Good questions and I am not sure I have a correct answer, but I have an answer best I understand the situation.

First off, the general medical community and medical dogma is that it is a degenerative disease that will only get worse. It does not get better.

The hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) is a surrogate marker for average blood glucose. What it actually measures is the amount of glycation on blood cells. Glucose is sugar sticky and over the life of a blood cell gets glycated by this glucose which the blood stream carries around the body. It is not a completely accurate test because different things can cause slightly different readings. For one thing it is assumed blood cells live about 90 days. But some people (people with better diets some doctors believe) can have longer average lived blood cells and some can have shorter life blood cells. If the blood cells live longer they have more time to become glycated so can give a slightly higher reading than what is associated with the average blood sugar. On the other hand if the blood cells are short lived the HbA1c reading can be artificially low. I am kind of getting long winded only to say A1c is just a surrogate marker of average blood sugar. It does not tell you if you have had many ultra high spikes (not good) or not many spikes but a higher than normal but longer lower readings. It is a surrogate average.

To get to what you want as a definition of remission (basically that you can occasionally eat a high sugar load and not have your glucose spike to the moon) it depends on the health and number of your beta cells in your pancreas. If they are healthy (can put out a lot of insulin) and are of adequate numbers (have not been burn out over the years to where many no longer function) then you could reach the remission you desire. Can type II diabetics do this? My best answer is "maybe". My best guess is if you are a recently diagnosed diabetic your chances to reach that goal are the best. If you are more like me and have been diabetic for 30-40 years it becomes more dicey. The question "can the beta cells recover enough to get back to where they were many years earlier after many years of abuse by being forced to over produce insulin because of a crappy diet?" becomes the issue. And that I don't have an answer for. The only way to know is by self test or a glucose tolerance test.

Here is what I have observed about myself. I can have a piece of birthday cake or pie and my blood sugar will spike. But it spikes no way near what it would have ten years ago without insulin injections. So I am satisfied my beta cells have "improved". Are they where they were at when I was 18 years old???? No way to tell (but my best guess is not very likely - in fact I know I am not there because my fasting glucose is still relatively high at 120-130). My first blood sugar test was when I was about 29 years old when trying to get life insurance for my new family and the nurse took my blood for analyzing. So I don't really know if I am in complete remission or not. I just know that I am better than I used to be.

One thing I am absolutely sure of is if I went back to eating the way I ate 30-40 years ago I WOULD be back to needing insulin shots to control my blood sugar. No question. What got me to type II diabetes in the first place would eventually if not soon put me right back there.

So in my non medical non nutritionist retired dirt farmer opinion can a type II diabetic become cured to the point they can eat anything they want again with impunity? No. What made a person sick in the first place will make them sick again. Can a person get to a point where they can occasionally indulge in some foods they enjoy or is a social convenience and not ding their health excessively by excessively high blood sugar spikes? I believe so and I also believe I am at that point. I can have an indulge once in a while and not have my blood sugar spike above about 160 or 180, which to me is way too high for good health but is nothing like some diabetics I hear of with over 300 readings. I nearly always avoid that situation for another almost entirely different reason. Addiction. I am certain I was addicted to carbs and particularly sweet carbs. Like an alcoholic that can't moderate alcohol consumption, I am afraid or actually pretty sure once I start down that road I will have cravings again that may cause me to go back to eating foods way to happy to spike my blood sugar. So while I CAN eat something sweet once in a while and not do too much damage I mostly choose not to because I am afraid it might get me back to close to 300 pounds again and back on 4 shots of insulin a day and back to knees and back hurting and back to just feeling crappy most of the time. So I mostly just say "no" to sugar for the addiction reason. But I will a couple times a year do it as an experiment just to see how high my blood sugar spikes and and how long it becomes elevated.

If you really want to know something just get a continuous glucose monitor. Best thing a diabetic could ever do for themselves. Try to keep your spikes to under 150 after meals with fasting glucose under 100. Then you will know in short order exactly what and how much you can eat of various foods because the monitor will give you almost instant feedback.

One other thing that Bikman says about low carb. If you are very low carb for quite a while then all of a sudden have a high carb meal or sugary treat, you may spike high. If the beta cells are not used to putting out lots of insulin they do not keep any in immediate reserve and the blood sugar will spike. But they learn quickly and as soon as you do that once the next time they will be ready. According to insulin researcher Bikman. So a long term low carb person might actually fail a glucose tolerance test. He recommends if you are going to do a glucose tolerance test at your doctors the day before eat some more carbs than you usually do to get the beta cells primed and ready for the test. He says the intolerance is only temporary in that case of a long term low carb person.

These are all less than three minutes long. Dang it I can't find the one I was looking for but will link a few of the many ones I listened to again. In the one I was looking for it addressed what I was talking about in the above paragraph about flunking a glucose tolerance test. I have learned more about my disease from insulin researcher Bikman than any other single source, although I credit about a dozen on line doctors for my diabetes and weight loss and health improvements.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/68gTSV5kYm4#mce_temp_url#

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5xrur8ItVs#mce_temp_url#

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yMuVZsoVovk#mce_temp_url#

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vzyXJRviAlg#mce_temp_url#

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Hef7LVmbHsc#mce_temp_url#

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3iPHSUYSH60#mce_temp_url#

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Hef7LVmbHsc#mce_temp_url#
A fasting insulin assay blood test is a good thing to have. I get one annually at my annual blood test. You have to request it. Should be single digits. It is not part of a standard lipid panel and may actually have to be sent to a different lab. Mine always is and comes back a day or two later than my other tests.

More than you probably ever wanted to know. Remember I am not a doctor nor nutritionist. These are the things I think I have learned and based on my own personal experience. They are subject to change as I learn more or different.