"The Diabetic & Diabetes Center"

Many people have impaired glucose tolerance, which means that they are having difficulty getting their blood glucose levels back to normal after they eat.

If you are healthy, your blood glucose (sugar) levels will rise after eating, but they will come down to normal within one to two hours. If you have impaired glucose tolerance it could take up to three hours to lower your glucose levels, which creates a problem with your metabolism.

Doctors often perform a glucose tolerance test or a fasting plasma glucose test to see if you are dealing with high blood glucose or impaired blood glucose.

If you have either of these conditions you very likely at least have pre-diabetes. This means that you will probably end up with diabetes. You are also more likely to have or get heart disease if you have impaired glucose tolerance or impaired fasting glucose. If this is so, your doctor will most likely want to check your blood glucose levels on a regular basis and will discuss ways to lower your chances of getting diabetes.

Another type of diabetes is gestational diabetes which happens when you’re pregnant. Many women who encounter this situation are able to control it by watching their diet and doing some exercise. Some women have to take insulin injections during their pregnancy. If you get gestational diabetes, you have a higher chance of getting type 2 diabetes later on.

If you are pregnant, it is suggested that you have a test for diabetes at your booking appointment especially if you’re over 25, overweight, you have a relative with diabetes, you are in a high-risk group for diabetes, you have had gestational diabetes in the past or your baby ends up weighing 9 lbs. or more.

Usually gestational diabetes will disappear once the pregnancy is over but it is still important to look for signs of type 2 diabetes later. Either way, there are healthy ways to get your glucose under control before it becomes diabetes.

Diabetes can strike anyone of any age. Because its symptoms can be very insidious and hard to detect in many people often a person’s diabetes has progressed by the time that it is diagnosed.

If diabetes is diagnosed early enough, treatment involving diet, exercise and medication can be started in an effort to control diabetes symptoms and sometimes lessen the symptoms as well.

The most important ways to control diabetes are to follow your regimen from your doctor, nutritionist, endocrinologist, internist or other healthcare professional. If you follow the guidelines you are given, you should be able to control your blood glucose levels and other related health issues, and you should feel better, too.

The consequences of not caring for your diabetes can be devastating. This was shown a few days ago when Larry Miller, owner of the Utah Jazz was hospitalized and had to have emergency surgery to amputate both his legs about 6 inches below the knee. A spokesman said that the surgery went well, but there have been other complications and difficulties due to Mr. Miller’s diabetes, leading up to this situation.

Eight months ago, Mr. Miller had a severe heart attack, keeping him in the hospital for two months. Complications included kidney failure and gastrointestinal bleeding which led to a blood transfusion because he lost nearly eight pints of blood. In addition, last October, Miller ended up with a bone infection and diabetes ulcers on one foot. There was also another nine day stay in the hospital because he was holding water in his legs.

Miller is the sole owner of the Utah Jazz and has been since the early 1980’s. In addition, he has remained active and attended games even with his declining health, proving that you can do all sorts of things as well as lead an active life.

Time will tell how active Larry H. Miller will be in the future. One of the most important things to take from Mr. Miller’s experience is to truly take care of your diabetes – and don’t wait another day.

One high risk for individuals with diabetes is heart disease. Many individuals that have diabetes, high blood pressure or other vascular complications, could have serious complications including heart disease. In addition, one problem is that many medications are believed to increase the risk of heart disease leading to heart attack. Most of these medications are not being tested for their effects on the heart

Pharmaceutical companies have not been doing much testing for heart problems because it takes longer to get the medications approved if these tests are performed and it costs the pharmaceutical companies more money. As a result, tests and clinical trials are not usually unless problems are reported by users after the fact.

Things have recently changed. A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel made up of outside medical experts voted this summer to have the FDA require drug makers to perform long term testing which is critical because heart disease and heart related and other cardiovascular issues are primary causes of death in many people with diabetes. If diabetes medication is causing or contributing to those causes it is critical to find out which medicines – if any – are causing the problems.

