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May 2012
For people with diabetes, breakfast is more than just a morning meal. According to recent research, it may hold the key to good blood glucose numbers for the rest of the day.
0 comments - Posted May 11, 2012
April 2012
As an orthopedic surgeon, I have many patients with diabetes who tell me, "I can't have surgery because I won't heal." That is certainly not the case, however. Diabetes does affect the small blood vessels and the function of immune cells when blood sugar is high, but with proper nutrition and blood sugar management, people with diabetes are very safe to undergo knee replacements, abdominal surgery, and many elective procedures.
1 comment - Posted Apr 28, 2012
Research has shown that a few people with Type 1 diabetes are at an increased risk for having traffic accidents due to low blood sugars.
Possibly, we can help the diabetes community.
Researchers at the University of Virginia are conducting a study evaluating internet tools designed to:
• • Anonymously assess risk for ALL drivers with Type 1 diabetes of being in an accident and
• • Potentially help reduce the chance of high-risk drivers being in a future collision.
1 comment - Posted Apr 21, 2012
February 2012
A survey of type 1 and type 2 diabetes patients in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany indicates that more than one in every five have arrived late at work or not shown up at all because of a hypoglycemic episode the night before.
18 comments - Posted Feb 21, 2012
Wiped out and dejected, that's my state of mind this morning. I had a really low blood sugar, and it's left me feeling like I've been in a fight. My arms and legs feel heavy, and my "low" headache lingers, but I remind myself that it could be worse. I'm fine, I treated it, and my day will go on.
12 comments - Posted Feb 14, 2012
December 2011
We are a tight-knit community. I'm not talking about my neighbors in my hometown of Chicago. I'm talking about my worldwide neighbors in the diabetic online community. Anyone dealing with diabetes knows the bond that it brings. When a person with diabetes is wronged, the rest of us feel the sting. Most of us living with diabetes have stories about people badgering our diet choices, saying inappropriate or insensitive things, and, sadly, crossing the line even further.
5 comments - Posted Dec 20, 2011
Forensic scientist Mark Ruefenacht, who has type 1 diabetes, tells Diabetes Health publisher Nadia Al-Samarrie how he realized that dogs can be a major defense against life-threatening episodes of hypoglycemia. That insight led him to found Dogs for Diabetics ("D4D"), a Concord, California-based organization that trains dogs to alert their masters when they sense low blood sugar. D4D's website is located at www.dogs4diabetics.com/
3 comments - Posted Dec 4, 2011
November 2011
Diabetes Health publisher Nadia Al-Samarrie recently spoke with television and movie actor Anthony Anderson, who has taken a lead role with Eli Lilly & Company's F.A.C.E. campaign, a diabetes outreach to African Americans. A veteran of more than 20 films, Anthony, age 41, currently plays Detective Kevin Bernard on NBC's Emmy Award-winning drama, "Law & Order."
1 comment - Posted Nov 27, 2011
Sometimes it feels like diabetes is driving you crazy. But what if the disease is actually changing your brain? That's the disturbing suggestion of a new study from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The study suggests that both high and low blood sugars affect the brain development of young people with diabetes, but in different ways.
4 comments - Posted Nov 7, 2011
October 2011
October is my diagnosis month. At 14 years old, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes just a few weeks before Halloween. I remember thinking, at least I'm too old for trick or treating. My younger sister had been diagnosed six months earlier, however, and at 10 years old, she still loved to trick or treat. To ease her pain, my parents got creative and shifted the emphasis of Halloween off sweets and onto scary: Haunted houses, hayrides, and parties with bowls full of smushed tomatoes for witches hearts and cold grapes for eyeballs became our annual tradition. My sister and I still said no to most of the sugary sweets, but we were the first ones to say yes when the doors of the haunted house opened.
0 comments - Posted Oct 31, 2011
Wrongly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes when he was 30 years old, Chris Angell spent several frustrating weeks trying to make sense of his condition and not understanding why he wasn't getting any better. His diagnosis was eventually changed to type 1 diabetes, but Chris never received the necessary education to get his blood sugars in control. "I didn't know what I was supposed to be eating or how to count carbs, and I really felt isolated," he says.
1 comment - Posted Oct 25, 2011
It is raining today. Kolumbo, my hypoglycemia alert dog, hates the rain. I think I have the only Labrador in the world that hates getting wet. I opened the screen door this morning to feel the breeze and hear the rain. Unfortunately, while the door was open, a fly decided to come inside. When I say that Kolumbo is a lazy dog, I really mean it. He lay on his bed and watched the fly go around and around. then opened his mouth, thinking that the fly might just go in. I heard the snap of his teeth as he tried to get the fly.
13 comments - Posted Oct 19, 2011
September 2011
It's that time of year again: flu season. I never thought much about getting a flu shot until fourteen years ago, when I ended up in the emergency room with the flu and a staggering blood sugar of over 800 mg/dL. I had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes a few years before and had never discussed a sick day plan with my doctor. But during this experience, I discovered that diabetes and the flu get along about as well as a house cat and a junkyard dog.
5 comments - Posted Sep 22, 2011
"I just read 10 sentences, but what did I read? Why doesn't it make sense to me? Is that the home phone ringing? What is happening around me?"
13 comments - Posted Sep 21, 2011
So, you're pregnant! Many who are in your shoes have worked very hard and diligently to begin this excursion. Others have reached this milestone unintentionally. Either way, you are about to embark on a journey that will completely challenge everything you know about your type 1 diabetes management. These next few months will challenge your motives, your emotions, your determination, and everything that makes up who you are. So sink your heels in. Take each step one at a time.
5 comments - Posted Sep 20, 2011
An estimated 34 million Americans will be on the road during Labor Day weekend, many of them with type 2 diabetes. Road travel can interfere with blood sugar management and lead to low blood sugar, which can cause serious complications, such as loss of consciousness, if not treated quickly.
1 comment - Posted Sep 6, 2011
July 2011
As I write this, my nineteen-year-old son is in the intensive care unit because of a heroin addiction. He is trying to stop, and the withdrawal is wreaking havoc. His body is bruised and battered beyond belief.
15 comments - Posted Jul 10, 2011
"Good news," my diabetes nurse educator says to me. "Your new insurance covers continuous glucose monitoring supplies!" I give her a half-smile as my brain screams at me, "CGM? Really? Something else to deal with on top of this damn disease, an insulin pump, exercise, and nutrition?" But I comply, and a CGM is added to the rest of my paraphernalia.
26 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2011
June 2011
Max Bruno, a freshman at the State University of New York at New Paltz, tries to get to the gym about four times a week. He says that he knows his limits for working out, but likes to push himself. "I just have to be careful," he explains. "About an hour or so after I'm done working out, my blood sugar drops really low."
14 comments - Posted Jun 14, 2011
Diabetes treatment standards for frail older adults should be more flexible than those for younger adults, focusing more on day-to-day quality of life and less on long-term results, according to a geriatrician at the San Francisco VA Medical Center.
2 comments - Posted Jun 4, 2011
May 2011
Gene Thornton was in the Army in Germany when he got type 1 diabetes. It was 1965, 46 years ago, and he was 24 years old. This is his story, in his own words.
5 comments - Posted May 10, 2011
April 2011
Recently I had the pleasure of attending the Barbara Davis Center's "Management of Diabetes in Youth" conference, held every other year in beautiful Keystone, Colorado. The focus is on all of the latest and greatest in type 1, and it's a real treat to have so many of the best names in this field gathered in one place. The Barbara Davis Center (BDC) is one of the premier programs in the world focusing on type I diabetes management, and the one (Dr. Peter Chase, to be precise) who brought us the famed" Pink Panther" book, Understanding Diabetes - the reliable handbook of type 1 diabetes that many parents of newly diagnosed kids rely on.
3 comments - Posted Apr 25, 2011
Phil Southerland's autobiography is an inspirational coming-of-age memoir about a type 1 baby who wasn't supposed to live. But his doctor's dismal prediction didn't take into consideration his mother's indefatigable determination that her baby would thrive no matter what, and Phil's own fierce drive to conquer every single challenge he encountered, including his diabetes. It's an engrossing book, a sports adventure story with a medical subplot and a roster of dynamic characters, the most dynamic of whom is Phil himself. If we could harness his energy, our dependence on foreign oil would be a thing of the past.
2 comments - Posted Apr 20, 2011
Mike Fisher is a 23-year-old from Ontario, Canada, who's been snowboarding since he was 13 years old. At the age of 18, he was involved in a motorcycle crash that necessitated the amputation of one leg below the knee. He says, "At first, I felt that my life was coming to a crashing halt. But I just pushed myself to recover as fast as possible and get my life back on track, go to school, get back into snowboarding and motorcycles-just anything so that my life wasn't affected at all. I had a lot of support, and I would say that I was pretty optimistic about it and took it almost as a challenge. By the time that I was 19, I was happy. I was walking again, I was back in college in London, Ontario, and everything was good. The accident was a minor setback to me, and I rose above it. I was just continuing with my life."
12 comments - Posted Apr 19, 2011
What if there were a technology that could make people with type 1 diabetes feel absolutely wonderful, completely healthy, better than they ever realized was possible? And what if it were about to disappear? Well, there is such a technology, and it is in serious jeopardy. It's called the implantable insulin pump, currently made by Medtronic. This is the story of four people who have been using this device for 20 years, and their desperate crusade to keep it from disappearing forever.
117 comments - Posted Apr 17, 2011
Greetings from Philadelphia International Airport! Airports are fascinating places...great for seeing what people look like and how they act under unusual circumstances. At this moment, I see a lot of truly overweight people. Most folks are treating the moving walkway like a ride at Disney World–just standing there, inching slowly along and staring blankly at the passing drywall. I don’t know…maybe the two sights are related. Have we really become this lazy? Have we “convenienced” our way out of being in shape? Have electronic toilet flushers, soap dispensers, and water faucets taken away our last opportunity to burn any calories at all?
0 comments - Posted Apr 14, 2011
March 2011
This List defines terms that people with prediabetes commonly encounter as they learn more about the condition.
1 comment - Posted Mar 29, 2011
Edward Danielson developed type 1 diabetes 79 years ago, in 1931, only a decade after the discovery of insulin. Edward's wife of 67 years, Dorothy, recalls, "In the spring of 1930, when Edward was ten, his teacher told his mother that he ought to be checked by a doctor because something seemed to be wrong. His mother got on the streetcar with Edward and they went down to see the doctor, who said, ‘There's nothing wrong with him. He's just slow.' So they went home. In the fall of the same year, his new teacher said, ‘Something's wrong with Edward--he ought to be checked out by a doctor.' So they went back, and that doctor diagnosed him with diabetes. They kept him in the hospital for a month because the doctors then didn't know that much about diabetes 1."
1 comment - Posted Mar 10, 2011
You know that awful feeling when a sugar low is coming. I break out into a cold sweat, feel panicky, get nauseated, and have trouble answering extremely simple questions like "Do you need to eat?" Well, I was feeling it again, and again, and I didn't know why. That's what I hate the most: When things go wrong, but I think I've been doing everything right.
1 comment - Posted Mar 8, 2011
January 2011
It doesn't matter if you're a computer geek or complete technophobe: If you've ever made the effort to download your blood glucose meter, you probably don't have a clue about what to do with the data once you've gotten it. That needs to change. Those of us who live with diabetes need to become more adept at analyzing our own data, to see what's working and what isn't both for our own sake and that of our time-strapped healthcare providers. .
2 comments - Posted Jan 25, 2011
Self-management is the key to healthy living with diabetes, but there are always challenges to maintaining optimum blood glucose levels. Lagging motivation and focus can be obstacles, and adjusting diet and medications to meet changing conditions is challenging. If you have ever wished for a person to help you improve your skills, someone who could offer informed guidance between appointments with your doctor - you may have been wishing for a diabetes coach. Diabetes coaches are personal trainers for individuals with insulin-dependent diabetes. This unique branch of diabetes education delivers ongoing, one-on-one consulting from a trained certified diabetes educator.
