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May 2011
April 2011
Canadian scientists have found that nobiletin, a substance found in high concentrations in tangerines, thwarted obesity and the onset of diabetes in lab mice. The researchers at the University of Western Ontario fed the mice a high-sugar, high-fat diet that mimicked the diet of many people in Western societies. One group of animals became obese, developing fatty livers and elevated levels of cholesterol and insulin-typical precursors to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But a second group of mice, given the flavonoid nobiletin, did not develop the symptoms of the first group. The nobiletin prevented fatty buildup in the liver by blocking the genes that control the production of fat.
4 comments - Posted Apr 30, 2011
We all know by now that fat isn't necessarily a bad thing. Enough advertisements and recommendations for fish oil and omega-3 supplements have appeared over the past few years to make that clear. But what if "good fat" isn't just about eating fish or a taking a fishy-tasting supplement? What if that good fat can be found in a common cooking oil?
0 comments - Posted Apr 27, 2011
What is it about salt that brings out so many powerful flavors and strong feelings? Simple sodium chloride, or salt, as it's known to everyone but chemistry teachers, has been applied to food as a seasoning since the beginning of civilization. Unfortunately, the sodium in salt has proven dangerous both to diabetics and to healthy people who have a propensity toward heart disease.
1 comment - Posted Apr 26, 2011
Three weeks out of every month, my diabetes is well controlled. But the fourth week, the one before my period, is a nightmare. My sugars are astronomically high--I can't even look at a carbohydrate without my sugar spiking. I'm exhausted and cranky, and I can't get comfortable.
8 comments - Posted Apr 15, 2011
Italian and Greek researchers conducting a meta-analysis* of the diets of more than 500,000 people have concluded that the Mediterranean diet reduces the risk of metabolic syndrome, a cluster of risk factors that are common precursors to type 2 diabetes. Those factors include overweight or obesity, a sedentary lifestyle, high blood sugar, high triglyceride levels, high blood pressure, and high "bad" cholesterol.
The Mediterranean diet is high in fruit, vegetables, whole grain foods, and low-fat dairy products. Proteins include fish, legumes, poultry, tree nuts, and mono-unsaturated fatty acids from olive oil. Alcohol intake is moderate and almost always in conjunction with meals. Red meat is only an occasional menu item.
The scientists looked at 50 studies that involved more than 500,000 people, then extrapolated the effects of a Mediterranean diet from them. Although the meta-analysis pointed to the usefulness of the Mediterranean diet in fending off metabolic syndrome, its authors said that their conclusion is tentative, given the need for more research on the topic.
The study was published in the March 15 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
* A meta-analysis looks at a number of similar studies and tries to derive new and useful results from them by detecting common patterns among them.
0 comments - Posted Apr 12, 2011
March 2011
Michael Hamman is a 63-year-old contractor. He recalls, "I first was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes five or six years ago. I probably had elevated blood sugar well in advance of that, but I was unaware of it. I don't remember how high my blood sugar was at the time, but I think my A1C was 7.5%. My blood sugar's never really been awful. Since I started monitoring myself, my sugar readings are normally between 150 and 165. I think it was pushing 200 before I was medicated, but the medications brought it down. They started me on glyburide and I took that for a long time, and then the A1C was moving up again, so they added the metformin. The A1C now is down in the mid-sixes. They consider it controlled, not well controlled or as good as it could be, but certainly for someone my size, it's probably as good as you can get."
1 comment - Posted Mar 25, 2011
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has accepted an application to review dapagliflozin, a drug for the treatment of type 2 diabetes that is being developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca.
0 comments - Posted Mar 22, 2011
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified a swath of the southern U.S. as the country's "diabetes belt." In this region, made up of parts of 15 states, some 12 percent of the population has type 2 diabetes, compared with 8.5 percent of people in the rest of the country.
0 comments - Posted Mar 19, 2011
A new report recently published in the American Chemical Society's bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry adds a new punch to the power of garlic in the fight against heart disease. The report concludes that garlic has "significant" potential for preventing cardiomyopathy, a form of heart disease that is a leading cause of death in people with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Mar 5, 2011
Hispanics are almost twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to have type 2 diabetes, and more than a third of working adult Hispanics do not have health insurance. For this audience, Jane Delgado, PhD, has written The Buena Salud Guide to Diabetes and Your Life. Available in both Spanish and English, it's a culturally sensitive and reassuring book that dispels myths and presents detailed science while gently guiding readers toward the right path in caring for their diabetes. The tone is conversational, as Dr. Delgado speaks to her readers like a family member who knows them well and has their best interests at heart.
0 comments - Posted Mar 2, 2011
February 2011
New University of Georgia research has found that a statin drug that is often known by the brand-name Lipitor may help prevent blindness in people with diabetes. In a study using diabetic rats, lead author Azza El-Remessy, assistant professor in the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy, and her colleagues found that statins prevent free radicals in the retina from killing nerves important to maintaining vision. The results of the study are published in the March edition of the journal Diabetologia.
0 comments - Posted Feb 23, 2011
Many tragic complications of diabetes, including amputations, heart attack, stroke, and blindness, are due to blood vessel damage. According to Xiaochao Wei, PhD, of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, all that vascular damage may be caused by a shortage of one enzyme: fatty acid synthase, or FAS.
0 comments - Posted Feb 11, 2011
A new study published in the journal Clinical Cardiology reveals that a Super Bowl loss for a home team was associated with increased death rates in both men and women and in older individuals.
0 comments - Posted Feb 4, 2011
January 2011
DENVER -- New episodes of a critically acclaimed, locally-produced Spanish language soap opera will focus on the obesity crisis in hopes of helping viewers better understand what causes obesity and how they can live healthier lives. The soap opera is called "Encrucijada: Sin Salud, no hay Nada" ("Crossroads: Without Health, there is Nothing").
1 comment - Posted Jan 31, 2011
After the American Heart Association introduced its heart healthy logo in 1995, manufacturers apparently decided that such "healthy" logos were a pretty good marketing idea. Similar logos, called front-of-the-package labels, or FoP labels, have become popular with several food manufacturers, each of which has developed its own labels using its own criteria. Now, not surprisingly, a study by the Prevention Institute has found that these labels are misleading to customers. According to the Prevention Institute's executive director, Larry Cohen, they "emphasize one healthy aspect to trick [customers] into buying something fundamentally unhealthy." Dora the Explorer Fruit Shapes, for example, prominently labels itself as "gluten free," but does not mention the fact that 58 percent of its calories come from sugar.
