout attack. My suspicion is that the breakdown of cellular tissue being that fat and muscle weight loss is where the purines are coming from to spike the uric acid. I have not found any substantiated info confirming this and talking to nutritionists I am also not getting a concrete answer regarding weight-loss and gout. Besides potentially it could happen to some people. I am now trying to regulate that by loosing my weight slower which means I break the keto benefit to some extent. It seems to be working but is less motivating as my weight and sugar are not showing the same improvements that I had initially. But as I have read on this forum a few times. small steps