0 comments - Posted Jan 24, 2011
Introducing "Type-1 University" (T1U) - the online school for people with diabetes who use insulin, including parents and caregivers. The school can be found only in cyberspace - at www.type1university.com
2 comments - Posted Jan 7, 2011
December 2010
Arena Pharmaceuticals and Eisai Inc. recently released results of a phase 3 clinical trial for lorcaserin, a weight-loss drug they are developing in partnership. The trial, called BLOOM-DM (Behavioral modification and Lorcaserin for Overweight and Obesity Management- Diabetes Management), targeted patients with type 2 diabetes who are overweight or obese.
2 comments - Posted Dec 28, 2010
A new study finds that combining the newer diabetes drug exenatide with insulin provides better blood sugar control in patients with type 2 diabetes than insulin alone and helps promote weight loss.
1 comment - Posted Dec 27, 2010
Abbott Diabetes Care today announced that it has initiated a recall of 359 lots (approximately 359 million strips) of Precision Xtra®, Precision Xceed Pro®, MediSense® Optium, Optium, OptiumEZ and ReliOn® Ultima Blood Glucose Test Strips in the United States and Puerto Rico.
1 comment - Posted Dec 22, 2010
November 2010
Over the years, I have had many exercisers with diabetes ask me why they're gaining weight instead of losing it. There are two possible answers to that question. One answer is that muscle is heavier than fat, so if you are gaining muscle while losing fat-especially in the early stages of a new exercise program-your scale weight probably doesn't reflect your positive changes in body composition (i.e., less fat, more muscle).
2 comments - Posted Nov 10, 2010
October 2010
Regular physical activity and exercise are recommended for the general population for overall improved health. However, exercise of moderate intensity increases the risk of hypoglycemia during and following exertion in those with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). Accordingly, exercise guidelines for T1DM focus on prevention of exercise-induced hypoglycemia.
0 comments - Posted Oct 31, 2010
Tarra Robinson was afraid that she was going to lose her job. Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was 18 months old, Tarra had recently developed hypoglycemic unawareness, which affects about 17% of type 1 diabetics. Tarra was passing out at work, and once she even crashed her car when her blood sugar dropped unexpectedly. She went on a pump and tried a CGM, but nothing seemed to help. She was still having frequent, dangerous lows.
0 comments - Posted Oct 28, 2010
JACKSONVILLE, FL - October 13, 2010 - The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) today published a consensus statement for continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) online, and will be published in the next issue of the association's official medical journal Endocrine Practice.
0 comments - Posted Oct 14, 2010
Have you ever worried that in case of emergency, first responders will not know that you or a loved one has diabetes? Or concerned that a low blood sugar may be interpreted by law enforcement officials as intoxication--especially behind the wheel of a vehicle? What if you wear a Medical ID, but they cannot get to you right away in the case of an accident?
0 comments - Posted Oct 8, 2010
September 2010
If you are meeting a friend for a drink after work or attending a holiday party where alcohol is being offered, is it a health risk or a benefit? The medical and nutrition literature reports that moderate consumption of alcohol can offer some health benefits, particularly for your heart. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 defines drinking in moderation as no more than one drink per day for women or two drinks per day for men. One drink, by definition, is a 12-ounce beer, eight-ounce glass of malt liquor, five ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of hard liquor. Moderate alcohol consumption may reduce the risk of having a heart attack or stroke, lower the risk of developing gallstones, and prevent the development of type 2 diabetes in people with pre-diabetes. Studies show that those benefiting from moderate consumption are middle-aged and older adults. It is not recommended, however, that anyone begin drinking or drink more frequently on the basis of health considerations.
0 comments - Posted Sep 15, 2010
The Holy Grail pursued by all diabetes researchers is a complete cure for both the type 1 and type 2 forms of the disease. But until then, the "artificial pancreas," a combination of glucose monitoring and insulin dosing technology, may be as close as they get to a final breakthrough in treating diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Sep 3, 2010
August 2010
MannKind Corporation announced that the company will supply its novel, ultra rapid acting insulin AFREZZATM (insulin human [rDNA origin]) for use in a study being conducted by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) as part of its Artificial Pancreas Project. The planned two-year study in patients with type 1 diabetes will leverage the unique rapid action of AFREZZA for use in a closed-loop blood sugar monitoring and insulin delivery system, termed the "artificial pancreas" by the JDRF. The study will be managed in conjunction with the Sansum Diabetes Research Institute and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
0 comments - Posted Aug 29, 2010
Novo Nordisk presented results demonstrating that once-daily Victoza® (liraglutide [rDNA] injection) achieved significantly greater improvements in blood sugar control compared to placebo among African-American patients with type 2 diabetes. The meta-analysis of phase 3 data from the Liraglutide Effect and Action in Diabetes (LEAD) trials were presented at the 2010 National Medical Association Annual Convention & Scientific Assembly.
0 comments - Posted Aug 5, 2010
We can all come up with plenty of excuses not to test our blood sugar. For one, yeah, it stings a little (No pain, no gain, the angel on my shoulder whispers in my ear). For another, testing isn't convenient, no matter how quickly the meter works or how small it is. While seemingly everyone else is carelessly enjoying a meal or leaping into the swimming pool, you are on the sidelines trying to ignore your diabetes. And of course, sometimes, we just do not want to know what the number will be. It's easier to ignore the ugly truth than face it.
0 comments - Posted Aug 3, 2010
July 2010
We are always investigating new ideas, research findings, treatment options, and educational materials to share with you. This issue is very exciting because we were able to talk with experts and those with diabetes, and write about everything from traveling with type 1 in Italy to investigating why hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia are so dangerous.
0 comments - Posted Jul 31, 2010
Now that it's summer, I'm enjoying a typical teacher's vacation: summer break. I have three months of freedom, which for many is a dream come true. However, I live in the sweltering Midwest, where it's typical to see mid-summer temperatures of one hundred degrees or more, with an even higher heat index. These oppressive temperatures can continue into late October.
0 comments - Posted Jul 31, 2010
Bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego and GlySens Incorporated have developed an implantable glucose sensor and wireless telemetry system that continuously monitors tissue glucose and transmits the information to an external receiver. The paper, published in the July 28, 2010 issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine, describes the use of this glucose-sensing device as an implant in animals for over one year. After human clinical trials and FDA approval, the device may be useful to people with diabetes as an alternative to finger sticking, and to short-term needle-like glucose sensors that have to be replaced every three to seven days.
0 comments - Posted Jul 31, 2010
A massive study involving 485 people with type 1 diabetes at 30 locations across North America shows that the combination of an insulin pump and a continuous glucose monitor helps patients achieve significantly lower A1c levels than multiple daily insulin injections.
0 comments - Posted Jul 13, 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
AFREZZA TM (insulin human [rDNA origin]) Inhalation Powder, a well-tolerated, investigational ultra rapid acting mealtime insulin, as part of a diabetes treatment regimen, provides long-term glucose control comparable to usual insulin therapy but with a significantly reduced incidence of hypoglycemia and less weight gain in patients with Type 2 diabetes, according to a two-year study presented at the American Diabetes Association's 70th Scientific Sessions.
0 comments - Posted Jul 6, 2010
Depomed, Inc. and Santarus, Inc. announced new data suggesting that patients previously intolerant of metformin may be able to tolerate higher doses of metformin when treated with GLUMETZA® (metformin HCl extended release tablets). The finding will be presented at the 70th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) in Orlando. GLUMETZA is a once-daily, extended release formulation of metformin, and is approved for use in adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus. It is promoted in the U.S. by Santarus.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2010
June 2010
A Sacramento Superior Court judge has ruled that only school nurses can give insulin shots to children in public schools who have diabetes. The decision by Judge Lloyd Connelly overturned a 2007 California State Department of Education decision that allowed trained school staff, as well as nurses, to administer such injections.
1 comment - Posted Jun 25, 2010
There are so many weight loss programs out there, sometimes it is hard just to keep track of them, let alone choose one that will work. Add in the factor of diabetes, and the path to weight loss becomes harder to navigate and often contains land mines that we never even knew existed.
0 comments - Posted Jun 15, 2010
Diabetic ketoacidosis poses enough of a threat on its own. But in a small number of cases, it leaves sufferers open to a potentially fatal infection called mucormycosis.
0 comments - Posted Jun 12, 2010
BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), a leading global medical technology company, announced today the launch of BD Ultra-FineTM Nano-the world's smallest pen needle. The BD Nano pen needle is proven to be as effective as longer needles for patients of all body types and proven to offer a less painful injection experience for the more than 5 million people in the United States who inject insulin or GLP-1 to manage their diabetes.[1]
0 comments - Posted Jun 10, 2010
It's early on a Thursday morning in a hotel ballroom in downtown Oakland, and attendees at a breakfast of the annual meeting of the California Dietetic Association are still working on getting fully awake. That problem is solved two minutes after Jay Hewitt, the breakfast's inspirational speaker, takes the stage. Hewitt, a 41-year-old lawyer who was diagnosed with type 1 in 1991, knows his audience is an experienced group of professional dietitians that has dealt with every type of patient and heard every kind of excuse for failure.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2010
May 2010
Investigate. Inform. Inspire. This statement is not only our commitment to you, the readers of Diabetes Health, but also a call to action. In our June/July print issue (available online June 1 under the Digital Edition tab), we've done some investigating. We tracked down educational agencies, websites, software, and applications, and we've listed them for you in our 2nd Educational Resource Guide.
0 comments - Posted May 31, 2010
People with diabetes who have limited health literacy are at higher risk for hypoglycemia or low blood sugar, according to a new study from researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, CA.
0 comments - Posted May 20, 2010
Tattoos aren't just an art form or a way of making a personal statement anymore: They are beginning to save lives.
1 comment - Posted May 20, 2010
A husband-and-wife research team at the UC Davis School of Medicine has been awarded a five-year, $3.3 million grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to lead the first prospective, nationwide, multi-site clinical study of how to prevent the neurological injuries and, in rare cases, death caused by brain swelling in children in diabetic crisis.
0 comments - Posted May 19, 2010
A new study released by the Children's Hospital of New Orleans has found that black children with type 1 diabetes scored higher on A1c tests than white children who had similar blood glucose levels. Such ethnic disparity has already been shown in previous studies with adults.
0 comments - Posted May 18, 2010
Over 80 years ago, famed diabetologist Elliot Joslin said about the treatment of patients with type 1 diabetes: "Ketoacidosis may kill a patient, but frequent hypoglycemic reactions will ruin him." Unfortunately, hypoglycemia continues to be the most difficult problem facing most patients, families, and caregivers who deal with the management of type 1 diabetes on a daily basis. Frequent hypoglycemia episodes not only can "ruin," or adversely impact the quality of life for patients, but also, when severe, can cause seizures, coma, and even death.
10 comments - Posted May 13, 2010
I woke up on the floor of my living room, soaked in sweat. I could not stand, or even sit up. I could not raise my arms or control my hands enough to grasp anything. Forget reaching for the telephone, even if my brain could have formulated the thought to try. I could not speak, but I lived alone, so there was no one to hear anyway. I did not know what day it was, but the hot July 4th late afternoon sun was shining brightly through the windows. After an unknown period of time, my brain must have had a flash of coherence that I was having severe hypoglycemia.
8 comments - Posted May 8, 2010
A new study to be published in the June issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM) says that a single night of too little sleep can induce insulin resistance.