0 comments - Posted Jan 31, 2011
"Fatty liver" doesn't sound very threatening. In fact, it sounds almost cute, like Fatty Arbuckle. Unfortunately, like Fatty Arbuckle, it's not what it seems. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is the most common liver disease in the United States, comprising a quarter of all liver disease and responsible for a rising number of liver transplants. Approximately 20 percent of Americans may be lugging around a fatty liver.
1 comment - Posted Jan 13, 2011
Talk about a win-win situation! It seems that many aphrodisiacs--herbs that boost sexual energy and function--can also bring down blood sugar, cholesterol, and/or blood pressure. At least four herbs have shown these double benefits in scientific studies.
1 comment - Posted Jan 6, 2011
December 2010
For those trying to eat a healthy diet, whole-fat dairy and trans fats are usually not on the menu - at least, not yet. Scientists have narrowed in on a trans fat component found mainly in dairy fat that may ward off type 2 diabetes and protect cardiovascular health. While the research is far from conclusive and requires much further study, it suggests fats may play a more complex role in human health than previously thought.
2 comments - Posted Dec 24, 2010
With nearly 16 million Americans living today with pre-diabetes, a condition that is the precursor to type 2 diabetes, and half of all Americans expected to have some form of diabetes by the year 2020, healthy eating is more important than ever (1,2). But here is some good news: a recent scientific study shows that incorporating almonds into your diet can help treat and possibly prevent type 2 diabetes, as well as cardiovascular disease.
0 comments - Posted Dec 15, 2010
November 2010
For over 30 years, we have been told over and over by doctors, the media, nutritionists, and food companies that saturated fat is bad for us, causing us to gain weight and contributing to cardiovascular disease (CVD). It has led to a whole industry of low fat and non-fat food options, most claiming that saturated fat is bad for our health.
4 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2010
October 2010
An intensive lifestyle intervention program designed with weight loss in mind improves diabetes control and cardiovascular disease risk factors in overweight and obese individuals with type 2 diabetes. These are the findings of the four-year Look AHEAD study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Look AHEAD (Action for Health in Diabetes) is a multi-center, randomized clinical trial evaluating the effect of reduced caloric intake and increased physical activity on the incidence of major cardiovascular events such as heart attack, stroke, and cardiovascular-related death.
0 comments - Posted Oct 25, 2010
The 2010 Guidelines for CPR and Emergency Cardiovascular Care are here! What are the new changes? Watch the YouTube video and learn more.
0 comments - Posted Oct 18, 2010
A meta-analysis* of 87 studies involving 951,083 patients, performed by a Canadian research team, shows that the pre-diabetic condition known as metabolic syndrome increases the risk of heart disease or stroke in patients by a factor of more than two.
0 comments - Posted Oct 17, 2010
September 2010
For the first time, scientists have found that blood levels of some ribonucleic acids (microRNAs) are different among people with type 2 diabetes and those who subsequently develop the disease compared to healthy controls, according to research reported in Circulation Research: Journal of the American Heart Association.
0 comments - Posted Sep 22, 2010
July 2010
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Joint Meeting of the Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee and Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee has completed their evaluation of the scientific research available on the safety of rosiglitazone. The deliberations of the panel reflected the complexity of the issues, with several members voting to add additional warnings or to withdraw the drug from the U.S. market. Ultimately, the final recommendation was to allow Avandia to remain on the market. Now that the expert panel has concluded its meeting, the FDA will review their recommendations and make the final decision on whether the drug remains available to patients.
0 comments - Posted Jul 15, 2010
Data from the massive ACCORD study on intensive blood sugar control shows that lowering blood sugar levels in people with longstanding type 2 diabetes to near-normal may delay the appearance of signs that point to damage to nerves, eyes, and kidneys, but does not stop their progression toward it.
0 comments - Posted Jul 9, 2010
A clinical trial that used testosterone gel, a topically applied ointment, to increase muscle strength in older men with low testosterone levels was stopped because adverse cardiovascular events increased significantly among patients receiving the treatment.
0 comments - Posted Jul 7, 2010
In people with longstanding type 2 diabetes who are at high risk for heart attack and stroke, lowering blood sugar to near-normal levels did not delay the combined risk of diabetic damage to kidneys, eyes, or nerves, but did delay several other signs of diabetic damage, a study has found. The intensive glucose treatment was compared with standard glucose control.
0 comments - Posted Jul 2, 2010
A diet including coconut oil, a medium chain fatty acid (MCFA), helps combat insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is the inability of cells to respond to insulin and take in glucose for energy. The pancreas tries to compensate for insulin resistance by producing even more insulin, but eventually glucose accumulates in the bloodstream. Over time, insulin resistance and obesity can lead to pre-diabetes or full-blown type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2010
June 2010
AARP today launched its second annual "Fat-to-Fit Summer Weight Loss Challenge," an online program challenging people to make positive, permanent lifestyle changes to improve their health. AARP's Fat-to-Fit challenge will be hosted on AARP's website (www.aarp.org/fat2fit). Fitness expert and author Carole Carson, a Nevada City, California, resident who lost more than 60 pounds at age 60, will lead Fat-to-Fit online community members through the summer-long program.
0 comments - Posted Jun 24, 2010
New guidelines from the American Diabetes Association and two other major medical associations advise not prescribing low-dose aspirin therapy for women under 60 or men under 50 who have diabetes but no other risks for heart disease.
0 comments - Posted Jun 12, 2010
May 2010
A Seattle-based study has found that people with diabetes run a 40 percent increased risk of developing a common type of abnormal heart rhythm known as atrial fibrillation*. The study also shows that as people with diabetes take drugs for the disease, their risk for developing atrial fibrillation increases three percent for each year that they use such medications.
0 comments - Posted May 25, 2010
Early management of type 2 diabetes with an integrated team of specialists, including a dietitian, diabetes educator, endocrinologist, cardiologist, and nephrologist, can significantly reduce the incidence of complications and lower healthcare costs, according to an online survey of more than 300 endocrinologists and family practice physicians. The survey was supported by Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., with the goal of determining the most common obstacles for physicians in treating type 2 diabetes patients and preventing complications. Sermo, the largest physician only online community, conducted the survey. A significant number of these physicians (44 percent) reveal that 50 percent of their patients develop at least one of the following serious complications: cardiovascular disease, nerve pain, kidney disease, stroke, blindness, or limb amputation.
2 comments - Posted May 8, 2010
April 2010
Successful clinical trials of a topical drug called mecamylamine may lead to a potent new treatment for the diabetes-induced eye disease known as macular edema. Diabetic macular edema* involves the part of the retina called the macula. High blood sugar levels inflame its blood vessels, leading to leakiness and fluid accumulation. Left uncontrolled, those symptoms can lead to blurriness, impaired vision, and even blindness.
