Diabetes Health Talk

People with type 2 diabetes who are trying to bulk up on fiber may need to pay closer attention to their calcium intake as well, a small study suggests.

When 13 diabetics doubled their fiber intake, the study participants began to excrete less calcium in their urine — a sign that their body’s calcium absorption had declined, the researchers observed.

Fiber is known to help lower cholesterol, improve blood sugar control and maintain bowel regularity; and adults are advised to get roughly 25 grams or more each day.

But these latest findings suggest that poorer calcium absorption may the trade-off, the researchers report in the journal Diabetes Care.

“Because more calcium equals better bone health, we recommend that people on high-fiber diets talk to their physician about increasing their dietary calcium as well, in order to get the most benefit from both,” senior researcher Dr. Abhimanyu Garg, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said in a written statement.

He added that it is important to consult a doctor or dietitian first because excessive calcium can cause kidney stones.

The findings are based on 13 middle-aged and older adults with type 2 diabetes who each consumed 50 grams of fiber per day for 6 weeks, followed by 24 grams per day over another 6-week period.

Garg’s team found that when participants were on the higher-fiber diet, their calcium excretion declined. Some studies, the researchers note, have suggested that dietary fiber binds with certain minerals, forming “complexes” that cannot be absorbed.

Garg suggested that people try foods that provide both fiber and calcium, such as spinach, broccoli, figs, papaya, beans and artichokes.

Sled dogs competing in the Iditarod, which ended Tuesday, are among the most energy-efficient creatures on Earth, with a capacity to run hundreds of miles day after day without showing the normal signs of fatigue.

Could their fat-burning prowess help uncover ways to prevent and treat obesity in type 2 diabetes?

Michael Davis is on the trail to find out. Davis, a professor at Oklahoma State University who has studied exercise physiology in sled dogs for a decade, recently completed the first phase of research examining how dogs that train for the 1,100-mile Iditarod become “insulin-sensitive” and convert fat to energy so proficiently.

“If we can figure out what exercise is doing to start the process, then we may be able to find how it can be applied to everyone, whether or not they are physically able to exercise,” he says.

The Diabetes Action Research and Education Foundation has contributed one-third of the $30,000 research grant. Oklahoma State University is bankrolling the remainder.

About 24 million Americans have diabetes. Diet and exercise have been shown to prevent the onset of the more common type 2 diabetes.

Typically, the hormone insulin helps the body’s cells take up glucose from the blood and turn it into energy. Type 2 diabetics often have problems absorbing glucose in response to the insulin their bodies create.

In January, Davis and collaborators Ray Geor of Michigan State University and Shannon Pratt of North Carolina State University chose 16 dogs in Iditarod-worthy shape from the kennel of one of this year’s competitors and had them run 22 miles at a healthy clip of 8 mph. Half the dogs were anesthetized for five minutes while researchers took small muscle biopsies from their legs; the other half were measured for insulin sensitivity using catheters.

By calculating the metabolic stress on the muscles again in September and November — when the dogs are not in shape after a summer of inactivity — Davis hopes to understand how the cells are reacting under different physical conditions.

This is amazing!

Received my Free OneTouch UltraMini Meter last week, making my grand total of meters at four, and I still forget to test my blood sugar (for Diabetes Type 2) a few mornings a week.

My problem is, i’m not fully awake before my coffee (YAH Folgers Black Silk Coffee!). By then, it’s too late for the morning fasting blood sugar test. Normally, I put a meter on top of either the coffee maker or the coffee can, but forgot.

Lately, my blood sugar has been in the 110’s, down from the 120’s a few weeks ago. This has been since I’ve started taking Apple Cider Vinegar and Cinnamon tablets. It’s so gratifying to see something working on lowering that blood sugar. Still watching the sugar, fat, sodium, starchs & carbs.

This new meter, the ultramini, has different colors for you to order. The one I ordered was the green, but they have others, as in the one above. Some info from the site?

Take the dull out of diabetes testing with OneTouch® UltraMini™.
Pink Glow. Silver Moon. Limelight. Jet Black. With the OneTouch® UltraMini™ Meter, blood glucose testing will never be dull again.

Free diabetes education with every meter.
Your OneTouch® UltraMini™ Meter comes complete with Simple Start™ Diabetes+Food — an educational booklet that can help you manage your diabetes around food.