2 comments - Posted May 6, 2010
April 2010
NEW YORK, April 27, 2010 - The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation announced today that it is partnering with Living Cell Technologies (LCT), a New Zealand-based biotechnology company focused on developing cell based therapeutics, in a Phase II clinical trial to study the safety and effectiveness of transplanting encapsulated insulin-producing cells from pigs as a treatment for type 1 diabetes with significant hypoglycemia unawareness.
1 comment - Posted Apr 28, 2010
The first human trials of the latest design of an artificial pancreas for people with type 1 diabetes found the device worked without causing low blood sugar (hypoglycemia).
8 comments - Posted Apr 18, 2010
March 2010
Dr. Stan De Loach is a bicultural, trilingual, Certified Diabetes Educator (one of the first 13 in Mexico) and clinical psychologist, not to mention a pianist, composer, and writer. Born and educated in the U.S., he has been a resident of Mexico for decades, and his first love is the annual bilingual diabetes camp that he co-founded, the four-day Campamento Diabetes Safari in Mexico..
3 comments - Posted Mar 30, 2010
MINNEAPOLIS - March 17, 2010 - Medtronic, Inc. today announced it has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the MiniMed Paradigm® REAL-Time RevelTM System, the next generation of the industry's only integrated diabetes management system (insulin pump therapy, continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) and diabetes therapy management software). The system incorporates new innovative CGM features including predictive alerts that can give early warning to people with diabetes so they can take action to prevent dangerous high or low glucose events.
3 comments - Posted Mar 22, 2010
February 2010
Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk has received Food and Drug Administration permission to begin marketing its type 2 drug Victoza® in the United States.
Victoza, the brand name for liraglutide, is a GLP-1* analog that is taken one a day by injection to help control blood sugar-and in some cases, help with weight loss-in patients with type 2 diabetes.
5 comments - Posted Feb 27, 2010
Results of a 22-year study by researchers at Cardiff University School of Medicine in Wales indicate that older type 2s who try too hard to drive their A1c's down to "normal" (4.5% to 6%) may significantly increase their chances of early death. In fact, the study, just published in the British medical journal The Lancet*, found that type 2s with the lowest risk of death had A1c's of 7.5% -- a figure that few authorities on the disease have recommended as ideal.
15 comments - Posted Feb 11, 2010
Dear Diabetes Health, I'm 26 years old and engaged to a woman I've known since college. We live together, love each other, and have good sex, but now I'm having doubts. A year ago, she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. She started taking insulin, and it has been rough. Four times now she has started sweating and shaking and saying strange things. Twice this happened during sex.
11 comments - Posted Feb 3, 2010
January 2010
Novo Nordisk announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the new drug application for Victoza (liraglutide injection), the first once-daily human glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analog for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Victoza is indicated as an adjunct to diet and exercise to improve blood sugar control in adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus.
4 comments - Posted Jan 28, 2010
NEW YORK, January 13, 2010 - The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation today announced an innovative partnership with Animas Corporation to develop an automated system to help people with type 1 diabetes better control their disease - the first step on the path to what would be among the most revolutionary advancements in treating type 1 diabetes: the development of an artificial pancreas, a fully automated system to dispense insulin to patients based on real-time changes in blood sugar levels.
9 comments - Posted Jan 15, 2010
"You have diabetes." Have you just heard these words? Or maybe you recently heard it about your son or daughter. The oxygen rushes out of your body. A knot forms in your stomach. "What now?"
11 comments - Posted Jan 4, 2010
December 2009
Good injection practices - such as proper injection technique, site rotation, and appropriate needle use - are as important to your glucose control as your type and dosage of insulin (1). But over time, you may have developed your own injection technique, which may not exactly accord with professional guidelines and standards. For instance, you might reuse your needles. It's a very common practice, despite the fact that guidelines issued by regulatory agencies call for all insulin injection needles to be labeled single-use only. However, changes to injection technique can alter insulin absorption and may lead to problems down the road. So maybe it's time for a refresher in the official line on appropriate insulin injection practices - injection technique, site rotation, and proper needle use (2).
7 comments - Posted Dec 18, 2009
If you have diabetes and are wondering whether you're prepared for a unexpected disaster, then head for the website of the American Association for Diabetes Educators. There you'll find a Diabetes Disaster Response Toolkit that contains an abundance of information on nearly every aspect of getting prepared and helping your local diabetes community do the same. The toolkit, which was put together by the Alamo Association of Diabetes Educators in Texas, will help any educator or member of the public get ready to handle diabetes during a flood, earthquake, or any other natural or human-made disaster.
3 comments - Posted Dec 10, 2009
November 2009
PRINCETON, N.J., Nov. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Nearly one-third of doctors surveyed said they did not have enough time and did not receive sufficient reimbursement to provide comprehensive care to their patients with diabetes, according to the results of a study of endocrinologists and primary care doctors published in American Health & Drug Benefits.
4 comments - Posted Nov 20, 2009
The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) and the College of Endocrinology (ACE) released online a one-page resource for physicians and healthcare providers for the management of glycemic control in type 2 diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Nov 7, 2009
October 2009
A law signed by New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine that allows teachers to give emergency glucagon shots to students with diabetes has parents elated but has drawn strong opposition from teachers and nurses. The law also allows students with diabetes to test their own blood glucose levels and use insulin pumps while they are in the classroom, two activities that were not previously allowed.
15 comments - Posted Oct 12, 2009
The enthusiasm for inhaled insulin has waned, to say the least, since Exubera was pulled off the market by Pfizer. Following the Exubera debacle, the development of two other inhaled insulins (AIR by Eli Lilly and Alkermes, and AERx by Novo Nordisk) was halted as well.
14 comments - Posted Oct 5, 2009
Dear Aisha and David - I am a 22-year-old woman with type 1, on a pump. I've only had one real boyfriend, and we broke up two months ago. He said that my diabetes didn't have anything to do with it, but I'm not sure. I think that the lows scared him. Sex with him was good, but I don't have much to compare it with.
7 comments - Posted Oct 2, 2009
In August, I had the pleasure of traveling to Atlanta, Georgia to attend the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) annual meeting. I sat in on several seminars, the most interesting of which are summarized here.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2009
In our June/July 2009 issue, we published a letter from reader Sheila Payne, who wrote that we had been far too positive about continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) in our June/July article Get the Facts on Continuous Glucose Monitoring. Her letter provoked a stack of letters from people who believe that the benefits of CGM substantially outweigh its negatives. To let you in on the debate, we are reprinting Ms. Payne's thought-provoking letter here, followed by two equally thoughtful responses from readers.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2009
September 2009
For a while now, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) has been conducting clinical trials on the effectiveness of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) for people with type 1 diabetes. Last year, they issued their first two reports on their findings, showing that CGMs can improve control even for people who already have A1c's below 7%. That information has already had a powerful impact: It's convinced a number of large health insurers (including Aetna, Cigna, Kaiser Permanente, United Healthcare, and Wellpoint) to cover CGMs for type 1s, and it's led to the inclusion of CGMs in national standards of care for type 1 diabetes.
6 comments - Posted Sep 17, 2009
August 2009
In our last issue, we published a letter from reader Sheila Payne, who wrote that we had been far too positive about continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) in our June/July article Get the Facts on Continuous Glucose Monitoring. But her opinion provoked a stack of letters from people who believe that the benefits of CGM substantially outweigh its negatives. To let you in on the debate, we are reprinting Ms. Payne's thought-provoking letter here, followed by two equally thoughtful responses from readers.
12 comments - Posted Aug 28, 2009
Only a handful of studies have examined the relationship of a woman's menstrual cycle to her blood glucose control, but they have one finding in common: menstruation's effect on blood glucose is as varied as each individual's disease. As a result, blood glucose testing remains the only way to know how a woman's monthly cycle affects her diabetes control.
9 comments - Posted Aug 15, 2009
Last May, 24-year-old Charlie Kimball was in Car #35, taking Turn 3 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the Firestone Freedom 100. He was in radio contact with his pit crew, who informed him that he had a headwind coming out of the turn and onto the 5/8 mile "straight." Charlie kept an eye on the car next to him, moving closer and beginning to crowd it on the inside. Having raced professionally for six years, he knew that he had to make a move, and soon. He shifted into sixth gear and accelerated.
2 comments - Posted Aug 8, 2009
July 2009
A man who has been married for 15 years suddenly begins losing weight and buying new clothes. He starts staying late at work and taking weekend business trips, unusual behaviors for him. His wife thinks he is having an affair. Why?
0 comments - Posted Jul 22, 2009
Could the medical community be overlooking 2.5 million people who have diabetes? Currently, 23.6 million children and adults in the United States, or 7.8 percent of the population, have diabetes. Although an estimated 17.9 million of them have been diagnosed, 5.7 million (nearly one quarter) are unaware that they have the disease. If lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people comprise 10 percent of the U.S. population, then 10 percent of people with diabetes are part of the LGBT community-about 2.5 million people.*
3 comments - Posted Jul 22, 2009
Minneapolis-based Medtronic Inc. is recalling some lots of its Quick-set infusion sets over concerns that they may cause insulin pumps to deliver too much or too little insulin.
1 comment - Posted Jul 21, 2009
June 2009
Every time I return from the American Diabetes Association (ADA) Scientific Sessions conference, my head is so full of information that I need a week or two to sort through it. But now I've had a chance to choose what I think are the top five things that you need to know. Here they are...
0 comments - Posted Jun 30, 2009
Until now, care for insulin-dependent diabetes has focused on the delivery of insulin combined with frequent blood glucose (BG) testing. Keeping your A1c down is, and always will be, the name of the game. But numerous studies have shown us in the last few years that having access to continuous glucose data has a huge impact. How you deliver the insulin doesn't necessarily matter-you can use a pump, a syringe, or an insulin pen, it's knowing your personal BG trends that makes all the difference.
11 comments - Posted Jun 29, 2009
Rachel and her husband adopted a beautiful baby girl in November of 2008. Their daughter is now seven months old. You can read Rachel's article about diabetes and adoption here.
5 comments - Posted Jun 26, 2009
One of the fondest hopes of people with type 1 diabetes has long been for the creation of an artificial pancreas, a reliable combination of automated glucose monitoring and insulin delivery that could serve in place of a defunct pancreas.
16 comments - Posted Jun 24, 2009
With Type 2 diabetes emerging as an epidemic, primary care clinicians need to become savvy at initiating and adjusting insulin. Given the nationwide shortage of endocrinologists, referring all patients on insulin for endocrine appointments is not realistic in most areas of the country.
0 comments - Posted Jun 24, 2009
I hear voices in my surroundings as the cloud of confusion gradually begins to lift. "Curtis, can you hear me?" "Curtis, what was the score of the football game?" "Curtis, do you know where you are?"
6 comments - Posted Jun 18, 2009
Gale Fullerton is a 65-year-old Californian who has the distinction of being a Joslin 50-Year medal winner. Elliott P. Joslin, M.D., knew that good self-management was the key to minimizing long-term diabetes complications, and the medal program was designed as an incentive for those committed to good diabetes care. In 1970, Joslin Diabetes Center expanded the program and began awarding a 50-year bronze medal. They presented the first 75-year medal in 1996.
24 comments - Posted Jun 16, 2009
April 2009
Although researchers reporting the phenomenon can't quite put their fingers on how it works, a newly released study says that severe hypoglycemic episodes requiring hospitalization among older people with type 2 diabetes create a greater risk - 32 percent - for developing dementia.
1 comment - Posted Apr 29, 2009
Well, this is a surprise. The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) of 2003 contains a little known section, Section 1013, that has actually led to something really useful: Up-to-date information about diabetes culled from real research and presented in language that we all can understand. Section 1013 authorizes the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to compare the effectiveness of different approaches to difficult health problems and to make that information accessible and understandable to "decisionmakers": that is, you, me, and our doctors. And diabetes is one of the difficult health problems to which the AHRQ is directing its attention.