1 comment - Posted Apr 14, 2010
After generations of warnings that obesity is one of the biggest risk factors for heart failure and cardiovascular disease, a University of Rochester study says that it's actually skinny people who run a higher risk of sudden death from cardiac failure. Scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York found that non-obese patients who suffered heart failure had a 76 percent greater risk of sudden cardiac death than obese patients.
2 comments - Posted Apr 3, 2010
March 2010
Results from a landmark study involving more than 9,000 people showed that the high blood pressure medicine valsartan (Diovan) delayed progression to type 2 diabetes in patients with cardiovascular disease or risk factors and impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), a common pre-diabetic condition.
0 comments - Posted Mar 20, 2010
According to Duke University researchers, a mutation that causes the lack of an insulin-controlling molecule may be a factor in the development of type 2 diabetes. The molecule, ankyrin B, is activated in response to the smell and taste of food and leads to the production of insulin in preparation for food intake.
1 comment - Posted Mar 19, 2010
The study started out with nearly 20,000 trim middle-aged and older women. Over time, women who drank alcohol in moderation put on less weight and were less apt to become overweight compared to non-drinkers. This was true even after taking into account various lifestyle and dietary factors that might influence a woman's weight.
2 comments - Posted Mar 9, 2010
February 2010
A U.S. Senate Finance Committee report released on February 20 says that Avandia, GlaxoSmithKline's drug for type 2 diabetes, may have caused as many as 83,000 heart attacks between 1999, when the drug was introduced, and 2007. The Senate report, culminating a two-year inquiry into the drug, also says that Glaxo knew about the drug's potential risks years before suspicions began to form regarding a connection between Avandia and heart problems.
2 comments - Posted Feb 22, 2010
A university survey of 92 doctors and their 1,200 patients who have diabetes and hypertension shows that the two groups don't always agree on which conditions are the most important to manage. The survey, conducted by the University of Michigan Medical School, asked doctors and patients to rank their top treatment priorities. While 38 percent of the doctors ranked treating hypertension as the most important, only 18 percent of their diabetes patients gave it the same ranking. Instead, diabetes patients are more likely to list pain and depression as the most important targets for treatment. In fact, the patients suffering the most from those conditions were the most likely to list them as priorities.
1 comment - Posted Feb 16, 2010
White fat is the "bad" gut fat associated with obesity and enlarged abdomens. When a pound of new white fat forms in the body, it requires a full mile of new blood vessels to nourish and sustain it. That's because white fat is much like a tumor in requiring a steady blood supply. To build the new blood vessels, it depends on a process called angiogenesis.
1 comment - Posted Feb 8, 2010
Australian researchers who tracked the TV viewing habits of 8,800 people over a six-year span have some sobering statistics for people who love the tube too well: (1) If you watch TV more than two and up to four hours a day, your risk of dying from cardiovascular disease increases by 19 percent. (2) If your viewing habit is more than four hours a day, your risk of death from cardiovascular disease skyrockets by 80 percent.
4 comments - Posted Feb 4, 2010
Depression raises risks of advanced and severe complications from diabetes, according to a prospective study of Group Health primary-care patients in western Washington. These complications include kidney failure or blindness, the result of small vessel damage, as well as major vessel problems leading to heart attack or stroke.
3 comments - Posted Feb 2, 2010
December 2009
Regardless of age, men undergoing prostate cancer treatment via androgen deprivation therapy have an increased risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. A study published in early December by Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston noted that although androgen deprivation therapy has been associated with a higher risk of diabetes and cardiovascular problems in older men, this is the first time the connection has been noted among men of all ages.
1 comment - Posted Dec 24, 2009
The combination of type 2 diabetes and mild heart disease is a double whammy that in many cases leads to such intrusive therapies as angioplasty* and can result in death from some sort of cardiovascular event. But a five-year university study of 2,368 type 2 patients with moderate heart disease shows that lifestyle changes and non-intrusive treatments can work just as well at lowering mortality rates as surgery.
0 comments - Posted Dec 22, 2009
Chevy Chase, MD- According to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM), youth with type 1 diabetes have now been found to have abnormal insulin resistance. Having abnormal insulin resistance appears to negatively affect heart, blood vessel and exercise function in this population.
7 comments - Posted Dec 5, 2009
It's been known for some time that omega-3 fatty acids decrease the risk of heart disease, but no one has really known if one dietary source is better than another. For that reason, Lixin Meng, MS, a PhD candidate at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, designed a study to compare sources, types, amounts, and frequencies of omega-3 in diets, while taking into account gender and ethnic groups. The study was presented at the American Heart Association's 2009 Scientific Sessions.
2 comments - Posted Dec 2, 2009
October 2009
A large Kaiser Permanente study, published this month in Diabetes Care, has found that women with diabetes are 26 percent more likely to develop the very rapid and irregular heartbeat known as atrial fibrillation (AF) than women without diabetes. Although not a killer on its own, AF is a serious condition that requires medical treatment and can cause complications. In addition to fatigue, the poor circulation that results from AF can lead to blood pooling and clotting, ultimately causing a stroke.
3 comments - Posted Oct 21, 2009
August 2009
One of the major complications of diabetes is diabetic nephropathy, a loss of kidney function that may lead to renal failure. As kidney disease progresses, the barrier that keeps large molecules out of the urine, called the glomerular barrier, begins to break down. With the barrier failing, certain large molecules begin to migrate into the urine. One of those hefty molecules is immunoglobulin M, or IgM.
1 comment - Posted Aug 19, 2009
July 2009
May 5 - Ann Arbor, MI - In the first study of the effects of statins on the concentrations of both low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C; known as the "bad" cholesterol) and low-density lipoprotein particles (LDL-P) in patients with metabolic syndrome, it was shown that even though the statins lowered the concentrations of LDL-C to target levels, the patients retained considerable residual risk for cardiovascular events because LDL-P concentrations were not reduced to a similar extent. A pre-print version of the study in Diabetes Care is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.2337/dc08-1681, and the final version will be available in print in the June 2009 issue, as well as online at the same URL.
0 comments - Posted Jul 29, 2009
An analysis of ten trials involving statin therapy among 70,000 participants has led an international team of cardiologists to recommend that that the cholesterol-lowering drugs be prescribed for people who do not have heart disease.
2 comments - Posted Jul 15, 2009
June 2009
The American Heart Association (AHA) has added weight training to the list of exercises it recommends for people with type 2 diabetes to reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease. Heart and blood vessel diseases account for nearly 70 percent of deaths among type 2s.
0 comments - Posted Jun 25, 2009
May 2009
The European Union's drug regulation agency has recommended that the EU approve the marketing of "Victoza" (liraglutide), a type 2 drug developed by Novo Nordisk.