It comes with everything you need.
OneTouch® Lancing Device
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10 OneTouch® UltraSoft® Lancets
OneTouch® AST™ Clear Cap for testing on forearm or palm*
Mini carrying case, batteries, and logbook
Owner’s Booklet, Quick Reference Guide, and Quick Start Guide
Compatible with OneTouch® Diabetes Management Software
Covered by insurance.
The OneTouch® UltraMini™ uses OneTouch® Ultra® Test Strips, covered at the lowest co-pay by more health plans than any other test strip.

Type 2 diabetes typically worsens over time as less and less insulin is produced by the pancreas. Usually, treatment for type 2 diabetes starts with lifestyle changes and a diabetes pill, such as metformin. Sulfonyureas and thiazolidinediones are other types of diabetes pills that can be considered, but both can cause weight gain, and sulfonyureas can cause more episodes of hypoglycemia (low blood glucose) than metformin.

Liraglutide is a new injectable diabetes medicine. It is now under development as a possible alternative to available diabetes pills. Researchers are performing studies to find out how liraglutide compares to other diabetes medicines.

Why did the researchers do this particular study?
The researchers wanted to compare the effectiveness and safety of adding liraglutide, glimepiride (a sulfonylurea), or a dummy pill to metformin treatment for people with type 2 diabetes.

Who was studied?
The study included more than 1,000 adults with type 2 diabetes who had been taking either one type of diabetes pill or more than one type of diabetes pill for more than 3 months.

How was the study done?
Participants received liraglutide injections, glimepiride pills, or dummy pills in combination with metformin for 26 weeks. Researchers measured the participants’ A1C and body weight at the start and end of the study and collected information about whether they experienced nausea or hypoglycemia while on the treatments.

What did the researchers find?
Adding liraglutide to metformin provided better diabetes control than metformin alone. The liraglutide-metformin combination controlled blood glucose as well as and caused less weight gain and hypoglycemia than a combination of glimepiride and metformin. Liraglutide caused more nausea than glimepiride, but the nausea declined over time.

What are the implications of the study?
Adding liraglutide to metformin may be a good treatment option for patients whose diabetes is not adequately controlled with metformin alone, especially when weight gain and hypoglycemia are a concern.

ADA-funded researchers Drs. Hollie Raynor, Rena Wing and Chantelle Hart have published findings that were highlighted in the January 9, 2009 issue of ScienceDaily News. In their research study conducted at Brown University School of Medicine in Providence, Rhode Island, they investigated the eating and activity patterns of children ages 2 to 12. They hypothesized that the early patterns of unhealthy eating and exercise habits in preschool can contribute to the onset of childhood obesity in school-aged children. Hollie Raynor, PhD, RD is the recipient of an ADA Healthy Food Choices Award. Rena Wing, PhD is the recipient of a Mentor-Based Postdoctoral Fellowship Award of which Chantelle Hart, PhD was the postdoctoral fellow from June 2006 to June 2007.

Quantitative data was collected on the parent’s age, height and weight. The child’s height and weight were collected from their previous medical records. Parents completed a questionnaire on their child’s eating and activity habits. The questionnaire results showed that parents of school-aged children had increased reports of their child consuming unhealthy foods such as sweet drinks, salty and sweet snacks. They also reported other behaviors such as eating dinner less with parents, which led to their less healthy food choices and more time in front of the TV. On the other hand, a greater percentage of parents with preschool children reported that their child was “just as” or “a little more” active than their peers.

So parents out there, watch what your kids eat, institute famiily meals with no tv or electronics of any kinds at the table. Good luck.

This is an interesting concept: For people with type 2 diabetes, diets high in either monounsaturated fatty acids or carbohydrates are good — as long as the calories they contain are limited.

Dr. Bonnie J. Brehm and colleagues at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, ran a clinical trial in which 124 overweight or obese subjects with type 2 diabetes were assigned to either a diet high in monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) or one high in carbohydrates for one year.

The diet plans were individualized to provide 200-300 calories per day less than calculated daily requirements, the team explains in the medical journal Diabetes Care.

After a year, 69 percent for the high-MUFA group and 84 percent for the high-carb group were still participating.

Average weight loss was similar in both groups — 4.0 kilograms (8.8 pounds) in the high-MUFA group and 3.8 kg (8.4 pounds) in the high-carb group.

There were also similar improvements in body fat, waist circumference, blood pressure, “good” HDL cholesterol, A1C, and glucose and insulin.