Because this is an FDA Advisory Panel and not the Congress recommending long-term studies of medication for diabetes, it is not mandatory at this point. However, the FDA usually follows what the advisory boards suggest to them. In addition, there are steps that the FDA can take to create recommendations that are stronger and guidelines that push medication manufacturers to perform these long-term tests.

Until then is important to be informed about as much as possible – especially the side effects – of your diabetes medication. If you have any doubts or concerns, do your homework. Check the web, ask your doctor. Take care of your diabetes and the rest of your health.

Diabetes has become an epidemic. Too many people worldwide are struggling with diabetes and with many serious side effects. These side effects include high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, blindness, kidney disease, amputation and more.

Recently there have been new treatments; new medication and other inventions to help individuals with diabetes control their symptoms. Researchers have been looking for ways to control diabetes and limit the ways that the disease ravages the body.

There is a new treatment which does not require surgery and has been found to reduce the blood glucose levels quickly in individuals with diabetes. If this is not enough there is a bonus to this procedure as well – substantial weight loss.
Basically, the procedure produces results similar to bariatric surgery which is used to help people lose weight. The main – and very important – difference is that bariatric surgery is major surgery.

The other exciting information regarding this new procedure is that it involves no surgery. The procedure provides an implantable and removable intestinal liner which can control blood sugar and weight. The liner is inserted into an individual through the mouth in a procedure called an endoscopy. No cutting, no scalpels, no stitches.

The implantable intestinal liner has been tested on patients and all of them experienced substantial blood glucose level drops as well as weight loss. In fact, an extremely promising result was that blood glucose levels in many patients returned to normal in about one week. These results are exciting because they point to the possibility of using the procedure on a more widespread basis to help many of the nearly 24 million individuals with diabetes in the United States.

There is more research is still being conducted regarding the intestinal liner and the procedure to install it. Harvard University Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital Weight Loss Center in Boston are leading the research involving this exciting innovation that could very well become the best and most widely used way to control diabetes and keep people battling the disease living healthier and longer lives with a great deal less complications.

Researchers have been looking for ways to treat and control diabetes for years.  Individuals who suffer from diabetes have also been looking for ways to avoid shots and other uncomfortable control measures. 

In addition, insulin taken orally does not always break down in the person’s system, and if it does, it often takes a great deal of time.  Unfortunately, when a person with diabetes takes insulin they don’t have an indefinite amount of time for it to begin working, nor can they afford for it not to be absorbed at all.

Enter the latest remedy for diabetes: insulin chewing gum.  Yes, you heard right.  This might just be the most fun that anyone has taking their medicine.

Robert Doyle, a chemist at Syracuse University in New York State, has performed studies and believes that an insulin chewing gum can break down orally-taken insulin by the digestive system.

Studies in the past have shown that oral insulin pills are broken down and that any enzymes that remain are not easily absorbed into the bloodstream from the gut. Doyle points out that the body has specific mechanisms for protecting and absorbing valuable molecules that would usually be damaged by conditions in the gut.

Doyle believes that the insulin can move all the way into the bloodstream, where it is released to do its work. Tests on rats conducted by his team have shown some promising results, according to New Scientist magazine. Even though the study on rats involved a treatment in liquid form, Doyle and his colleagues are sure that chewing gum would be a better delivery method and would work exceptionally well in humans.

The researchers say that chewing would ensure a plentiful supply of saliva, providing the protein needed for the insulin to make its way into the bloodstream.

If this innovative insulin delivery system works, it would help individuals with diabetes absorb more of the insulin they need and enjoy taking their medicine.

 
Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, is possibly suffering from the recurrence of a pancreatic tumor according to doctors.  Though he says he has a hormone imbalance, which is causing him to step down and take considerable time off, doctors point to the possibility of the tumor as well.

Since the pancreas provides insulin for the body, there are many complications when the pancreas encounters problems including but not limited to tumors. 

Recently, since last summer, Jobs has lost a tremendous amount of weight and there have been numerous false reports of his having suffered a heart attack and even a report stating that Jobs had died.  The reports were false, but the one accurate report was that Jobs had surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2004 and very little else has been stated about his condition, except when Jobs recently stated that his condition was “robbing me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy”.