2 comments - Posted May 6, 2009
April 2009
In an Australian study that tracked 11,140 people with diabetes, researchers found a strong relationship between the presence of atrial fibrillation-abnormal heart rhythm-and an increased risk of cardiovascular problems and death.
1 comment - Posted Apr 23, 2009
A study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism of The Endocrine Society says that low birth weight could be associated with a higher incidence of inflammation in adulthood, setting the stage for heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
1 comment - Posted Apr 15, 2009
Are adults with diabetes better able to manage their disease if they can schedule same- or next-day appointments to see their doctors rather than sticking to appointments made in advance? The conventional wisdom goes that if people with diabetes can more quickly get in to see their doctors whenever problems comes up, the sooner they can receive treatment for it. However, an Indiana University School of Medicine study of 4,060 adults with diabetes being treated at 12 clinics showed that open-ended scheduling produced no benefit and, when it came to blood pressure control, actually worsened patients' conditions.
3 comments - Posted Apr 9, 2009
Diane Helms has spent most of her life struggling with her weight. She's tried just about every diet you can name and, despite them all, has watched the pounds pile on year after year.
0 comments - Posted Apr 8, 2009
A 12-month university study of 130 persons who ate either a USDA food pyramid-inspired high-carb diet or a diet moderately high in protein showed that members of the higher protein group lost 23 percent more weight and 38 percent more body fat than their high carb counterparts.
0 comments - Posted Apr 3, 2009
March 2009
New guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force state that daily low doses of aspirin-75 milligrams to 81 milligrams-are as effective as higher doses (100+ milligrams) in preventing heart attacks among men and strokes among women.
3 comments - Posted Mar 26, 2009
February 2009
Doctors often tell people with high blood pressure to decrease their consumption of sodium. Now researchers at the Loyola University Health System in suburban Chicago have found that it is probably wise to increase potassium intake at the same time.
0 comments - Posted Feb 4, 2009
December 2008
A study published in the September American Journal of Nursing (AJN) indicates that graduated compression stockings were used incorrectly in 29 percent of the patients and sized incorrectly in 26 percent of the patients. Compression stockings play an important role in preventing the formation of deep vein clots that can result in pulmonary complications and death
5 comments - Posted Dec 29, 2008
The day I heard "Diabetes is not the leading cause of heart attack, blindness, kidney disease, and amputation," my life changed. I had believed the opposite to be true for the 32 years I'd been dealing with diabetes. Complications had always hung like a knife over my head.
14 comments - Posted Dec 22, 2008
Avandia (rosiglitazone) and Actos (pioglitazone), two medications used to lower blood sugar in type 2 patients, double the risk of fractures in women, but not in men, says a new study.
0 comments - Posted Dec 22, 2008
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recommended that companies manufacturing diabetes treatment drugs provide evidence that their products will not increase cardiovascular risks.
0 comments - Posted Dec 22, 2008
Many people think of heart disease as something that mostly afflicts men. But heart disease actually kills more women in the United States than anything else, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. And diabetes plays a stronger role in risk for heart disease in women than it does in men.
1 comment - Posted Dec 15, 2008
November 2008
A compound in brown rice called acylated steryl glucoside (ASG) can significantly reduce the chances of the nerve and vascular damage that often results from type 1 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Nov 17, 2008
August 2008
A recent story put out by the British Broadcasting Corporation proclaimed that eating broccoli could reverse the damage to heart blood vessels caused by diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Aug 14, 2008
Several months ago researchers suspended work on the landmark ACCORD (Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes) study, which tracked 10,251 type 2s, some of them undergoing very tight control of their blood sugar levels.
0 comments - Posted Aug 14, 2008
June 2008
Canadian researchers report that succinobucol, an anti-oxidant drug used to treat cardiovascular inflammation, appears to have a beneficial effect in lowering the risk of developing diabetes. Even patients who already have diabetes, they say, achieve better blood sugar control while on the drug.
1 comment - Posted Jun 19, 2008
May 2008
Two new studies say that erectile dysfunction (ED) may be a warning sign of diabetes, as well as a warning of approaching cardiovascular disease.
0 comments - Posted May 30, 2008
April 2008
Here is a troubling finding that you will want to discuss with your opthamologist and cardiologist: Type 2 diabetics who already have retinopathy when they are diagnosed are 2.5 times more likely to develop heart failure than type 2’s who are diagnosed without it.
0 comments - Posted Apr 21, 2008
February 2008
Researchers tracking heart rates as a predictor of life expectancy have found that higher-than-normal heart rates in middle-aged people increase their risk of developing diabetes later in life.
1 comment - Posted Feb 27, 2008
A British study of 800 people 65 and older concludes that people with diabetes are more likely than non-diabetics to experience difficulties walking, dressing and climbing stairs.
1 comment - Posted Feb 26, 2008
A Wayne State University Health Clinic study has shown that a single pill containing both a blood pressure-lowering drug and a cholesterol-lowering drug may be of particular benefit for African Americans.
0 comments - Posted Feb 20, 2008
That ancient Greek advice, "moderation in all things," may apply not only to human conduct, but also to the natural world.
12 comments - Posted Feb 16, 2008
The debate between low-carb and low-fat diet advocates took a dramatic turn in January with the American Diabetes Association's limited approval of low-carb diets as weight-loss aids. Momentum seemed to have shifted to low-carb proponents.
14 comments - Posted Feb 13, 2008
After seeing an increase in deaths among type 2 participants, the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) has halted the intense blood sugar control portion of its years-long study on controlling cardiovascular risks to people with diabetes.
14 comments - Posted Feb 8, 2008
January 2008
By mid-2010, an international clinical trial now underway may conclusively confirm insulin's ability to limit damage from heart attacks. The trial, called INTENSIVE, will be conducted at 90 centers in the United States, Canada, Brazil and Argentina.
3 comments - Posted Jan 24, 2008
Statins, the drugs now widely used to control "bad" LDL cholesterol in both diabetic and non-diabetic patients, should be offered to most people with diabetes regardless of their age, sex or cardiovascular health and history.
0 comments - Posted Jan 16, 2008
November 2007
Researchers recently followed 38,000 healthy women for ten years to learn if their initial blood pressure influenced whether they developed type 2 diabetes later.
0 comments - Posted Nov 6, 2007
October 2007
The FDA has spoken: the heart risk warnings on labels of Avandia (rosiglitazone) and Actos (pioglitazone) will now be surrounded by an emphatic black outline known as a black box. Black boxes will also be added to the warnings on Avandaryl (rosiglitazone and glimepiride), Avandamet (rosiglitazone and metformin), and Duetact (pioglitazone and glimepiride).