Among 18 participants from each group who consented to a follow-up assessment 18 months after completion of the main study, the researchers found that weight loss and A1C improvement had been maintained.

“Our study results suggest that high-MUFA diets can be healthy alternatives to conventional lower-fat diets,” Brehm and colleagues conclude. Healthcare providers with diabetic patients “can offer ongoing counseling for a variety of diets higher in either carbohydrates or MUFA while controlled in energy,” they advise.

Dropping the ‘one size fits all’ philosophy and providing diet options, they suggest, may encourage people with diabetes to stick with a reduce-calorie diet.

Sprints May Be Best for Diabetes Prevention

Though I prefer walking to running or sprinting, this may catch on. Researchers say a few minutes of intense exercise a week is just as good as a half-hour of moderate physical activity a day for reducing a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes — and may actually be even more effective, new research hints.

“It is possible to gain significant health benefits from only 7.5 minutes of exercise each week — if that is all that you find the time to do,” Dr. James A. Timmons of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, one of the researchers on the study, told Reuters Health.

“This is a dramatically different view from current thinking,” he admitted.

Timmons and his team found that young sedentary men who did just 15 minutes of all-out sprinting on an exercise bike spread out over two weeks substantially improved their ability to metabolize glucose (sugar). Traditional aerobic exercise programs can boost sensitivity to the key blood-sugar-regulating hormone insulin. The high-intensity program did this too, but it also directly reduced the men’s blood sugar levels — something that standard exercise programs have not been shown to do.

To investigate, they had 16 men in their early 20s do six sessions of exercise, each including four to six 30-second sprints interspersed with four-minute rest periods. The time commitment for each session ranged from 17 to 26 minutes.

After two weeks, the amount of time the men’s blood sugar and blood insulin levels were above normal after they drank a solution containing 75 grams of glucose was reduced by 12 percent and 37 percent, respectively. When people eat, Timmons explained, their blood sugar levels rise, but in very fit people levels speedily return to normal. In less-active people, high blood sugar levels are more prolonged, which over time can damage the body and lead to cardiovascular disease.

An ambitious effort to cut costs and keep aging, sick Medicare patients out of the hospital mostly didn’t work, a government-contracted study found. The disappointing results show how tough it is to manage older patients with chronic diseases, who often take multiple prescriptions, see many different doctors and sometimes get conflicting medical advice.

The study showed just how hard it is to change the habits of older patients and their sometimes inflexible doctors. And it points up the challenges the Obama administration will face in trying to reform health care for an aging nation.

Most of the patients had serious, but common, age-related illnesses including diabetes, heart disease and lung disease. Programs were set up at 15 centers around the country. Only two cut the number of times these patients were hospitalized, and those are still in operation. None saved Medicare any money.

The authors of the study called the results “underwhelming.” An editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association, where the study appears Wednesday, used the term “sobering.”

“The only way you can really do it is by changing patients’ behavior and by changing physicians’ behavior, and both things are really hard to do,” said study author Randall Brown, a researcher at Mathematica Policy Research Inc., in Princeton, N.J., which was hired to evaluate the programs.

Often, these patients need to stop smoking, or lose weight, exercise more, eat healthier foods — a challenge even for generally healthy people. Those changes are especially tough for sick, older patients who often are set in their ways.

Let’s pretend for a moment that you have two options for improving your health: Eat more nuts or eat more olive oil. Which should you choose?

Believe it or not, nuts could have a slight edge, especially if you’re concerned about metabolic syndrome (including diabetes), a combo of health conditions that raises heart disease risk.

Nuts for Your Health
In a 1-year study, people who ate a Mediterranean-style diet and added an extra ounce of nuts (roughly a small handful) had a lower incidence of metabolic syndrome compared with the people who ate the same diet but instead added 4 to 5 ounces more of olive oil every day.

The Whole Truth
Why the difference? Here’s one simple theory: Olive oil is a fat extracted from olives, but nuts are a whole food with more good-for-you stuff in them, including fiber, protein, and minerals. Both olive oil and nuts can — and should — have a place in a healthy diet. In the study, both seemed to help tamp down high triglycerides and abdominal fat better than a low-fat diet did. But the nut eaters also experienced better blood pressure, which is one reason their metabolic syndrome numbers were better.

