Opinion: subreddits are run by people who love their diabetes

I’ve been permanently banned from the /r/diabetes_t2 subreddit because one of my posts “violates this community’s rules”. I can’t see which rules and they don’t specify (how convenient).

My experience of Reddit diabetic communities is that they are run by and are full of people who desperately don’t want to change their lifestyle (the one that causes diabetes) and really, really want to cling to their diabetic status.

Here is a typical post from moderators in /r/diabetes_t2:

diabetes_t2-ModTeamMODS
T2 Diabetes can’t be cured or reversed. Put into remission, yes. Controlled, absolutely… but once a diabetic, always a diabetic. It never just goes away. Don’t take your meds, eat tons of carbs, etc. and all the hard work of your so called “reversed” or “cured” disease is out the window.

There is no evidence of that and in fact recent studies (e.g. DiRECT) and many bariatric surgery follow-ups have shown the opposite, there is confusion of nomenclature (“remission”, “reversal”, and “cure” are all the same so that any argument can be made nonsense), and there is that usual argument that “eat tons of carbs” should have a different effect before you have diabetes (i.e. give you diabetes) and in post-diabetes (somehow it shouldn’t give you diabetes again). This is just spreading misinformation with the assurance of a moderator. This does harm to people.

Not wanting to change lifestyle is easily explained. People are addicted to carbs and sugar, and getting rid of them is hard. So instead of trying to understand the condition and making efforts to get rid of it, it’s easier to keep on doing what you’ve always done, even if you know it led to a life-threatening medical condition. After all, there are pills for these things. Give me the pills!

Wanting to cling to your diabetes is a bit of a puzzle. Does it make them feel special? When you know that diabetes will lead to more and more severe side effects and eventually possibly death, why would you do everything you can to reject any solution that could get rid of it? Try to mention diabetes reversal and see what happens to you. Some of the groups even have in their basic rules that you’re not allowed to talk about it since diabetes is permanent and that’s that. Which is not supported by any scientific research, just tradition and opinion.

So I guess I’m done with Reddit. I tried to help people by describing at length what I did, the effect and the fact that I’m now free of medicine and any diabetic effect on a normal diet, and by describing/referencing the research I used, but people just don’t want to hear. So long Reddit users, enjoy your diabetes.