3 comments - Posted Oct 31, 2007
According to a recent study reported at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), people with type 2 diabetes have significantly higher average white blood cell counts, no matter if they are fat or thin.
5 comments - Posted Oct 28, 2007
The September 2007 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has published two new studies, one a meta-analysis of Avandia (rosiglitazone) and the other a meta-analysis of Actos (pioglitazone).
0 comments - Posted Oct 5, 2007
September 2007
In two recent studies, WelChol, a drug already approved for lowering LDL (bad) cholesterol was found to lower A1c's in patients with type 2 diabetes. The first study showed that WelChol, when added to insulin, lowered A1c's by an average of 0.5% compared to a placebo group.
0 comments - Posted Sep 26, 2007
Studies of rats, those ever-useful creatures, have already shown that a fatty heart accompanies obesity and type 2 diabetes. Furthermore, the heart fat produces toxins that cause heart cell death and then heart failure.
0 comments - Posted Sep 20, 2007
In the August 2007 edition of The Lancet, Argentinian researcher Dr. Diego Lowenstein reported that the higher your A1c, the higher your risk of major complications after heart bypass surgery.
0 comments - Posted Sep 5, 2007
A study published in the August 2007 Lancet examined 8291 Italians who'd recently had a heart attack. Three years later, a full third of them had developed either type 2 diabetes or impaired fasting glucose.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2007
August 2007
A study out of Duke University has found that men who are hostile, depressed, and angry aren't just lousy company; they're also more likely to get sick on you down the road.
0 comments - Posted Aug 27, 2007
The possibility of heart disease is a nagging worry when you have a child with type 1 diabetes. Sixty-nine percent of type 1 children have at least one cardiac risk factor.
0 comments - Posted Aug 22, 2007
Recently, four men and sixteen women with metabolic syndrome, weighing an average of 200 pounds, were put on the low carb South Beach diet for three months.
1 comment - Posted Aug 17, 2007
A new report in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that if people are uninsured between the ages of 50 and 65 and if they have cardiovascular disease or diabetes, they will require costlier and more intensive services from Medicare than previously insured people.
0 comments - Posted Aug 15, 2007
Central adiposity, visceral fat, intra-abdominal fat, or a big belly, they all mean the same thing: increased risk of insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Aug 7, 2007
On July 30, 2007, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel voted 22 to 1 to keep Avandia on the market, right after agreeing by a vote of 20 to 3 that Avandia does increase heart risks. Now the FDA will decide what kind of warning should appear on the Actos and Avandia labels. It has already called for a black box warning, the sternest possible, on Avandia.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2007
July 2007
Peripheral neuropathy (limb nerve damage) eventually afflicts fifty percent of people with diabetes; worse still, it leads to an amputation every fifty seconds world-wide. At the moment, nothing is approved in the U.S. to treat peripheral neuropathy, only to alleviate the pain that it causes. That might change soon, however.
5 comments - Posted Jul 31, 2007
According to the Pittsburgh Epidemiology of Diabetes Complications Study, a sixteen-year examination of 225 type 1 patients, fat puts you at greater risk of heart disease; once you do get heart disease, however, it's less severe.
0 comments - Posted Jul 29, 2007
A study published in the June 2007 Archives of Internal Medicine has calculated that a person with type 2 diabetes is more than twice as likely to develop heart disease as someone without diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jul 17, 2007
In a congressional hearing on June 13, 2007, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revealed that it has called for a black box warning, the sternest possible, on both Actos and Avandia.
0 comments - Posted Jul 12, 2007
June 2007
A study from the Mayo Clinic has found that using a decision-making tool with patients when discussing medication options makes them more likely to take their prescribed medicine.
0 comments - Posted Jun 26, 2007
Two new research reports, presented at the American Thoracic Society 2007 International Conference, indicate that obstructive sleep apnea ups your risk of type 2 diabetes and increases your risk of heart attack.
0 comments - Posted Jun 18, 2007
Patients with diabetes are less likely to have a heart attack or die if they stay on anti-clotting medication for a full year after a stenting procedure.
0 comments - Posted Jun 11, 2007
Thinner artery walls are a good thing, because thicker ones indicate atherosclerosis and an increased risk of heart attack. In a study published in the December 2006 Journal of the American Medical Association, pioglitazone (Actos, a thiazolidinedione) was compared to glimepiride (a sulfonylurea) with regard to carotid artery thickness.
0 comments - Posted Jun 9, 2007
University of California, San Francisco - In head-to-head trials of two drugs, the one deemed better appears to depend largely on who is funding the study, according to an analysis of nearly 200 statin-drug comparisons carried out between 1999 and 2005.
0 comments - Posted Jun 5, 2007
May 2007
A report released at a recent meeting of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE), called “The State of Diabetes Complications in America,” has revealed some pretty depressing facts about the consequences of diabetes today.
0 comments - Posted May 20, 2007
People with type 2 diabetes are far more likely than others to die from heart attacks due to reduced blood supply to the heart. Recently, a team of researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center found one reason why.
0 comments - Posted May 18, 2007
February 2007
Patients with high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes benefit from taking an angiotensin-convertingenzyme (ACE) inhibitor to lower blood pressure—even if they have no evidence of kidney or heart disease.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2007
October 2006
Australian researchers say type 1s who regularly exercise are protecting themselves against cardiovascular disease “through the preservation of vascular compliance.”