2 comments - Posted Apr 21, 2009
The need to investigate and determine normoglycemia in Mexican children under the age of six begins with a lack of relevant published data. Another motive for reviewing the currently recommended glycemic goals for children and adolescents with type 1 stems from the well-known observation that children and adolescents who do not have type 1 do not develop microvascular diabetic complications. Today, thanks to insulin analogs and basal/bolus therapy regimens, children with type 1 have the option of achieving true euglycemia and of potentially benefiting from its advantages.
14 comments - Posted Apr 17, 2009
There is an old schoolyard chant that starts out with an image of two people "sitting in a tree" and "K-I-S-S-I-N-G." This is followed by, "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage." The natural progression of life is to find one's "soul mate," tie the knot, and then have children.
37 comments - Posted Apr 17, 2009
March 2009
The American Diabetes Association (ADA) and American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) released a statement last week in response to the study published online in the New England Journal of Medicine which suggested that intensive blood glucose control for critical care patients with hyperglycemia doesn't improve outcomes and is associated with an increase in deaths.
1 comment - Posted Mar 31, 2009
I hear voices in my surroundings as the cloud of confusion gradually begins to lift. "Curtis, can you hear me?" "Curtis, what was the score of the football game?" "Curtis, do you know where you are?"
5 comments - Posted Mar 27, 2009
The first time Chris Matthews heard the words "high blood sugar" was in 2002 at a doctor's office in Washington, DC, where he was being treated for malaria after a trip to Zimbabwe. He didn't pay a lot of attention to the warning about his glucose levels after a blood test. The malaria was subsequently cured, and he continued at his usual rapid-fire pace, traveling the country giving speeches about his best-selling books ("Life is a Campaign" is his latest; "Hardball" is his best known) and his work both inside the White House, where he was a speechwriter for President Carter, and outside, where he was administrative assistant to House Speaker Tip O'Neill on Capitol Hill. Then there's his work on television, where he is host of Hardball on MSNBC and the Chris Matthew Show, which airs on Sundays just before Meet the Press on NBC. He stayed busy, and his schedule remained overbooked. He let the warning about high blood sugar go into the background-so far back it was out of sight and definitely out of mind. Besides, there just wasn't any room in his life to deal with it.
10 comments - Posted Mar 26, 2009
Physicians who treat people with type 2 diabetes face difficult choices when selecting the best medical therapy for each patient. The decision process is further complicated by the fact that because type 2 diabetes is a progressive disease, therapeutic agents that were initially successful may fail five or ten years later.
162 comments - Posted Mar 20, 2009
February 2009
I admit it: I've had diabetes for seven years, and only recently did I even think about buying a medical alert ID. It's not like me to be this irresponsible, but diabetes crept up on me, rather like type 2 does, although I'm a type 1. My diabetes is a slowly progressing adult-onset form, sometimes called type 1.5. For the first five years after my diagnosis, I controlled the disease with diet.
12 comments - Posted Feb 24, 2009
January 2009
The treatment of diabetes has come a long way since Dr. Elliot Joslin wrote The Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus in 1916. But Dr. Joslin's idea that diet, exercise, and insulin (when it became available as therapy in 1922) are the keys to managing diabetes remains true today. This doesn't mean that diabetes is not a complex illness requiring ongoing education and individualized care. People with diabetes benefit greatly from the services of a team of health care professionals including a certified diabetes educator and an endocrinologist--a doctor who specializes in treating disorders of the endocrine system.
7 comments - Posted Jan 21, 2009
One of 2008's most interesting developments was the change in one long-standing recommendation for treating diabetes in people who have had the disease for a long time: Work intensely on getting blood sugar levels as low as possible.
11 comments - Posted Jan 15, 2009
As the 76-million-member Baby Boomer generation ages-its oldest members are now 63-nursing homes are bracing for an unprecedented demand for their services. Along with increased pressure from the sheer number of patients, nursing homes will also have to deal with the skyrocketing number of seniors with type 2 diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Jan 15, 2009
December 2008
Every type 1 fears having a hypoglycemic event. Because people are usually more accustomed to dealing with highs, however, a sudden low often catches them unaware. Use this fictional yet typical story to find out what might happen medically during a low and what you need to know to keep hypoglycemia in check.
10 comments - Posted Dec 29, 2008
Every year the American Diabetes Associations revises and updates its Clinical Practice Recommendations, a publication upon which many doctors and medical caregivers depend as a primary source of diabetes treatment information.
12 comments - Posted Dec 29, 2008
A study of the effectiveness of the drug terbutaline on controlling nighttime hypoglycemia in people with type 1 diabetes indicates that it may be a safe and useful treatment with no ill effects.
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
Take this test on insulin and see if you can get a higher score than hospital doctors and nurses.
19 comments - Posted Dec 17, 2008
Diabetes Health magazine recently had the pleasure of interviewing Doug Burns for a lengthy feature. He is a well-spoken and forthcoming man with a good sense of humor and an easy-going manner. Altogether, he comes across as a very nice person. On Sunday, however, Doug Burns was severely beaten by police during an episode of low blood sugar that occurred at a movie theater in Redwood City, California.
60 comments - Posted Dec 17, 2008
It has been rags to riches for singer Elliott Yamin. With his naturally soulful singing voice, listeners feel his raw emotion and they like it. When you hear him, you know immediately that few guys in any musical genre sing with this kind of authenticity.
29 comments - Posted Dec 17, 2008
The first time I presented medical research findings, I was not yet a physician. The year was about 1975. I was in my early forties and a mid-career engineer. The forum was a scientific symposium on diabetes. At the time, I felt that I had discovered the holy grail of diabetes care and was eager to share what I had learned.
22 comments - Posted Dec 8, 2008
More than 60 percent of adults with type 1 diabetes are not physically active, according to a study in the November 2008 issue of Diabetes Care. Their reason is fear that exercise will bring on hypoglycemia, leading to such severe consequences as loss of consciousness or even death.
2 comments - Posted Dec 8, 2008
My daughter Lauren was five days shy of her twelfth birthday when she was diagnosed with type 1. We were blessed with a child who could and did take the lead in her recovery and care. She never had any "teen diabetic rebellion" and never adopted a "why me?" mentality. Her health has been great, and her last A1c was 6.7%. With all the hormonal changes that can affect a teenage girl's body and thus change her insulin requirements, Lauren has always stayed on top of her care and never lost her fantastic personality.
24 comments - Posted Dec 2, 2008
Last week we published an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Sheri Colberg's revised, updated, and expanded version of her 2001 book, Diabetic Athlete's Handbook: Your Guide to Peak Performance. Dr. Colberg has a PhD in exercise physiology, is a Diabetes Health board member, and is herself an athlete with diabetes. Her book draws upon the experiences of hundreds of athletes with diabetes to provide the best advice for exercisers with diabetes, either type 1 or type 2.
0 comments - Posted Dec 2, 2008
November 2008
Diabetes Health board member Sheri Colberg, PhD, has published a completely revised, updated, and expanded version of her 2001 book, Diabetic Athlete's Handbook: Your Guide to Peak Performance. Dr. Colberg, a diabetic athlete herself, has a PhD in exercise physiology. Her book draws upon the experiences of hundreds of athletes with diabetes to provide the best advice for exercisers with diabetes, either type 1 or type 2.
2 comments - Posted Nov 24, 2008
Diabetes care creates its own culture. There is a passion that surrounds the caretakers of the diabetes community. It is the small successes that spark us to keep on until the next one. Diabetes care creates champions out of all of us. I'd like to mention just a few of the hundreds of diabetes educators I have met.
9 comments - Posted Nov 10, 2008
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that Tyco Healthcare Group LP (Covidien) is recalling one lot of ReliOn sterile, single-use, disposable, hypodermic syringes with permanently affixed hypodermic needles due to possible mislabeling. The use of these syringes may lead to patients receiving an overdose of as much as 2.5 times the intended dose, which may lead to hypoglycemia, serious health consequences, and even death.
0 comments - Posted Nov 10, 2008
A study published in the August 25 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reports that people with type 1 diabetes "may not judge correctly when their blood sugar levels are too low and may consider driving with a low BG." In the study, "low" was defined as less than 70 mg/dl.
15 comments - Posted Nov 10, 2008
The FDA has approved the fast-acting insulin Apidra (insulin glulisine) for use in children four years and older who have type 1 diabetes.
1 comment - Posted Nov 3, 2008
Even as diabetes researchers worldwide strive for total control over-or even an outright cure of-type 1 diabetes via gene therapy, altered cells, or surgical intervention, other researchers continue to press toward creation of a functional "artificial pancreas."
1 comment - Posted Nov 3, 2008
October 2008
I read with interest the article by Cynthia Heinz in which she spoke to her local school board, describing a worst case scenario for a child with severe hypoglycemia. As a veteran parent with 15 years of dealing with diabetes in our local public school, I have a few things to add to the discussion.
9 comments - Posted Oct 27, 2008
Novo Nordisk recently announced results from its LEAD 6 study showing that once daily liraglutide was significantly more effective at improving blood glucose control (as measured by A1c) than exenatide, a GLP-1 mimetic administered twice daily.
4 comments - Posted Oct 27, 2008
The diagnosis of type 1 diabetes peaks at 13 to 14 years of age, but at any age it immediately requires children and adolescents to learn many complex facets of glycemic self-management. Dr. Elliot Joslin's belief of 85 years ago, that education is not just part of the treatment of diabetes, but rather the treatment itself, still holds true.
1 comment - Posted Oct 6, 2008
September 2008
An article published in Diabetologia this month challenges the accepted glucose cut-off values that define hypoglycemia because they have a major effect on reported frequencies of hypoglycemia.
11 comments - Posted Sep 29, 2008
These days, Doug Burns is a modern Sampson. The reigning Mr. Universe, he’s two hundred pounds of sheer muscle and the picture of good health. Of the skinny little boy with type 1 who used to work out in the woods alone, all that remains are a wry sense of humor and an attractively self-deprecating manner. They’re unexpected in a man who’s triumphed in the uber-masculine world of bodybuilding, but there’s a lot that’s unexpected about Doug Burns.
31 comments - Posted Sep 22, 2008
A Canadian clinical study has delivered a double dose of good news for proponents of exenatide (sold commercially as Byetta), a drug used by more than 700,000 Americans to control blood glucose, ease food cravings, and, incidentally, lose weight.
3 comments - Posted Sep 11, 2008
This is a worst case scenario.
This is the untrained trying to do the unknown.
This is 20 minutes of hell.
11 comments - Posted Sep 4, 2008
When Gina Capone, a thirty-something type 1 for eight years, got married this year, she and her husband decided it was time to start thinking about having a baby. Like all women with diabetes who are planning a pregnancy, Gina needs her A1c to be as low as possible in order to prevent complications for her and her baby. This strict control can be very challenging and time-consuming, requiring up to 20 blood sugar tests a day.
3 comments - Posted Sep 4, 2008
August 2008
My husband and I have nine children. Elliott is our oldest and when he was diagnosed with type 1 at age 11 in 1996, we were blindsided. Neither my husband, nor I, nor anyone in our extended family had diabetes. Elliot had all of the classic symptoms: excessive thirst, frequent urination, uncontrollable hunger, occasional blurry vision, and (something I think a lot of parents don't recognize as a sign) bedwetting.
11 comments - Posted Aug 28, 2008
I was forty-five years old when I found out that I had type 2 diabetes. I don't know why I was shocked. Diabetes ran like a river through my family. My father had type 1. He died at the age of forty-one from a heart attack, but my mother always insisted that it was partly because he didn't "manage" his diabetes well.
