Not so fast cowboy. Yes, diet and exercise can contribute to the disease, but some people can eat three doughnuts a day and not get DMT2, some get it despite a healthy lifestyle (including, if you believe the article, the CEO of this company, an ironman competitor).
And some of the damage is irreversible. Damage to pancreas, damage to circulatory system, etc. So catching it early (why they screen for "pre diabetes" and which is why the other company in the article went after pre diabetic patients). Once the patient has been diagnosed with full blown non-T1, then 100% reversal is probably not in the cards, simply a maintenance regime. For most people that includes drugs.
I agree with you without reservation that it's clear that you're better off on many dimensions by maintaining a healthy lifestyle, but like it or not (and I don't like it) that's hard for most people to maintain for many many reasons.
Also, "diabetes" describes a symptom (essentially excessive urination with sugar excreted in the urine"). Under "T2" (basically: anything which isn't your immune system attacking your beta cells) are a cluster of diseases which cause the same symptoms.
The general gist is that it gives your pancreas some "time off" from having to manage blood sugar increases due to daily ingestion of food, hopefully allowing it some time to "heal". I've started this and have noticed a small bit of improvement in my blood glucose levels, both on the fasting day and for a few days on the non-fasting days. I've been fasting one day in six.
I'm skeptical of this actually "reversing" the disease, but it does seem to help my numbers, as well as helping me lose a small amount of weight. It also reacquaints me with hunger, and makes it easier on the non-fasting days not to succumb to non-hunger related eating cues, at least in my experience.