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2006
Current models for predicting coronary heart disease in type 1s are poor, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2006
September 2006
Walking to Work Decreases Type 2 Risk Japanese researchers say that the duration of a walk to work is associated with a decreased risk of incidence of type 2 diabetes in Japanese men.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2006
August 2006
Hypertension (high blood pressure) affects about 50 million individuals in the United States and about 1 billion worldwide. It is the most common diagnosis, associated with 35 million office visits and a risk factor for heart disease, stroke and renal failure.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2006
July 2006
For basketball fans, the 1973 New York Knicks are the stuff of legend. That year, not only did they compile a record of 57 wins and 25 losses en route to becoming NBA champions, but they also boasted a starting lineup of players all of whom are now members of the NBA Hall of Fame.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2006
January 2006
In a review paper published in the July 2005 issue of Nutrition and Metabolism, researchers at the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension at the State University of New York say that a high-carbohydrate diet raises postprandial plasma glucose and insulin secretion, thereby increasing risk of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity and diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2006
November 2005
A diet with a low glycemic load may be more effective in reducing cardiovascular disease risk than a conventional energy-restricted, low-fat diet, according to the researchers at Children’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2005
September 2005
Even if you are a type 1 who has never had coronary heart disease (CHD), researchers say you should be treated as aggressively as people who do have CHD.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2005
Actos, an insulin sensitizer in the glitazone class of type 2 oral diabetes medications, was found to reduce carotid artery intima-media thickness (IMT) as well as insulin resistance in a German study.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2005
Failure to reach LDL (“bad”) cholesterol targets is a common problem for people with diabetes. Achieving those goals may have much to do with adherence to taking statin meds.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2005
July 2005
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the primary cause of diabetes-associated death and disability. Research published in the American Journal of Cardiology has demonstrated that many patients with diabetes already have evidence of early stage CVD, and it is essential that these patients be treated early to reduce their risk of future cardiovascular events.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2005
June 2005
People with retinopathy have a higher rate of congestive heart failure (CHF), even those without preexisting coronary heart disease, diabetes or hypertension.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2005
May 2005
Many people don’t realize this, but the only reason many of us are so concerned about our cholesterol levels is that to date, cholesterol has given us a “best guess” as to our risk for heart disease.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2005
Patients who have low C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, a marker of inflammation, after statin therapy have better clinical outcomes than those with higher CRP levels, regardless of the resultant level of LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, according to the multicenter PROVE IT-TIMI 22 clinical trial.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2005
April 2005
Diabetics have an increased mortality associated with peripheral arterial disease (PAD) progression.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2005
Have you ever quit soon after starting an exercise program? If you have, you are not alone. Lots of people start a new activity with the best of intentions, but before long, they stop. If you are sitting on the sidelines, here are some tips to help you get back on track:
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2005
March 2005
Two years of statin therapy showed no effect on carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) in people with type 2 diabetes without apparent cardiovascular disease. However, there was a significantly lower cardiovascular event rate, according to researchers in the Netherlands.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2005
January 2005
The risk of cardiovascular disease is greatly increased in people with diabetes. To address the problem of diabetes complications, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) has developed “The ABCs of Diabetes.”
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2005
December 2004
Stiffness and impaired blood flow in the arteries of the lower legs may help identify diabetic patients with possible coronary artery disease.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2004
October 2004
Are you all worked up because your physician has ordered you to have a stress test?
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2004
August 2004
Diachrome, a patented combination of chromium picolinate and biotin, significantly lowers coronary risk factors in type 2s. According to a small study presented at an American Heart Association meeting, Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology (ATVB), held in May in San Francisco.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2004
Heart disease is the number one killer of all Americans, and it plays a role in the deaths of nearly 80 percent of people who have diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2004
July 2004
There are two main types of cholesterol, LDL and HDL.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2004
June 2004
The risk of cardiovascular events and death in people with diabetes and high blood pressure is two to eight times higher when microalbuminuria is present.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2004
“Trans fatty acid [TFA] intake is positively associated with markers of systemic inflammation in women,” say Harvard Medical School researchers.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2004
May 2004
Even with contemporary improvements in angioplasty (percutaneous coronary intervention) methods, such as stents and the administration of platelet antagonists, diabetes is still a major factor in mortality risk for heart-related complications.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2004
Cholesterol-lowering statins significantly lower the increased concentrations of coagulation and inflammation markers, both cardiovascular disease risk factors common in type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2004
April 2004
An aspirin a day has long been a low-cost preventive therapy to reduce cardiovascular events.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2004
Researchers have long believed that pre-menopausal women with type 2 may lose the protection against cardiovascular disease provided by estrogens to non-diabetic women.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2004
March 2004
Type 2s who take thiazolidinediones (TZDs) such as Avandia and Actos face an increased risk of heart failure, and researchers suggest that physicians should consider alternative therapies.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2004
Calcification, or hardening, of the arteries occurs in all populations but can be particularly damaging to people with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2004
February 2004
The cholesterol-lowering drug Pravachol (pravastatin), when administered at 40 milligrams per day over six years, helps prevent cardiovascular events including stroke in people with diabetes or with impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and established coronary disease.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2004
It seems too good to be true, but researchers from Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry in London are advancing a new therapy to reduce the cardiovascular risk factors of high blood cholesterol, blood pressure, blood homocysteine levels, and platelet clumping—all in one pill.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2004
January 2004
If you can’t find the name of your medication in our Type 2 Drug charts, there’s a good chance your medication is a combination product — in other words, two drugs combined in one tablet or capsule.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2004
In 1978, after prolonged hospitalization, my father died from consequences of diabetes associated with abnormal lipids and high blood pressure.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2004
May 2003
With clinical trials demonstrating the importance of tight blood pressure control for people with diabetes, you'd expect that those individuals would be receiving intensive treatment for high blood pressure. In most cases, however, you'd be wrong.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2003
If you have peripheral arterial disease (PAD)—narrowing and hardening of the arteries that supply blood to the legs and feet—and want to lower your risk of a heart attack or stroke, you should aim to keep your blood pressure low, advises a new study.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2003
In women with heart disease, hormone therapy reduced the incidence of diabetes by 35 percent, according to researchers at the University of California, San Francisco.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2003
April 2003
A new study has examined the relationship of decreased heart rate variability—the beat-to-beat alterations in heart rate—to protein in the urine and observable kidney disease. The study reports that severely reduced heart rate variability at baseline was associated with progressive kidney deterioration one year later.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2003
A middle-aged man with a "beer belly," unhealthy cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, and elevated blood glucose is three times more likely to die from cardiovascular problems and twice as likely to die from other causes as a man who doesn't have this metabolic syndrome.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2003
March 2003
What's the best drug to combat high blood pressure and lower the incidence of heart failure and hospitalization for heart failure?
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2003
February 2003
Waking up with high blood pressure isn't good for you if you have type 2 diabetes, say researchers in Japan who studied the incidence of micro- and macrovascular complications in 170 people with type 2 diabetes. Participants in the study were treated with medications to lower blood glucose and blood pressure.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2003
Levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a protein produced by the liver that is present only during episodes of inflammation, better predict the risk of having a cardiovascular event than levels of LDL ("bad") cholesterol.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2003
January 2003
A campaign aimed at educating people with diabetes about their increased risk of heart disease and stroke is called "Be Smart About Your Heart: Control the ABCs of Diabetes"—in other words, control your A1C, blood pressure and cholesterol.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2003
If your teenager has high blood pressure, researchers in the Czech Republic suggest taking steps to ward off insulin resistance. They add that high blood pressure is also associated with low folate levels and a high homocysteine level.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2003
A recent study conducted as part of the Heart Outcomes Prevention Evaluation (HOPE) trial found that vitamin E supplementation had no effect on cardiovascular disease, other coronary risk factors, or kidney disease in middle-aged and elderly people with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2003
Irbesartan (Avapro), an angiotensin II receptor blocker (ARB), reduces 24-hour systolic and diastolic blood pressure as well as albumin excretion rate (AER) in people with type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2003
December 2002
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Diovan (valsartan), a medication for high blood pressure, to treat heart failure in people who cannot tolerate ACE (angiotensin-converting-enzyme) inhibitors.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2002
The circumference of your waist better forecasts the likelihood of cardiovascular disease (CVD) factors than your body mass index (BMI) does, according to Columbia University researchers.