Jobs learned in 2003 that he had a malignant tumor in his pancreas. The pancreas is essential because it supplies the body with insulin and digestive enzymes. The most common type of pancreatic cancer is adenocarcinoma.  When someone has this type of cancer, they are expected to live for a year. Steve Jobs fortunately had an extremely rare form of cancer called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor that can be treated surgically, without radiation or chemotherapy. The surgery removes part of the pancreas and the stomach and reconfigures what is left so that the pancreas can continue to supply insulin to the body.
Pancreatic cancer is usually very aggressive; however, it is likely that Steve Jobs has a benign tumor which can be causing the problems he is having.  The situation may be making his body deficient in digestive enzymes.  In addition, he is probably deficient in insulin which caused his weight loss and diabetic conditions, creating a situation that requires him to take insulin injections.

Between the weight loss and imbalances, he is probably, as stated, using a straightforward regimen of insulin, nutritional supplements and diet.  He is fortunate that he has been able to overcome pancreatic cancer for 4 years.  This should bring hope to others who have suffered with pancreatic cancer or diabetes.  It is heartening that doctors and researchers are making progress.

Childhood Diabetes is also called Type 1 Diabetes.  A child with Type 1 diabetes needs to take insulin shots to provide for the insulin not being produced by the child’s pancreas.

The food a child eats is broken down by the body into a sugar called glucose.  The sugar is carried through the blood and gives the body energy.  Insulin helps the sugar enter the cells in the body and controls the amount of sugar in the blood.

With diabetes there ends up being too much sugar in the blood because there is not enough insulin being produced to balance out the sugar.  This often causes many heath problems, which if not treated, can end up being fatal.

In childhood diabetes (Type 1 Diabetes), the pancreas cannot create enough insulin because many of the cells in the pancreas are being destroyed. This is sometimes due to the body’s immune system destroying the cells.  Sometimes Type 1 Diabetes occurs due to hereditary factors, as it can be genetic and run in families.

Some of the main symptoms of Type 1 Diabetes are excessive thirst, urinating a lot and losing weight.  Learning about the disease and learning about what type of diet can be helpful and healthy for diabetes is important for families to learn about and understand.  Treatment involves monitoring blood sugar through use of a glucose meter to check the levels and exploring the choices for a good diet and sticking to it.  Keytone tests are also important.  Basically, they test the urine and can tell you if enough insulin is being produced.  Your doctor or pharmacist can tell you how they work and can also prescribe insulin or other medication to control your child’s diabetes.

It is also essential to have continuous treatment and monitoring through your family’s or child’s doctor, not only for the child that is diagnosed with diabetes, but also to have the entire family tested, as well. 

Juvenile, Childhood or Type 1 Diabetes can be managed and controlled in a way that will allow your child to live a normal life, doing the same things that other children do.  One of the best sources of information is the American Diabetes Association.  You can call them at 1-800-342-2383 or visit the on the web at www.diabetes.org.

Diabetes is usually not controlled by one thing alone, such as diet, but by a combination of things that work together on the body to regulate diabetes and its symptoms.

One of the tools that has always been suggested to combat diabetes is exercise.  Exercise has an effect on blood glucose levels, as well as heart rate, blood pressure and other levels in the body.

Recently in Britain a study determined that blood glucose levels can be kept under control simply by walking for 45 minutes.  Performed by Newcastle University, the study found that walking improved the body’s ability to store sugar and burn fat.  According to the study, after a few weeks of doing this regularly, the effects of diabetes were reduced.  This is especially true for individuals with late onset or type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes has often been linked to sedentary lifestyle, which includes a lack of exercise, and obesity, which is often the result of a sedentary lifestyle combined with poor eating habits.

If diabetes is not treated and brought under control, it progresses and it leads to blood vessel damage, risk of stroke and heart attack, visual problems including blindness, kidney damage and, because of cardiovascular issues, can result in amputation of limbs.