If you found out that one particular health condition could increase your risk of at least ten other serious medical problems, you’d do Millions of Americans have syndrome X taking hold in their bodies and they don’t even know it.
everything you could to avoid that health condition, wouldn’t you? Yet millions of Americans have just such a condition taking hold in their bodies and they don’t even know it. The condition is called metabolic syndrome (also known as syndrome X or insulin resistance
syndrome), and it is quickly becoming a pandemic in the United States, affecting as many as 47 million Americans.

The list of health problems that metabolic syndrome can lead to is long and concerning. It doubles a person’s risk of heart attack, doubles a person’s risk of stroke, and also can lead to cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, polycystic ovary syndrome, fatty liver, cholesterol gallstones, asthma, and even some forms of cancer.

Here’s the good news: adding a brisk walk to your routine every day may be enough to help stop this syndrome, and all of the accompanying health ills, in its tracks.

A test that doctors have been using for years to monitor blood sugar in people with diabetes may soon be recommended as a tool for diagnosing the disease.

Within the next six months, a consensus by several leading diabetes organizations will lead to the publication of guidelines recommending the A1C test as a diagnostic tool for type 2 diabetes, says Matt Petersen, director of information resources for the American Diabetes Association.

“Right now there are no criteria for A1C use in diagnosing diabetes, but we know it is being used in practices this way,” Petersen says.

The ADA guidelines currently recommend doctors use the fasting blood glucose (FBG) test in patients who are at risk for type 2 diabetes. A less common practice is for doctors to require an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT).

Both are sensitive at measuring real-time glucose levels in the blood, but results can be easily thrown off, for example, if a person has a cold or hasn’t eaten properly, says Daniel Einhorn, medical director of Scripps Whittier Diabetes Institute in La Jolla, Calif., and vice president of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists.

The benefit of the A1C test is that it can be taken at any time of day and is not thrown off by events of the day, Einhorn says. It probably would be used along with other tests.

Also called the HbA1c or glycated hemoglobin test, it tells what your average blood glucose level was over the past two or three months by measuring the concentration of hemoglobin molecules in your red blood cells that have glucose attached to them. The test also can predict the chance for future complications, such as nerve, eye and kidney damage.

Once glycated, or sugar-coated, the hemoglobin stays that way throughout the red blood cell’s life span, which is about 120 days. So, if your A1C is an 8, that means 8% of your hemoglobin molecules are glycated. People who don’t have diabetes typically have about a 6 or less reading. Higher results may indicate diabetes.

Last year my A1C went from 7.2 to 6.5, all through eating healthy and exercising. To say the least, my Dr.’s were stunned! If I can do that, so can you!

Study: Diabetics who tightly control their blood sugar — even if only for the first decade after they are diagnosed — have lower risks of heart attack, death and other complications 10 or more years later, a large follow-up study has found.

File this under “NO Sugar Sherlock!”

Apparantly, scientists were still unsure if diabetics who tightly controlled their blood sugar, led healthier and better lives. Who dreams up this stuff? And they think by letting Diabetics have their blood sugar spin out of control will make them healthy?

Although, I do applaud them for bringing to light the vast importance Diabetics have on controlling their blood sugar. It is SO imperative to get a handle on it. Discover what foods raise your blood sugar, how to take your meds, when to test, etc. By mastering your Diabetes, you can have a great life.

The discovery of this “legacy effect” may put new emphasis on rigorous treatment when people first learn they have Type 2 diabetes, the most common form and the type linked to obesity.

Doctors warn that people should not let their blood sugar spin out of control — that could have serious health consequences.

The follow-up study was on 3,277 participants who were tracked for an average of 10 more years — first in clinics, where blood sugar could be measured, and through questionnaires in the later years.

Within one year of the original study ending, differences in blood sugar control between the groups disappeared.

Despite that, the sulfonylurea group had a 15 percent lower risk of heart attack and a 13 percent lower risk of death compared with the diet group.

A cardiologist in Houston has come up with a special diet that reverses diabetes and heart disease, myfoxhouston.com reported.

Under the diet, Dr. Baxter Montgomery encourages patients to eat plant-based foods, minimally processed foods (that means all those foods that come prepared in a box or package), and to eat whole foods, as close to their natural state as possible.

For instance, you could shuck a corn on the cob and just eat it uncooked. He says it’s actually delicious that way, plus you get all the nutrients from it.