1 comment - Posted Dec 1, 2002
Do high blood-glucose levels lead to more severe strokes? Or does having a high blood-glucose level mean that you had a more severe stroke? Researchers studying the puzzle say their results suggest the former.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2002
High levels of cholesterol in girls early in life are associated with increased risk of obesity and cardiovascular disease (CVD) later in life, say researchers based in Philadelphia and New Orleans.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2002
November 2002
"Si Tiene Diabetes, Cuide Su Corazón" (If you have diabetes, take care of your heart) is a campaign launched in late July 2002 by the U.S. National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP) to call attention to the fact that Hispanic and Latino Americans with diabetes are at higher risk for heart disease.
1 comment - Posted Nov 1, 2002
Obesity and weight gain before diagnosis of diabetes are associated with future risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) among women with type 2 diabetes, say Harvard researchers.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2002
A committee of experts from the American College of Endocrinology (ACE) and the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) reports that as many as one in three Americans have Insulin Resistance Syndrome, or pre-diabetes - a condition that can lead to type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2002
Obesity and weight gain before diagnosis of diabetes are associated with future risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) among women with type 2 diabetes, say Harvard researchers.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2002
October 2002
Young children whose mothers had type 1 diabetes while pregnant could be at higher risk to develop heart disease in later life than children whose mothers did not have type 1 diabetes during pregnancy.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2002
The risk of heart disease begins about 15 years before a clinical diagnosis of type 2 diabetes in women, and it is nearly as high before the women develop diabetes as it is after diagnosis, say researchers who have been studying 117,629 female nurses since 1976. None of the women studied had signs of heart disease at baseline.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2002
The risk of heart disease begins about 15 years before a clinical diagnosis of type 2 diabetes in women, and it is nearly as high before the women develop diabetes as it is after diagnosis, say researchers who have been studying 117,629 female nurses since 1976. None of the women studied had signs of heart disease at baseline.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2002
September 2002
Type 2 diabetes can be predicted by increases in microalbuminuria (a measure of protein in the urine). In addition, microalbuminuria, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease develop together over a period of more than two decades, leading researchers from the Framingham Offspring Study in Massachusetts to believe that the three conditions have a common cause.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2002
People who have a heart attack but have not been previously diagnosed with diabetes should be checked for pre-diabetes—formerly called impaired glucose tolerance—or even diabetes itself.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2002
Stress echocardiography, which can detect abnormalities in the wall of the heart during exercise, can predict mortality in people who have diabetes as well as either known or suspected coronary artery disease.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2002
Forget about an apple a day—as many as 11,000 heart attacks and more than 8,000 lives could be saved each year if 90 percent of people with diabetes took an aspirin a day, according to estimates from a simulation model.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2002
August 2002
Unless you are undergoing kidney dialysis or have congestive heart failure, having diabetes puts you at no more risk of having a heart attack or dying following major surgery on blood vessels than people without diabetes, researchers say.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2002
January 2002
Managing your blood-glucose levels is not the only treatment needed to avoid diabetes-related complications, according to several health advocacy groups. Controlling blood pressure and cholesterol is also important in preventing heart disease and stroke, the two leading causes of death for people with diabetes, say the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP) and the American Diabetes Association (ADA).
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2002
December 2001
Taking estrogen decreases the risk of heart disease slightly in post-menopausal women with diabetes, say researchers in New Zealand. Patrick J. Manning, MBChB, and colleagues, from the departments of medicine at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, demonstrated positive changes in the blood cholesterol and blood-clotting factors of middle-aged women with diabetes when they were given hormone replacement therapy. Findings were published in the July 23 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2001
November 2001
The majority of people at risk for peripheral arterial disease (PAD) - a silent killer affecting millions - do not even know it, according the National Council on the Aging (NCOA). Diabetes is one of the biggest risk factors in getting the disease, says the organization, yet results of a recent survey show that people are not aware of and are not being screened for it.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
Novartis Pharma AG, of Basel, Switzerland, announced the launch of a massive-scale diabetes prevention trial aimed at finding out if taking a Starlix (nateglinide) or Diovan (valsartan) over a long period of time will offset diabetes and heart disease. The trial will be conducted on individuals with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) who are at high risk for cardiovascular disease.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
October 2001
Endocrinologists at the University at Buffalo have shown that, in human studies, insulin can also be used to treat heart disease.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2001
August 2001
Pulse pressure—which helps identify artery stiffness—can reveal whether or not a person with diabetes is at risk for heart disease, say researchers in Wales.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2001
The insulin-resistance drug metformin (Glucophage) has been shown to improve more than just insulin sensitivity in the body.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2001
July 2001
A recent study shows that taking extended-release niacin, a vitamin known to lower cholesterol, helps reduce risk of cardiovascular disease without affecting sugar levels in the body.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2001
May 2001
Heart disease medicine may protect people from diabetes, say researchers in the January 23 issue of Circulation: The Journal of the American Heart Association.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2001
Aspirin has been shown to help prevent heart disease among people with diabetes. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) has recommended the over-the-counter pain reliever to diabetic adults who have cardiovascular disease or are at risk for it.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2001
The results of new research shows that people with diabetes have a higher chance of death after undergoing angioplasty.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2001
April 2001
Marilyn never expected that a routine heart exam would cause kidney damage. But it did.
1 comment - Posted Apr 1, 2001
March 2001
Lowering your after-meal BG levels can also lower your risk of heart disease. Researchers who determined that measuring blood-glucose levels two hours after eating say after-meal BG levels are a better indicator of risk factors for heart disease than either fasting levels or HbA1cs.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2001
February 2001
The January issue of Diabetes Care reports that many people with diabetes may have a heart disorder called left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (LVDD), despite being in good control.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2001
In yet another study examining the benefits of vitamin E supplementation, researchers have proclaimed that routine vitamin E use may have a beneficial effect on the hearts of people with type 1 diabetes. They add that vitamin E should be considered a life-long part of a type 1's vitamin regimen.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2001
February 2000
In spite of a diet rich in saturated fat, the French have a much lower rate of cardiovascular disease than Americans. Researchers attribute this to the consumption of red wine, which has the power to bolster antioxidants in blood.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2000
Merck & Co., Inc., recently announced that people with high cholesterol, heart disease and diabetes cut their risk of a heart attack by as much as 42 percent when taking Zocor, their cholesterol-lowering drug.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2000
You may not be a dummy, but chances are you are overwhelmed by all the diabetes information you are bombarded with, information that can be highly complex, technical and fast-changing. Information about diabetes can be difficult to incorporate into a healthy life.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2000
December 1999
Angiotensin Converter Enzyme (ACE) inhibitors can now be added to the drug arsenal for the prevention of heart disease in people with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1999
November 1999
Better late than never! The American Heart Association (AHA) has finally classified diabetes as a "major modifiable risk factor" for the risk of heart attacks and stroke.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1999
September 1999
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison are saying that light to moderate alcohol consumption decreases the risk of death due to coronary heart disease in people with type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1999
August 1999
Vitamin C and E supplements reduce the risk of coronary heart disease in women with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1999
July 1999
People with diabetes might have an increased risk of developing coronary heart disease (CHD) or stroke if they eat one or more eggs per day.