2 comments - Posted Aug 20, 2008
July 2008
In a report published in the December 23, 2000, issue of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), researchers at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom write that hypoglycemia is one of the complications of diabetes most feared by patients. They point out, "Intensive research has been devoted to the development of hypoglycemia alarms."
13 comments - Posted Jul 31, 2008
A new Spanish language consumer guide to type 2 diabetes, called “Pastillas para la diabetes tipo 2,” has been released by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The guide provides information on how to control type 2 and includes comparisons of oral medications. AHRQ data show that nearly one in eight Hispanics takes a prescription drug for diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jul 25, 2008
The non-profit Institute for Safe Medication Practices says there has been an increase in reports about mix-ups between prescriptions of insulin U-100 and insulin U-500 (U-500 is a concentrated insulin that is five times stronger than U-100).
0 comments - Posted Jul 3, 2008
VALLEY STREAM, NY: July 2, 2008 -- On Tuesday, July 1 online community Diabetes Talkfest sponsored the first CGMS Denial Day online rally highlighting the excessively high rate of denials issued by insurance companies for continuous glucose monitors. CGMS have been proven to help people with diabetes control their blood sugar levels, and quality of life. The event was held in association with social network site Tudiabetes.com.
5 comments - Posted Jul 3, 2008
May 2008
With annual worldwide sales topping 1.3 billion dollars, insulin pumps are one of the most popular devices in the treatment of diabetes. Not only do they allow people with type 1 diabetes to more easily manage their blood glucose levels, but they also help users regain their freedom and enjoy a more normal life.
14 comments - Posted May 30, 2008
HealthDay reports that according to a University of Miami study, people with type 1 diabetes who received transplanted islet cells from human donors lived insulin-free for up to two years.
1 comment - Posted May 30, 2008
Dear Editor, I am a medical student in the M.D. program at Oregon Health and Sciences University and a type 1 diabetic of almost 10 years. I use a Medtronic pump and I also use their continuous glucose monitoring system (Paradigm Real-Time).
34 comments - Posted May 22, 2008
"Insulin Quiz: Are You Smarter Than a Doctor" (April-May '08, pp 12-15) was an excellent article, if perhaps a little frightening. I couldn't help but wonder how well the parents of diabetic children would do on the quiz, and where they might have learned their lessons.
6 comments - Posted May 8, 2008
A word of caution about the values used below. This study was conducted using people without diabetes. Some people with diabetes experience symptoms at higher glucose levels than the study suggests. Other people with diabetes appear to function well with blood sugars in the 30's and 40's (mg/dl). Therefore, the values in the study should only be used as an approximation. This study also used plasma glucose levels. Your values done at home might be 20 percent lower or higher than these lab values. For example, epinephrine release in someone without diabetes would begin at about 63mg/dl with a home blood glucose meter.
43 comments - Posted May 1, 2008
April 2008
Does anyone living in our well-nourished country, eating a reasonable diet, really need to take vitamins, minerals, or herbs? Should a person with diabetes take them? If so, which ones and how much? When it comes to supplements, the answers are often unclear.
20 comments - Posted Apr 23, 2008
Tim’s Parker’s 15 minutes of fame – at least in the diabetes community – began in March when he learned that he had been the purchaser of Medtronic’s one millionth continuous glucose monitoring sensor.
1 comment - Posted Apr 16, 2008
Years from now, when we’re looking for significant milestones in the struggle to get insurers to cover the cost of continuous glucose monitors, keep this one in mind: Medtronic has just announced the sale of its one millionth sensor from its line of CGM products.
7 comments - Posted Apr 10, 2008
In November 2005, with an A1c of 7.5%, I was told that I had type 2 diabetes. It shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise to me because my mother has type 2 and her mother died from complications due to her uncontrolled diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Apr 2, 2008
When Dee Brehm was diagnosed in 1949 with type 1 diabetes, her prospects were not bright: a permanent chronic condition, a reduced life span, potentially devastating complications and perhaps no children. She married Bill Brehm in 1952, and they began a partnership knowing that together they would have to manage her disease. Dee subsequently defied the dim outlook for her life: She has two children and six grandchildren, and she has surpassed the half-century mark with this disease having been spared the ordeal of complications.
23 comments - Posted Apr 2, 2008
March 2008
What is “surprising” about the partial halting of the ACCORD study (“Diabetes Study Partially Halted After Deaths,” Feb. 7, 2008) is that the researchers were so surprised by completely predictable results.
13 comments - Posted Mar 27, 2008
Perhaps more than anyone, people with diabetes know that the motto “Just say no” often doesn’t work.
28 comments - Posted Mar 13, 2008
Blood sugar control is the heart and soul of diabetes management. How you handle it determines what will be the consequences of your diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Mar 13, 2008
NEW YORK – Growing evidence shows that surgery may effectively cure type 2 diabetes – an approach that not only may change the way the disease is treated, but that introduces a new way of thinking about diabetes.
18 comments - Posted Mar 13, 2008
Janel Johnson also works for Can-Am Care, and is the product manager for their line of glucose products (Dex 4) designed to treat hypoglycemia. She talks with Scott King about the new ways to get the glucose we need when we are having episodes of low blood sugar. Products include tablets, gels, and liquids.
0 comments - Posted Mar 5, 2008
One of the cartoons you recently published, where a character eats chocolate because his sugar is too low, gave the wrong message. Chocolate should not be used for treating hypoglycemia. There is too much fat in it for it to be effective.
10 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2008
February 2008
The Food and Drug Administration has approved the newest continuous glucose monitoring system from diabetes management device manufacturer Medtronic.
0 comments - Posted Feb 15, 2008
To successfully treat diabetes, you must take charge of your own diabetes management. You need to know your medications, and you need to know your pharmacist. But that kind of intimate knowledge has become a lot more complex in the past decade.
3 comments - Posted Feb 12, 2008
Pioneering low-carb diet advocate Dr. Richard K. Bernstein has responded to the American Diabetes Association's recent support for low-carb diets with a critique of several of the ADA's most cherished notions.
30 comments - Posted Feb 8, 2008
I have been using insulin for over 29 years, and during this time I have experienced too many lows to recall. My endocrinologist informed me that insulin users who have an A1c less than 7 percent typically require emergency assistance for hypoglycemia about every six to nine months.
26 comments - Posted Feb 7, 2008
I don't know if you watched this show that aired the week of January 20 here in Rochester, N.Y., on WXXI Public TV. The program included a short segment where a 12-year-old type 1 diabetic relied upon a medical dog to avoid seizures. It was very incomplete and misleading.
5 comments - Posted Feb 2, 2008
January 2008
I just had a frightening experience. A severe hypoglycemic, I took my regular 5 units of R Humulin 30 minutes before lunch. Instead of my normal sandwich and milk at lunch, I drank a glass of Slim Fast with milk. I carefully read the label and figured out that it was almost identical to the sandwich in calories, carbs and sugars.
11 comments - Posted Jan 30, 2008
The National Athletic Trainers Association has issued a seven-element plan for helping athletes with type 1 diabetes maintain proper blood sugar levels while competing, training or traveling.
2 comments - Posted Jan 10, 2008
Because scientists often tend to dismiss what they don't fully understand, many of them used to think that C-peptide had no physiological function. But while it's true that C-peptide does nothing to lower blood sugar, recent research is finding that it might have a role in preventing diabetes complications.
19 comments - Posted Jan 3, 2008
INDIANAPOLIS, July 21 - Eli Lilly and company today announced that it has begun limited testing in healthy human volunteers of biosynthetic human insulin produced by recombinant DNA technology. The company also announced that it has started construction of the world’s first manufacturing facilities—at a cost of $40 million—to employ recombinant DNA technology to produce the biosynthetic human insulin.
1 comment - Posted Jan 1, 2008
December 2007
In a recent randomized study, 69 people with type 2 diabetes who were already taking metformin were given either Byetta or Lantus for a full year. When the results were in, Byetta came out ahead on several fronts.
10 comments - Posted Dec 11, 2007
I have lived with type 2 diabetes for thirteen years, and I know very well how to take care of myself. In fact, I have it down to a routine. The flaw of a routine activity, however, is that it is so very routine: you go through the motions without thinking. And that, as I learned to my deep chagrin, can be dangerous.
42 comments - Posted Dec 6, 2007
In an Italian study to compare once-daily injections of insulin glargine (Lantus) with once-daily injections of insulin detemir (Levemir), 24 patients with type 1 diabetes were treated for two weeks with either one or the other in a randomized double-blind study.
14 comments - Posted Dec 4, 2007
November 2007
You can make any insulin last longer by injecting a large enough shot. (See Scott King's column, "Why Smaller Shots of Insulin Get Absorbed Faster, Peak Sooner, and Are Out of Your System Quicker", for the math on this.) In fact, about 25 years ago, Dr. John Galloway of Eli Lilly and Company performed an important experiment that demonstrated this very fact.
7 comments - Posted Nov 30, 2007
Many medications, both oral and injectable, exist to manage blood glucose in type 2 diabetes. Even insulin has many different formulations, including fast-acting and long-acting analogs as well as various pre-mixed combinations of faster and slower acting insulins in the same vial.
9 comments - Posted Nov 27, 2007
Novo Nordisk's Levemir, which came out about five years after sanofi-aventis's Lantus, constitutes about twenty percent of the long-acting basal insulin sold worldwide. Lantus, the only other long-acting insulin analogue, makes up the other eighty percent.
3 comments - Posted Nov 27, 2007
In the early 1980s, human insulin produced by recombinant DNA technology came onto the market. It was the first time that this technology had been used in medicine, so hopes were high.
8 comments - Posted Nov 23, 2007
It was hailed as a "miracle cure," restoring life to the "erstwhile dead" and delivering not just health, but "salvation." Discovered in 1922, insulin did not live up to the initial euphoria - it didn't cure anything - but the life-saving elixir still stands as one of the greatest breakthroughs in medical history.
7 comments - Posted Nov 20, 2007
It's well known that dogs can somehow sniff low blood sugars. Many people credit their dogs with waking them up when they were dangerously low. How the dogs do it has been a mystery, but now there's evidence that they may be sniffing methyl nitrates on their owners' breath.
1 comment - Posted Nov 18, 2007
A recent study has found that the combination of metformin and sitagliptin lowers A1c's better than either drug alone, apparently because their different mechanisms work together synergistically.
0 comments - Posted Nov 12, 2007
October 2007
According to Pulse, the UK's leading medical weekly, a review of the evidence has concluded that for type 2s on oral medication whose A1c's are below 7.5%, blood glucose monitoring offers "little advantage and may increase the likelihood of hypoglycemia."
7 comments - Posted Oct 2, 2007
September 2007
It will soon be November, and National Diabetes Month will be here once again. It's a time when I like to reflect upon my past with diabetes and try to look into the future.
0 comments - Posted Sep 20, 2007
As a scientist who has type 1 diabetes, Dr. Kowalski knows that the cure may be a long time coming. But he's optimistic, nevertheless, because he believes that technology will revolutionize diabetes management long before the cure raises its shy little head.
1 comment - Posted Sep 18, 2007
Life in the trenches with type 1 diabetes is challenging. Unpredictable blood sugars can leave a person with diabetes (PWD) feeling frustrated and helpless. The acute toxic effects of abnormal blood sugars also contribute to depression, anxiety, irritability, and food cravings.
4 comments - Posted Sep 9, 2007
August 2007
A meta-analysis of 29 studies, none longer than six months, has shown that incretin therapies (like Byetta and Januvia) are moderately effective in lowering blood glucose in people with type 2 diabetes, especially after meals.
0 comments - Posted Aug 16, 2007
That old standby, metformin, is still your best bet. In fact, there is no benefit in taking the newer oral medications unless you can't tolerate the older ones.