Dr. Montgomery also steers his patients away from meat, which he calls “animal flesh”. He says our digestive systems aren’t actually meant to digest meats and it puts an extra burden on the body.

More and more Doctors, Dieticians and Nutritionists are seeing the benefits of a low-carb, low-calorie, low-starch diet for Diabetics. Mostly plant-based, these meal plans for life (because ‘diets don’t work’) reduce and remove the underlying cause for diabetes and insulin resistance.

In my life, i’ve cut out most carbohydrates and starches, certainly no process foods and increased my vegetables and lean meats and fish. The old saying is true: Do most of your shopping on the outside perimeter of the store! All the processed, unhealthy foods are in the aisles. There is a noticible difference in my energy level. And my skin looks healthier, younger and more natural.

Make vegetables a main course or the big filler on your plate instead of meats, carbohydrates or starches. You will feel better, less likely to drowse off after eating and your blood sugar will thank you for it.

Type 2 diabetes was once a condition confined to adults. But type 2 diabetes in children is on the rise, fueled largely by the current obesity epidemic. This increasingly common condition presents special challenges for parents and children alike.

Type 2 diabetes is a chronic condition that affects the way the body metabolizes sugar (glucose). Type 2 diabetes in children develops when a child’s body becomes resistant to the effects of insulin — a hormone that regulates the absorption of sugar into cells — or when a child’s pancreas produces some, but not enough, insulin to maintain a normal blood sugar level. Prediabetes, a precursor to type 2 diabetes, also is a concern. Left untreated, prediabetes can progress to type 2 diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes is a similar condition in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin.

There’s no cure for type 2 diabetes in children, but there’s plenty you can do to help your child manage — or prevent — the condition. Encourage your child to eat healthy foods, get plenty of physical activity and maintain a healthy weight. If diet and exercise aren’t enough, your child may need oral medication or insulin treatment to manage his or her blood sugar.

Type 2 diabetes can be easy to ignore, especially in the early stages when your child is feeling fine. But type 2 diabetes must be taken seriously. The condition can affect nearly every major organ in your child’s body, including the heart, blood vessels, nerves, eyes and kidneys. Keeping your child’s blood sugar level close to normal most of the time can dramatically reduce the risk of these complications.

Short-term complications
Short-term complications of type 2 diabetes require immediate care. Left untreated, these conditions can cause seizures and loss of consciousness (coma).

Type 2 diabetes is a serious disease. Helping your child follow his or her diabetes treatment plan takes round-the-clock commitment. But your efforts are worthwhile. Careful management of type 2 diabetes can reduce your child’s risk of serious — even life-threatening — complications.

As your child gets older, encourage him or her to take an increasingly active role in diabetes management. Stress the importance of lifelong diabetes care. Teach your child how to test his or her blood sugar and, if needed, inject insulin. Help your child make wise food choices. Encourage your child to remain physically active. Foster a relationship between your child and his or her diabetes treatment team. Make sure your child wears a medical ID tag.

Above all, stay positive. The habits you teach your child today will help him or her enjoy an active and healthy life with type 2 diabetes.

Rigorous workouts lasting as little as three minutes may help prevent diabetes by helping control blood sugar, British researchers said on Wednesday.

The findings published in the journal BioMed Central Endocrine Disorders suggest that people unable to meet government guidelines calling for moderate to vigorous exercise several hours per week can still benefit from exercise.

“This is such a brief amount of exercise you can do it without breaking a sweat,” said James Timmons, an exercise biologist at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, who led the study.

“You can make just as big as an effect doing this as you can by doing hours and hours of endurance training each week.”

Type 2 diabetes, which affects an estimated 246 million adults worldwide and accounts for 6 percent of all global deaths, is a condition in which the body gradually loses the ability to use insulin properly to convert food to energy.

Very strict diet and vigorous, regular and sustained exercise can reverse type 2 diabetes, but this can be difficult for many people. The condition is closely linked to inactivity.

Timmons and his team showed that just seven minutes of exercise each week helped a group of 16 men in their early twenties control their insulin.

The volunteers, who were relatively out of shape but otherwise healthy, rode an exercise bike four times daily in 30 second spurts two days a week.

After two weeks, the young men had a 23 percent improvement in how effectively their body used insulin to clear glucose, or blood sugar, from the blood stream, Timmons said.

The effect appears to last up to 10 days after the last round of exercise, he added in a telephone interview.