This article is part ofHealth Divide: Type 2 Diabetes in People of Color, a destination in our Health Divide series.
Zoe Hansen / Verywell
Meet the ExpertDo-Eun Lee, MD, has been practicing medicine for more than 20 years and specializes in diabetes, thyroid issues, and general endocrinology. She currently operates a private practice in Lafayette, CA, which opened in 2009. She has authored several publications and is the recipient of various professional awards and honors, including the Young Investigator Travel Award from Seoul National University College of Medicine Alumni Association of North America, Las Vegas.
Meet the Expert
Do-Eun Lee, MD, has been practicing medicine for more than 20 years and specializes in diabetes, thyroid issues, and general endocrinology. She currently operates a private practice in Lafayette, CA, which opened in 2009. She has authored several publications and is the recipient of various professional awards and honors, including the Young Investigator Travel Award from Seoul National University College of Medicine Alumni Association of North America, Las Vegas.
Type 2 diabetesimpacts 38.4 million people in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and this number is on the rise.
The good news is type 2 diabetes is manageable with the correct regimen. However, people can develop further health complications or life-threatening conditions when it’s not.
Among others, diabetes is the leading cause ofchronic kidney disease (CKD), with approximately 1 in 3 adults with type 1 or type 2 diabetes also having CKD, according to the CDC.Diabetes can also increase a person’s risk for nerve damage, heart disease, mouth problems, foot problems, vision loss, and mental health conditions.
Do-Eun Lee, MD,an endocrinologist specializing in diabetes treatment, discusses how type 2 diabetes can impact a person’s health when left unchecked and what interventions people and healthcare providers can take to fight it.
Verywell Health: What are some of the complications that can result from type 2 diabetes?
Some risks include:
There is also an emotional burden of having type 2 diabetes—the psychiatric burden of being labeled as “diabetic,” in addition to the mental toll of taking multiple medications, is very burdensome.
Verywell Health: What medical interventions are needed to reduce these risks?
What Is the A1C Test?
For a person who doesn’t otherwise have a lot ofcomorbiditiesand whose baseline health is pretty good, I would aim to reduce their A1C levels to below 6%. If the person already has cardiovascular disease or a lot of comorbidities, lowering A1C as low as 6% might be dangerous.In that case, we would set their A1C goals higher because their life expectancy may not be as long as the people I described before.
Ongoing surveillance for detecting complications, including eye exams, foot exams, and cardiovascular exams, can also help mitigate risks.
Verywell Health: Can type 2 diabetes go into remission with the proper regimen?
I’ve been practicing for about 15 years and have had this occur in only one person—1 in 1,000s. To get there, he cut down his carbohydrate intake significantly and exercised in a very controlled way. He was one of my earliest patients and has kept himself healthy for the past 15 years. He’s impressed me.
In other cases, people may not completely rid themselves of the disease but can reach a manageable A1C level of under 6%. These people typically takemetformin, which is a medication for glucose control. This is almost equivalent to remission of diabetes, but you can’t use the word “remission” because they are using an intervention.
Verywell Health: What advice do you give people trying to manage their diabetes or fully recover?
Dr. Lee: I highly recommend downloading phone apps, counting carbs and looking at food labels—scanning what you eat is essential for improving health. So I’m a massive advocate ofMy Fitness Palfor people with type 2 diabetes because it has so much data. It’s enlightening and can help people start consuming food more consciously.
8 Sources
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.National diabetes statistics report.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Diabetes and chronic kidney disease.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Put the brakes on diabetes complications.
Endocrine Society.Diabetes complications.
Shahid RK, Ahmed S, Le D, Yadav S.Diabetes and cancer: risk, challenges, management and outcomes.Cancers (Basel). 2021;13(22):5735. doi:10.3390/cancers13225735
University of Oxford.The UK prospective diabetes study.
American Diabetes Association Professional Practice Committee, Draznin B, Aroda VR, et al.6. Glycemic targets: Standards of medical care in diabetes—2022.Diabetes Care. 2022;45(Suppl 1):S83-S96. doi:10.2337/dc22-S006
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