0 comments - Posted Aug 8, 2007
July 2007
Here's one more small fact to add to the mountain of reasons not to smoke: A recent study indicates that if you are a smoker with type 1 diabetes, your odds of severe hypoglycemia (involving loss of consciousness or overnight hospitalization) are 2.6 times greater than those of someone with type 1 who's never smoked.
2 comments - Posted Jul 30, 2007
This issue, we lay out the many devices with which diabetic people must poke themselves: syringes, pen needles, and lancing devices. And we top them off with a sprinkling of sugar: a chart outlining all the sources of fast-acting glucose.
0 comments - Posted Jul 26, 2007
If your Paradigm pump has been not been exposed to powerful magnetic fields, such as those found near MRI machines, you have nothing to worry about. Go about your merry way and keep up the good work. In the unlikely event that such exposure has occurred, however, you need to be aware that it may cause the pump's motor to malfunction and significantly over-deliver insulin, causing severe hypoglycemia.
2 comments - Posted Jul 20, 2007
Lantus and Levemir have a lot in common. Both are basal insulin formulas, which means that they last for a long time in the body and act as background insulin, with a slow feed that mimics the constant low output of insulin produced by a healthy pancreas.
103 comments - Posted Jul 17, 2007
June 2007
In a recent Dutch study, researchers gave either a placebo or a daily dose of 400 micrograms of chromium in the form of chromium yeast to 57 obese, insulin-requiring type 2 patients with A1c’s above eight percent.
0 comments - Posted Jun 25, 2007
May 2007
On May 30, 2007, prosecutors dropped the assault charges against Doug Burns, the champion bodybuilder whom we profiled extensively last month. The decision to dismiss the case and not go to trial was based upon evidence from an endocrinologist that Doug was in diabetic shock at the time of the incident and therefore had a viable defense of unconsciousness.
0 comments - Posted May 31, 2007
Because of recent changes in airline regulations concerning the transportation of medication, diabetics have more to lose than just their lotion or soda. Now more than ever, it is important to know how to notify security and flight personnel of your medical needs, what documentation to bring, and where to find supplies if yours are damaged.
0 comments - Posted May 21, 2007
Aggressive management of diabetes can lead to more episodes of severe low blood sugar, but a new study has found that these episodes apparently don’t impair cognitive (thinking) function.
0 comments - Posted May 18, 2007
Forty Years Old and Leaking Like a Sieve - When I turned forty, my body began to break down like an old used car.
0 comments - Posted May 18, 2007
Doug Burns, reigning Mr. Universe, was recently involved in an encounter with Redwood City police while experiencing severe low blood sugar; during the incident, he was handcuffed and clubbed by police who mistook him for inebriated. On May 2, 2007, Doug was arraigned in court on charges of assault and resisting arrest.
1 comment - Posted May 10, 2007
The 21st century may be remembered as the time when diabetes became a worldwide epidemic. However, it may also be known as the time when the disease was cured.
8 comments - Posted May 3, 2007
April 2007
Dismal Predictions - In 1949, at the age of 13, I was diagnosed with diabetes. I was told that I would have to take shots for life and that my life would probably last only 25 years longer. Furthermore, I could eat no candy, and all my children would be diabetic.
2 comments - Posted Apr 23, 2007
The story of Doug Burns’ arrest during a low blood sugar episode has generated a lot of comments from the diabetes community. How did it happen, why did it happen, and how could it have been handled differently?
1 comment - Posted Apr 19, 2007
On January 30, 2007, the FDA upgraded NovoLog (a fast-acting insulin analog from Novo Nordisk) from Category C to Category B, thereby indicating that NovoLog is safe and effective for pregnant women with type 1 and their unborn children.
0 comments - Posted Apr 16, 2007
What’s the most important goal for kids and families dealing with diabetes? Learn all you can, and then strive for the best possible blood glucose levels without excessive hypoglycemia. This is a tough goal to attain. Our tools, food, insulin, and monitoring, while the best they have ever been, are still imprecise. And although optimal glucose control is critical for immediate and long-term health, one must always be wary of severe and recurring hypoglycemia.
0 comments - Posted Apr 13, 2007
Here are some useful tips to help you choose a meter that’s right for you - and continue to use it successfully.
0 comments - Posted Apr 3, 2007
March 2007
Q: Please describe your background.
Morey Haymond: A pediatric endocrinologist by training, I have been involved in
metabolic studies of kids, infants, and adults for 35 years. I work with children who have disorders of
carbohydrate metabolism, including diabetes and hypoglycemia. Understanding the regulation of those
processes has been a focus of my research, and I have looked at amino acid and fat metabolism as well.
1 comment - Posted Mar 29, 2007
Diabetes camp isn’t just for kids anymore. For type 1 athletes who want expert coaching on how to fit diabetes management into intense physical training, Stroke, Spin, and Stride’s week-long summer camp for grown-ups fits the bill. Says camp founder Matthew Corcoran, M.D, “We’ve hand-chosen our team of coaches and medical staff, and we’ve designed our programs to foster highly individualized attention.”
0 comments - Posted Mar 18, 2007
Dr. Richard K. Bernstein, author of the Diabetes Solution New and Revised 2007, The Diabetes Diet, and the 6hr CD program, Secrets to Normal Blood Sugars will be doing a special live Teleconference call on March 27th and April 24th at 7PM cst.
0 comments - Posted Mar 16, 2007
Approximately a million people a day look to the Internet for answers about diabetes. Now Diabetes Health, a long-time leader in patient advocacy through Diabetes Health magazine, has launched the best site on the web for finding those answers.
0 comments - Posted Mar 9, 2007
February 2007
BOSTON - Feb. 27, 2007 - It is widely recognized that the teenage years are often a challenging time for youth with diabetes to maintain good blood glucose control. Hormonal changes, peer pressure, food temptations, and resistance to following good health practices are among the factors that make it difficult for many youngsters. Unfortunately, poor diabetes control places youth at increased risk of developing complications from diabetes later in life.
0 comments - Posted Feb 28, 2007
Data presented at the November 2006 Diabetes Technology Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, found that the Contour Blood Glucose Meter from Bayer accurately detects hypoglycemia.
1 comment - Posted Feb 1, 2007
Medtronic MiniMed’s Guardian RT is being called a “useful and important diagnostic tool for a phenomenon known as nighttime ‘late-onset hypoglycemia’.”
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2007
Although most research about the effect of diabetes on sex has focused on men, some studies report that women are at higher risk for sexual dysfunction than diabetic men. It’s high time that the woman’s side of the story was given the attention that it deserves.
1 comment - Posted Feb 1, 2007
January 2007
We’re putting out a new edition just for professionals, with even more of the valuable content you’ve come to expect from the editors of Diabetes Health (formerly Diabetes Interview). We still offer the same honest comparison charts and provocative information that you won’t see anywhere else. What’s different? The Professional edition has a different cover design, different advertisements, and additional content especially for you, the professional.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2007
December 2006
“Discontinuing basal insulin during exercise is an effective strategy for reducing hypoglycemia in children with type 1 diabetes,” say researchers from Tampa, Florida, “but the risk of hyperglycemia is increased.”
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2006
October 2006
Diabetes and school make a difficult combination. Dealing with temporary basal rates, tests (for both BGs and academics), lunch, recess, and so on can all throw a student’s diabetes management a major-league curve.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2006
Going low during exercise can be frightening. Preventing low blood glucose involves two strategies: decreasing insulin dosage or increasing carbohydrate intake. Sounds simple, but in reality it takes time for each individual to find the right combination that works for him or her.
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
Real-Time Pump and CGMS Technology Given the Go-Ahead by the FDA
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2006
Reducing Inner Body Fat Is the Key to Metabolic Improvement After Weight Loss
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2006
On June 12, 2006, at the American Diabetes Association’s Scientific Sessions in Washington, D.C., the Joslin Diabetes Center presented results of a study showing that brain function is not impaired by tight diabetes control and severe hypoglycemia.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2006
Everyone with diabetes can agree on one thing: Life needs to be a whole lot easier. To find that ease, we support research funding, we fight for access and we push for innovation.
1 comment - Posted Sep 1, 2006
Was that person arrested for drunk driving truly under the influence of alcohol—or could it be that he was simply a diabetic having a low? The similarity in symptoms caused by alcohol intoxication and low blood glucose levels is striking and commonly leads to easy—but false—conclusions by law enforcement officers.
5 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2006
August 2006
1. How do these oral hypoglycemic agents (OHAs) work?
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2006
July 2006
At intervals of five days after giving birth and then four months after giving birth, Danish researchers interviewed 102 women with type 1 about breastfeeding. The type 1 women’s breastfeeding habits were then compared to a large random sample from the general population of Danish women.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2006
June 2006
Problems with blood glucose control need to be prevented and solved when using an insulin pump. When something goes wrong, do you blame it on the pump or suspect you made an error? Do you assume there is a pump problem with each alarm?
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2006
Are you unable to tear your child away from the computer? Do you want your child to learn more about diabetes? “Type 1 Diabetes in Children: A Passport to Knowledge,” from Savvy Knowledge Systems, may be your solution.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2006
In 1998, Eli Lilly & Co.’s rapid-acting insulin analogue lispro (Humalog) appeared on the U.S. market, followed in 2000 by Novo Nordisk’s rapid-acting counterpart aspart (NovoLog). Joined now by sanofi-aventis’ glulisine (Apidra), these rapid-acting insulins offer both convenience and improved blood glucose control to people who require bolus insulin.
1 comment - Posted Jun 1, 2006
May 2006
My life depends entirely on getting little squirts of insulin into my bloodstream on a regular basis. Too little, and high blood glucose hijacks my moods—tired and cranky are the watchwords here. Too much insulin makes my BGs plummet—and shakiness and confusion take over until I eat something containing sugar.
3 comments - Posted May 1, 2006
April 2006
With the new basal-bolus insulin landscape, what is the most important thing that endocrinologists and primary care physicians need to know so that their insulin-using patients can follow the best possible regimen?
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
John H. Holcombe, MD, is a clinical associate professor of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine and medical fellow, diabetes, for Eli Lilly and Co.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
An interview with Alan Marcus, MD, FACP, the global medical director at Medtronic Diabetes
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
Mary is a 64-year-old woman who has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes for 14 years. She is obese at 220 pounds. Mary has been treated with a sulfonylurea (a medication that stimulates the pancreas to secrete insulin, such as glypizide and glyburide) for the past 10 years. Her glucose control for the past three or four years has not been good. A recent A1C was 9.5% (normal range is 4% to 6%, with a goal of 7%). Metformin (Glucophage) and rosiglitazone (Avandia) were added to her sulfonylurea. Both her pre-meal and post-meal glucose values improved and her A1C came down to 7.8%. However, her fasting blood glucose levels were in the upper 100 mg/dl to low 200 mg/dl range. She was afraid of “the needle” and did not want to start on insulin. In addition, Mary was recently diagnosed with early diabetic eye disease (retinopathy) and nerve disease (neuropathy).
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
At age 25, Dee was initially diagnosed with gestational diabetes in 1972. After giving birth, she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Insulin was started with a daily injection of morning NPH and progressed to twice-daily doses. Dee did not have good control with either regimen.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
Spanish researchers claim that in most studies of small children with diabetes, insulin pump therapy resulted in improved A1Cs and a decreased rate of hypoglycemia without an abnormal increase in body mass index (BMI) and without adversely affecting psychosocial outcomes in young people with type 1.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
Compared with other basal insulins, French researchers suggest that insulin detemir (Levemir) may offer a “better reproducibility.” In addition, it may also reduce the risk of hypoglycemia and lead patients to titrate their insulin doses more easily.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
In three comparative randomized trials, researchers at the department of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, demonstrated that type 2s who used premixed insulins were more likely to reach blood glucose goals than those using only Lantus once daily.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
A recent study compared the effect of adding exenatide (Byetta) or insulin glargine (Lantus) to type 2 patients’ treatment regimens. The type 2s previously had been taking metformin and a sulfonylurea with little success.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
For pediatric patients with type 1, researchers are saying that prolonged moderate exercise results in a “consistent reduction in plasma glucose and the frequent occurrence of hypoglycemia when pre-exercise glucose concentrations are less than 120 mg/dl.” They add that treatment with 15 grams of oral glucose is “often insufficient to reliably treat hypoglycemia during exercise in these youngsters.”