1 comment - Posted Jul 1, 1999
May 1999
Treatment with nitrendipine, a calcium channel blocker, was proven to be beneficial in older patients with diabetes and hypertension.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 1999
December 1998
Tis the season for gift giving. Every year, the kid in me loves to exchange Christmas "wish lists" with my husband, Danny. Year after year, his wish remains that I continue to take good care of my diabetes and stay healthy until he can figure out a way to find the cure. I am always moved by his kindness, partnership and generosity of spirit. This year, I wondered how other families with diabetes feel about holiday gifts. I thought you might enjoy hearing some responses to my question.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1998
September 1998
In the June issue of Diabetologia: the Journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, researchers argued whether sulphonylurea drugs (such as Micronase, Glucotrol, DiaBeta, Glynase, Amaryl and Diabinese) pose an increased cardiovascular risk for individuals with type 2 diabetes and heart disease. (Sulphonylurea drugs are prescribed to help stimulate the beta cells of individuals with type 2 diabetes; it may also increase the sensitivity of muscle tissue to the hormone.)
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1998
August 1998
It's impossible to pick out the "best" research, particularly when there is so much interesting scientific work to choose from. My choice of what to include in this report, while necessarily arbitrary, was guided by what seemed most interesting to me. So if you've been involved in a particular research project that I've omitted, please accept my apologies. Here are the new findings that I would like to share.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1998
July 1998
According to a study presented last month at the ADA's 58th Annual Scientific Sessions, people with type 1 diabetes often have serious, symptomless cardiovascular problems much earlier in life than would be expected in people without diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1998
April 1998
If you have type 1 diabetes, check your family history. Patients with type 1 diabetes whose parents had high blood pressure (hypertension) showed a greater incidence of diabetic nephropathy compared to patients whose parents did not, according to a study published in the March issue of Diabetes. Study authors Johan A. Fagerudd, et al. also reports that patients with type 1 diabetes have a greater chance of developing hypertension, and at a younger age, if their parents had hypertension.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1998
January 1998
New research shows that mexiletine, long used for cardiac arrhythmia, can help reduce the pain associated with diabetic neuropathy.
2 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1998
Chronic hypertension and heart attacks, both of which are more common in the diabetic population, damage and subsequently weaken the heart muscle and often lead to heart failure.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1998
December 1997
Since the 1980s, aspirin has been hailed as the superman of over-the-counter drugs for the secondary prevention of heart attacks. Now the ADA is recommending that people with diabetes who are at high risk of cardiovascular problems take aspirin once daily.
1 comment - Posted Dec 1, 1997
October 1997
What is on the horizon in organ transplants? Will hearts, livers, pancreases and kidneys be grown in a laboratory? Not in the near future, but doctors at Harvard have used cells from animal fetuses to produce new bladders and windpipes for sheep.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1997
August 1997
Women with type 1 diabetes are more prone to experience premature menopause and, as a result, are at greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1997
July 1997
Cardiovascular disease kills approximately 3,000 Americans each day. While this figure is alarming, people with diabetes have even more reason to be concerned as they are two to four times more likely to develop cardiovascular disease. But take heart; there is good news.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1997
June 1997
Researchers have discovered that cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy (CANP) affects more than the heart. A new study shows that the diabetes complication is also related to slower gastric emptying in people with type I diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1997
March 1997
A new indicator of atherosclerosis for people with type 2 diabetes has been discovered. French scientists have found that the levels of a blood protein called A-IV is a very strong indicator of arterial problems in the heart, limbs and brain.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1997
February 1997
A new study shows vitamin E reduces heart attacks by 75 percent. Results like this, and those from similar studies, have led the American Heart Association to name vitamin E the fourth most noteworthy health aid for heart disease in its review of 1996 research advances.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1997
March 1996
The February issue of Diabetes Health included an article titled "Diabetes Expert Offers Tips on Understanding and Preventing Heart Disease: Drugs are the Answer" by Alan Marcus, MD. The article emphasized the use of medication to control high blood pressure and cholesterol and to prevent heart disease in people with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1996
February 1996
Heart disease is a health concern for everyone, but it should especially concern people with diabetes. Alan Marcus, MD, a diabetes expert on DIABETES HEALTH's medical advisory board, says people with diabetes are at special risk for heart disease and should be careful to control high cholestrol and blood pressure levels with the right drugs.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1996
January 1996
If you are in need of heart surgery and have diabetes, you may want to consider a report issued by the NIH Department of Health and Human Services and published in the September issue of Gratefully Yours, from the National Library of Medicine. It has been found that people who have coronary artery bypass graft surgery live longer than those who undergo angioplasty.
3 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1996
November 1995
Did you know heart disease is the leading cause of death for people with diabetes?
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1995
November 1993
In past studies, fish oil has been shown to significantly reduce the incidence of heart disease, but a new study from the Netherlands indicates that for people with diabetes, this may not be the case. The study, published in the July 1993 issue of Diabetes Care, took place over a 16 year period and included 272 people from the town of Rotterdam, 27 of whom had diabetes and 56 with glucose intolerance. Fish intake was the equivalent of 1 meal of fish per week.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1993
December 1992
Alan Marcus MD, an endocrinologist and diabetes specialist, is extremely active in the diabetes community. He serves on many advisory boards and speaks frequently to groups of all sizes. His practice is in Laguna Hills, CA, and he serves as Asst. Clinical Prof. at USC.
1 comment - Posted Dec 1, 1992
November 1992
Dr. Alan Marcus is a diabetes specialist who practices in Laguna Hills, California. He is also a medical advisor to MiniMed Technologies and a spokesperson for Novo Nordisk Insulin. Dr. Marcus also serves as Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine for the USC School of Medicine.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1992