Here is the study abstract:

Participants:

Patients with type 2 diabetes of up to 3 years in duration. {From Medpage Today: [I]Asked for his opinion, Robert Eckel, MD, director of the Lipid Clinic at the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora, who was not involved with the study, noted that the patients chosen for inclusion were more likely to benefit from the intervention: "These subjects had a relatively short duration of type 2 diabetes and an HbA1c of ~6.5% at baseline, representative of more reserve in beta cell function that would be more predictive of benefit -- which, by the way, wasn't all that impressive in the 8-week group," he said via email. "With the impressive weight regain after the intervention was concluded, an important and practical question is how long will the benefit of the intervention last?"[/I]}

Interventions:

Participants were randomized to: (i) an 8-week intensive metabolic intervention[/COLOR], (ii) a 16-week intensive metabolic intervention[/COLOR], or (iii) standard diabetes care. During the intensive intervention period, weight loss and normoglycemia were targeted using lifestyle approaches and treatment with metformin, acarbose, and insulin glargine. Diabetes drugs were then discontinued in the intervention groups and participants were followed for hyperglycemic relapse. {Medpage today states: Patients were provided with a personalized exercise plan and a suggested meal plan that reduced their daily calorie intake by 500 to 750 calories a day...After the intervention, individuals in both intervention groups stopped taking diabetes medications and were encouraged to continue with lifestyle changes.}

Primary outcome:

On-treatment normoglycemia. (Does 'on-treatment' mean sustaining the reduced calorie and exercise portions of the study? Or on the entire treatment?)

Results:

Twelve weeks after completion of the intervention, 21.4% of the 8-week group compared to 10.7% of controls (RR 2.00, 0.55-7.22) and 40.7% of the 16-week group compared to 14.3% of controls (RR 2.85, 1.03-7.87) met HbA1C criteria for complete or partial diabetes remission.

Conclusions:

A short course of intensive lifestyle and drug therapy achieves on-treatment normoglycemia and promotes sustained weight loss. It may also achieve prolonged, drug-free diabetes remission and strongly supports ongoing studies of novel medical regimens targeting remission.

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Medpage Today article: https://www.medpagetoday.com/endocr.../diabetes/63849

This study was done by MDs at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Their "standard diabetes care" isn't specified in the abstract or the Medpage article, but 14.3% of the diabetics receiving only this instruction met hbA1c goals.

Am I the only one who thinks a diabetic with a 6.5 A1c could have achieved the same result with just the lifestyle interventions, without the drug portion?

Now that I think of it though, 59.3% did not sustain normoglycemia after study end...hardly a big vote for reversal.