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
In 1998, Eli Lilly & Co.’s rapid-acting insulin analogue lispro (Humalog) appeared on the U.S. market, followed in 2000 by Novo Nordisk’s rapid-acting counterpart aspart (NovoLog). Joined now by sanofi-aventis’ glulisine (Apidra), these rapid-acting insulins offer both convenience and improved blood glucose control to your patients who require bolus insulin.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
Recent developments in the treatment of diabetes mellitus have shown that “tight” control and intensive therapy are necessary to prevent complications, increased morbidity and mortality. We are all familiar with the findings of the DCCT and various UKPDS studies and sub-studies. The importance of these “landmark” studies does not need any further discussion at this time.
2 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
On January 7, 2006, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl named Ava Grace Baker. She was 8.4 pounds and 20.25 inches long. It took 30 hours, but it was worth every moment. Well, almost every moment.
7 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
Pramlintide (Symlin) is a synthetic amylin analogue. First described in 1987, amylin is a neuroendocrine hormone produced by beta cells, which also produce insulin. This hormone is absent in type 1 diabetes and decreased in type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
If you have ever dreamed of taking your insulin without needles, your dream came true on January 27, 2006. That was when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Exubera (insulin of human [rDNA origin]) Inhalation Powder for treatment of adults with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
March 2006
Insulow is an all-natural oral supplement that, according to its manufacturer, “addresses the root of the problem for diabetics and pre-diabetics: the correct balance between insulin production and glucose uptake.”
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2006
February 2006
Christine Olinghouse, RD, RN, CDE, BC-ADM, says, “If your patients take insulin, a glucagon emergency kit is the best treatment system you can have for severe hypoglycemia.”
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2006
January 2006
Exenatide (Byetta) and insulin glargine (Lantus) achieve similar improvements in overall blood glucose control in people with type 2 diabetes who were not being controlled sufficiently on oral combination therapy.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2006
Over the past 20 years, a group of researchers at the University of Virginia Health Science System have developed and tested a training program, called Blood Glucose Awareness Training (BGAT), for adults with type 1 diabetes. This research was funded both by the National Institutes of Health and the American Diabetes Association.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2006
The development and progression of diabetes is slow and insidious. However, as Dr. Robert Atkins observed through decades of evaluating patients with blood glucose abnormalities, it can be divided into six distinct stages. His observations are similar to those of researchers published in the March 1992 issue of Diabetes Care.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2006
December 2005
You remember the American Express commercial, “Don’t leave home without it”? After some recent experiences of three of my diabetic patients, I tell them the same thing about fast-acting glucose.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2005
Could it be that when it comes to diabetes and the workplace, honesty isn’t always the best policy?
2 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2005
In a recent journal article, researchers noted that early exposure to and high frequency of severe hypoglycemia “negatively affects long-term spatial performance” in children with type 1.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2005
November 2005
Banaba is a variety of crepe myrtle that grows in the Philippines, India, Malaysia and Australia. A tea made from the leaves is used to treat diabetes.
1 comment - Posted Nov 1, 2005
“The use of flexible multiple daily insulin [FMDI] therapy with glargine [Lantus] among preschool-aged children with type 1 diabetes mellitus was associated with improved overall glycemic control and decreased frequency of severe hypoglycemia.”
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2005
October 2005
There are so many food products containing artificial and alternative sweeteners on the market today that they have become a topic of great interest among diabetic patients and health professionals.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2005
Will Cross has taken diabetes to new heights—literally. The Pittsburgh-based expeditioner and former high school principal became the first person with diabetes to reach the South Summit of Mount Everest, with a successful summit on May 31.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2005
September 2005
Diabetes professionals from all over the world descended on San Diego, California, this past June for the 65th Annual American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions. Some brought with them the latest drugs, meters, pumps and software. Others came armed with research.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2005
If you are following a lower-carb lifestyle and are planning to be in the San Diego area in the near future, be sure to put Indulgence Bakery and Café on a your list of places to visit.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2005
Overweight type 1s may improve their blood glucose control without increasing their insulin dosage by supplementing their control regimen with the type 2 insulin-sensitizing drug Avandia (rosiglitazone), say Dallas, Texas, researchers.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2005
Holy basil, or Ocimum sanctum, is an herb native to India and is regarded as one of the most important plants used in Ayurvedic medicine.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2005
Type 1 Kids Do Well on Pumps
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2005
Diabetes researchers at the American Diabetes Association’s 65th Annual Scientific Sessions in San Diego made thousands of presentations this year. Of the 2,851 available abstracts, 55 were about blood glucose testing. That’s a small percentage of the total. But after winnowing through them, I found lots of gold.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2005
August 2005
Thousands of people will prepare for school this month with the comforting ritual of buying folders, book covers, pencils and clothes. In the spirit of that preparation, I must ask, What about diabetes? What steps are you going to take to avoid the stress highs, mid-morning lows and the unexpected this school year?
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2005
For people with type 1 who have nocturnal hypoglycemia, it is possible that a cup of joe will help solve the problem.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2005
A dozen companies market blood glucose meters in the United States, but Accu-Chek, by Roche Diagnostics, is number one in sales both in the United States and worldwide. They were also one of the first brands of blood glucose meters. The original Accu-Check bG came out in 1982.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2005
Each time you exercise, you are placing a stress on your body for which an appropriate response is necessary. This article discusses the body’s response to exercise for the diabetic who is on insulin therapy or insulin secretagogues such as glyburide, glipizide, Glucotrol XL, Amaryl, Prandin or Starlix. It also addresses steps to prevent diabetes-related complications, hypoglycemia in particular, during exercise. Maintaining safe blood glucose levels during and after exercise is accomplished through a correct balance of medications, diet and exercise.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2005
In the years prior to 1995, there was only one type of oral medication to treat type 2 diabetes. Today, diabetes practitioners can choose from many classes of oral agents. Each group may be used alone or in combination, depending on the individual and his or her history, disease stage, complications, side effects of the drugs and finances.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2005
July 2005
Generex Biotechnology announced that its noninjectable insulin formulation is now available—in Ecuador at least.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2005
“People who are no longer successful on oral agents can now add Byetta [exenatide] instead of insulin,” says Anne Peters, MD, director of the USC Clinical Diabetes Programs.
1 comment - Posted Jul 1, 2005
June 2005
On March 16, 2005, Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc., of San Diego, California, announced it had received FDA approval for Symlin (pramlintide acetate) injections to be used in conjunction with insulin to treat diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2005
Type 1s who switch from NPH to Lantus (insulin glargine) in multiple daily injection (MDI) regimens significantly reduce severe hypoglycemic episodes without significant weight gain.
1 comment - Posted Jun 1, 2005
When insulin first became available in 1922, the treatment goal in diabetes management was to minimize ketoacidosis and high blood glucose levels.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2005
1. Have a complete medical examination and obtain your physician’s approval before starting an exercise program. This is even more important if you have never exercised or if you want to increase the intensity of your workouts.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2005
May 2005
Improved glucose control helps you metabolize food more efficiently. Prior to pump use, you may have lost glucose in the urine. If so, those were calories you did not have available to maintain a normal weight. Was your A1C higher before pump therapy? If your A1C has improved, then you are using the nutrients in your food and losing less of them.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2005
The following is excerpted and adapted from the book “Taking Control of Your Diabetes,” by Steven Edelman, MD, and friends, 2001.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2005
Ivy gourd (Coccinia indica) is a unique tropical plant that is a member of the family of Cucurbitaceae. It grows well in India and Thailand as well as in tropical areas such as Hawaii.
5 comments - Posted May 1, 2005
In many adults with diabetes, hyperglycemia (high blood glucose) is associated with mild cognitive dysfunction.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2005
April 2005
I appreciate the many letters we received about my February 2005 column. It’s great to have a good debate every now and then.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2005
It isn’t too early to be thinking about diabetes summer camp for your child.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2005
The MiniMed continuous glucose monitoring system (CGMS) may have an advantage over self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) when it comes to revealing daily glucose trends, according to Texas researchers.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2005
Caution: Consult with your diabetes care team before starting a lower-carbohydrate meal plan. Diabetes medications such as insulin or oral drugs that stimulate insulin production (sulfonylureas or meglitinides) will need adjustment to prevent hypoglycemia (low blood glucose) when carbohydrate intake is decreased. In addition, blood glucose levels need to be checked more often.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2005
March 2005
Caution: Consult your diabetes care team before starting a lower-carbohydrate meal plan. Diabetes medications such as insulin or oral drugs that stimulate insulin production (sulfonylureas or meglitinides) will need adjustment to prevent hypoglycemia (low blood glucose) when carbohydrate intake is decreased. In addition, blood glucose levels need to be checked more often.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2005
The sixth major complication of diabetes is periodontal disease.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2005
Jan and Kevin were starting to “get romantic” when Jan noticed that Kevin was, uncharacteristically, losing interest. His skin had become moist and clammy and his movements slowed. Jan ran for his monitor. Kevin checked his blood glucose—it was in the low 50s. Fortunately, he had some glucose tablets at the bedside and quickly treated his low.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2005
February 2005
Not even 20 years ago, it was uncommon for a woman with diabetes to choose to have children of her own. Many doctors discouraged attempting pregnancy based on the high incidence of complications that both a mother and an infant could suffer due to poor blood glucose control.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2005
Note: This is the second part of a two-part series. The first part was published in our January 2005 issue
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2005
Caution: Consult your diabetes care team before starting a lower-carbohydrate meal plan. Diabetes medications such as insulin or oral drugs that stimulate insulin production (sulfonylureas or meglitinides) will need adjustment to prevent hypoglycemia (low blood glucose) when carbohydrate intake is decreased. In addition, meds might need to be decreased and blood glucose levels need to be checked more often.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2005
Glucose monitoring systems that continuously plot the course of blood glucose promise much greater control over blood glucose levels. Detecting when you are going low is just one benefit, but it is the most immediate reward.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2005
Although severe hypoglycemia is a definite problem for children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes, newer therapies may improve control without increasing the risk of severe hypoglycemia.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2005
Bitter melon (Momordica charantia) is also known as bitter gourd, bitter cucumber, bitter apple, karolla and karela.
5 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2005
Be it on Broadway, the Silver Screen or your television set, you have probably seen actor Victor Garber in some role or another. After all, he played Jesus in “Godspell.”
2 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2005
January 2005
Dan Stephens has mastered his game. The University of Pittsburgh football player is a star on and off the field as he steps up to the challenges he loves: balancing athletics, academics—and diabetes control.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2005
Exenatide (synthetic exendin-4) significantly reduced A1C in patients with type 2 diabetes who were failing maximum doses of a sulfonylurea, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and the Veterans Medical Center at the University of California San Diego. Exenatide was well tolerated and associated with weight loss.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2005
Caution: Consult your diabetes care team before starting a lower-carbohydrate meal plan. Diabetes medications such as insulin or oral drugs that stimulate insulin production (sulfonylureas or meglitinides) will need adjustment to prevent hypoglycemia (low blood glucose) when carbohydrate intake is decreased. In addition, meds might need to be decreased, and blood glucose levels need to be checked more often.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2005
Do you plan to go sledding, skiing, ice skating or snowshoeing this winter?