The studies at Newcastle give individuals with diabetes an immediate tool in the arsenal against the symptoms of diabetes without having to add another medication to their regimen.  Even if an individual begins by exercising for just a few minutes every day and builds up to 45 minutes, it will still do some good.

The studies also showed that more active individuals were able to store more sugar in their muscles and they were able to burn more fat.  Since the muscles store most of the sugar in the body, if they are unable to absorb enough sugar, the sugar ends up in the bloodstream keeping the levels too high.  This causes damage to the veins, arteries and many of the organs, leading to long term problems, escalating diabetes symptoms and often leading to blindness, amputation, dialysis or death.

If you or someone you know or love has diabetes, it is important to know that it doesn’t take hours in the gym to try to control it.  It will help to walk for a few minutes a day and work up to 45 minutes every day.  It will improve a person’s health and life, and it very well could save it.

Gestational Diabetes has been an issue for pregnant women for many years.  It knows no boundaries and can develop in any woman whose body falls into the right condition during pregnancy to cause this disease. 

The issue that has not been reported on much is that gestational diabetes can lead to type 2 diabetes that can last a lifetime.  In fact, of women who develop gestational diabetes have a 71% higher chance of developing type 2 diabetes after pregnancy.  An interesting phenomenon is that once the women who have gestational diabetes have delivered their babies and the gestational diabetes has subsided, they do not necessarily develop type 2 diabetes right away.  It can take from a few months to a few years before type 2 diabetes develops after the pregnancy.   The medication metformin has been used for women who have had gestational diabetes with excellent results.

Sometimes gestational diabetes is caused by difficult pregnancies and/or multiple pregnancies in a short period of time or year after year not allowing the body and the immune system to totally stabilize or normalize in between pregnancies.  One example of a situation that can be quite dangerous and very conducive to gestational diabetes is that of Angelina Jolie.  She has had several pregnancies that were close together – nearly back to back – and there were problems with the most recent pregnancy which caused her to have to deliver by cesarean section.  Doctors have warned her that she should wait quite a while before she has another pregnancy or preferably, not get pregnant again. 

If you have had a pregnancy during which you developed gestational diabetes or if you ever have that situation, it is important that you follow up with your doctor every 6 to 12 months and keep track of your blood glucose level.  Make sure that you keep on the watch for diabetes symptoms such as frequent urination, excessive thirst, extreme tiredness, or rapid changes in weight. 

If you are pregnant, do everything you can to keep you and your child healthy by eating well, getting enough rest and getting at least a modest amount of exercise.  If you still develop gestational diabetes, be sure to monitor your health far into the future

High blood glucose levels and diabetes have been linked to numerous health issues and a new study has found yet another link.  Researchers have discovered that high blood glucose levels and diabetes are linked to memory loss.

Researchers studied individuals and used MRI tests which showed that high blood glucose levels were linked to changes in the hippocampal region of the brain which involves memory.  Decline of memory and lower cognitive abilities were found to be directly linked to high blood glucose levels, especially in older individuals. 

In addition to studying the fMRI results of people, researchers also ran tests on rhesus monkeys and diabetic mice and found that blood glucose was the underlying cause to changes in the hippocampal region of the brain, therefore creating memory problems.  These changes in the brain were actually visible on the fMRI.  The research showed that blood vessels were damaged in this area of the brain (which involves memory) and at times there was temporary los of blood supply in this area as well.

This is the first study to find a direct link between blood glucose levels and memory/cognitive issues.  It is an important and defining study that not only provides information to help look for ways to avoid or at least diminish memory loss by controlling blood glucose levels, and can also begin to define and develop treatment and prevention regimens to deal with this critical issue.  

If you happen to have diabetes or you develop high blood glucose levels or diabetes in the future, this groundbreaking study should strongly encourage you to do everything you can to keep your levels under control.  Take your medicine, eat healthy, get enough exercise and rest and check in with your doctor.  It could mean a difference of remembering or not remembering your spouse, children and grandchildren in the future.