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2005
The insulin pump remains the gold standard for optimal control of type 1 diabetes and for anyone who needs intensive insulin therapy.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2005
Note: This is the first part of a two-part series. The second part will appear in the February 2005 issue of Diabetes Health.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2005
What are the biggest challenges facing the insulin pump market today?
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2005
December 2004
In combination with intermediate-acting NPH insulin, twice-daily injections of Apidra (insulin glulisine)—a rapid-acting insulin analog— can provide small improvements in blood-glucose control compared with Regular human insulin in patients with type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2004
Caution: Always confer with your healthcare provider before taking supplements. In some cases supplements may interact with other medications or cause low blood glucose (hypoglycemia).
1 comment - Posted Dec 1, 2004
Inhaled insulin offers the same blood glucose control as conventional subcutaneous insulin for people with type 2 diabetes that was previously managed with at least two insulin injections a day. It’s also as effective and is well tolerated and safe.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2004
Q: My 6-year-old granddaughter is receiving insulin injections. Are there any booklets I can get that have sample menus for a child that young? She is coming to visit me, and I would like to have the proper foods available.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2004
How do you choose which insulins to use for your patients who use insulin?
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2004
Understanding the federal government is complex, and the Medicare program can be even worse.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2004
November 2004
This article is by no means an endorsement for consuming alcohol. Every person with diabetes should check with his or her healthcare professional about the use of alcohol. In addition to the effects of alcohol on diabetes control, including potentially causing hypoglycemia, there are possible interactions with other medications.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2004
Before the mid-1950s, people with diabetes injected insulin using glass syringes with detachable steel needles. Between injections, the glass syringes were boiled and the needles were soaked in alcohol to keep them as germ-free as possible. To reduce the pain of the injection, people would sharpen their needles on a sharpening stone.
1 comment - Posted Nov 1, 2004
Developed specifically for people with diabetes by endocrinologist Francine Kaufman, ExtendBar now has a new formula, available in Chocolate Delight and Peanut Delight flavors.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2004
James Jopling of Monroe, Louisiana, has had type 1 diabetes for 39 years. Two of his sons also have type 1.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2004
Q: I am a 54-year-old woman with diabetes, trying to lose a substantial amount of weight. I want to be healthier and want nutrition that will help my goal. I seem to be at a standstill. Can you give me some easy nutrition ideas?
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2004
There is growing interest recently in the potential benefits of using cinnamon for treating diabetes.
30 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2004
October 2004
Baseball, football, soccer, basketball, and hockey are all sports that proclaim, “It’s autumn.”
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2004
September 2004
Safety first: Remember to check with your healthcare team before starting any new exercise program.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2004
Alcohol tends to lower blood glucose. This means you do not need to take extra insulin or medication to cover the alcohol you drink. In fact, it can be dangerous to do so.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2004
Young people with type 1 diabetes, like other people with diabetes, want to lead a normal life without making diabetes their top priority. Their philosophy is, "I’ll do what it takes to keep from going too low and embarrassing myself in front of my friends, but I don’t want to be too ‘nerdy’ about it."
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2004
It’s September, which means it’s back to school time!
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2004
August 2004
Caution: Consult your diabetes care team before starting a lower-carbohydrate meal plan. Diabetes medications such as insulin or oral drugs that stimulate insulin production (sulfonylureas or meglitinides) will need adjustment to prevent hypoglycemia (low blood glucose) when carbohydrate intake is decreased.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2004
July 2004
Hot summer days, peaceful lakes, get-away adventures, time to reconnect and relax with family and friends.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2004
It’s always a case of Murphy’s Law for me. Whenever I am without my glucose tabs or other quick-acting carbohydrate , I seem to have a low blood glucose.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2004
There are two main types of cholesterol, LDL and HDL.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2004
"My Pocket Doctor" is a self-help reference guide written by an endocrinologist and certified diabetes educator. As the name implies, the convenient guide fits in your pocket.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2004
Blood glucose control with detemir, a long-acting insulin analog, is better than NPH insulin.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2004
“I’ve had diabetes for 35 years,” read one e-mail message to our Islet Service at DiabetesPortal.com. “I only have retinopathy and mild neuropathy, but I am having trouble feeling lows [hypoglycemia]. I want a cure that doesn’t require anti-rejection drugs.”
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2004
June 2004
So, you aren’t pleased with your blood glucose control.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2004
May 2004
Mindy Mendenhall plays basketball the way a bull browses a china shop. She’s all muscle and emotion under the hoop, and she’s manic enough to launch her body across the court after loose balls.
1 comment - Posted May 1, 2004
The number of people opting for insulin pump therapy grows. Worldwide, the number is approximately 300,000.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2004
April 2004
Results from a Scottish study of 215 type 2s treated with twice-daily or more insulin injections for at least a year reveal that the frequency of severe hypoglycemia, while lower than in type 1s, “is more common than has been previously recognized.”
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2004
Islet transplantation offers promise, but it still shows risks of complications and loss of islet function over time.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2004
March 2004
Medtronic MiniMed’s Continuous Glucose Monitoring System (CGMS) improved kids' control by providing them with accurate data—for adjustment of insulin treatments—and by promoting better communication and motivation.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2004
I struggle to understand why you are publishing information recommending low-or no-carb meals for people with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2004
January 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
While most practitioners tend to start out slow and build up dosages when prescribing oral medications for people with type 2 diabetes, Allen B. King, MD, FACE, CDE, prefers to use what he calls the “Blast and Taper Fast” method.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2004
People with diabetes know that we are all supposed to check our blood glucose. But it’s sometimes frustrating to look at the results and see a number that’s too high or too low.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2004
July 2003
In 1999, Crystal Jackson feared for the life of her daughter, Devin, who has type 1 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2003
May 2003
John Dennis, 58, says that self-monitoring to control his type 2 diabetes comes naturally because he is used to "going it alone." After all, taking care of himself is as much a solo responsibility these days as sailing his 50-foot boat around the world.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2003
A University of Iowa study indicates that socioeconomic status and behavioral problems are more likely than poor metabolic control to affect grades in children with type 1 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2003
If you have type 1 and take Humalog (insulin lispro) with meals and NPH at night, you might want to go to bed with some starch and protein in your stomach if your bedtime blood-glucose reading is below 126 mg/dl.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2003
John Dennis, 58, says that self-monitoring to control his type 2 diabetes comes naturally because he is used to "going it alone." After all, taking care of himself is as much a solo responsibility these days as sailing his 50-foot boat around the world.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2003
April 2003
A recent study by French researchers demonstrated that taking an injection of Humalog (insulin lispro) before lunch can lower dinnertime blood-glucose levels in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes. Boys in particular also saw improved overall blood-glucose control after adding the lunchtime Humalog.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2003
March 2003
Looking at a list of the many types of insulin available today is impressive, but there's even more to the story. Overall, patterns of insulin use have changed dynamically during the past six years.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2003
"If you're being admitted to the hospital, you might want to write 'Person With Diabetes' across your forehead with a permanent marker."
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2003
If you're being admitted to the hospital, you might want to write 'Person With Diabetes' across your forehead with a permanent marker."
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2003
January 2003
People with diabetes know that we are all supposed to check our blood glucose. But some of us do a better job of it than others. Frankly, it's sometimes frustrating to look at the results and see a number that's too high or too low.
3 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2003
If you test your blood glucose regularly, you probably think you have a pretty good idea of how high or low your numbers rise and fall during a typical day and night. However, what if you had 288 blood-glucose readings every 24 hours, instead of only a handful?
1 comment - Posted Jan 1, 2003
December 2002
When combined with NPH insulin taken at bedtime, Glucophage (metformin) provides slightly better glucose control with less weight gain and improved satisfaction with diabetes treatment than Prandin (repaglinide) plus NPH, say researchers in the United Kingdom.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2002
When you first started insulin pump therapy, your doctor gave you a basal rate (or rates) and bolus doses to help you get started. You tested your blood glucose frequently, and the basal rates were correspondingly changed to prevent wide fluctuations while fasting. Then the bolus doses were adjusted to prevent post-meal hyperglycemia (or hypoglycemia). Once your blood-glucose values were stabilized, you might have felt as if you were "set for life."
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2002
When combined with NPH insulin taken at bedtime, Glucophage (metformin) provides slightly better glucose control with less weight gain and improved satisfaction with diabetes treatment than Prandin (repaglinide) plus NPH, say researchers in the United Kingdom.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2002
November 2002
Parents who wanted to see GlucoWatch Biographers on the wrists of their children with diabetes received good news on August 28, 2002, with the announcement that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had approved the GlucoWatch for use with children ages 7 to 17. The device received earlier FDA approval for adults with diabetes in April 2002.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2002
It's fortunate that Gillian Larner was at her 11-year-old son's bedside in the hospital after his surgery in May 2002.
1 comment - Posted Nov 1, 2002
This year, 17 million people in the United States lived with diabetes.
4 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2002
October 2002
Telling the world you have diabetes is not the easiest proposition. Coming "out of the closet," so to speak, could bring support or condemnation from others.
2 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2002
Because fingerstick testing generally detects low blood glucose earlier than tests performed with capillary blood from arms or thighs, alternate-site testing should be avoided when blood-glucose levels are apt to be undergoing rapid changes, such as up to two hours after meals and after an insulin injection.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2002
As a nation, we are aging. By the age of 65, two-thirds of us take one or more medications a day—and a lot of us take as many as three.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2002
As a nation, we are aging. By the age of 65, two-thirds of us take one or more medications a day-and a lot of us take as many as three.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2002
September 2002
Researchers in Chicago, Illinois, using the Medtronic MiniMed Continuous Glucose Monitoring System (CGMS) conclude that the variable glucose profiles generated during endurance competitions such as marathons "indicate the need for intensive and accurate glucose monitoring."
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2002
Many of us with diabetes run numbers in our heads all day. We balance carb counts, insulin units, exercise and increments of time as if we were computers, sometimes making extraordinary calculations to safely incorporate 35 CHO of birthday cake into an afternoon.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2002
A 37-year-old woman with type 1 diabetes who was pregnant with her second child was able to eliminate frequent severe hypoglycemic episodes after being switched from NPH insulin to Lantus (insulin glargine), report two doctors and a nurse practitioner in a letter to Diabetes Care.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2002
Researchers in Chicago, Illinois, using the Medtronic MiniMed Continuous Glucose Monitoring System (CGMS) conclude that the variable glucose profiles generated during endurance competitions such as marathons "indicate the need for intensive and accurate glucose monitoring."
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2002
August 2002
Starting next month, Bayer will change the name of its line of Glucometer blood-glucose meters to Ascensia.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2002
Every year around this time, three words that kids hate—and parents love—to hear make their way into television commercials and print ads:
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2002
Once again, Diabetes Health has read through more than 2,500 abstracts of research presented at the American Diabetes Association's annual Scientific Sessions and selected a few of the more interesting ones to pass along to you as part of our annual "Research Extravaganza" feature.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2002
Over the past seven years, the number of oral drug therapies for the treatment of type 2 diabetes has dramatically increased. Of the six basic types of medication that can help normalize your blood glucose, five are available as oral drugs.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2002
July 2002
Twenty-four-hour continuous glucose monitoring can provide extremely useful information about an individual's blood-glucose pattern and fluctuations during the day and night.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2002
When Charles H. Raine III, MD, director of the Diabetes Control Center in Orangeburg, South Carolina, learned he had type 2 diabetes, he went straight to insulin as his preferred method of control.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2002
The Sleep Sentry Monitor, a battery-powered device worn like a wristwatch and used to detect nighttime low blood glucose, was introduced by Teledyne Avionics more than 20 years ago. Teledyne Avionics then sold the device to Eric Orzeck, MD, in 1983, and it has been largely unavailable since the early 1990s.
1 comment - Posted Jul 1, 2002
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2002
When Charles H. Raine III, MD, director of the Diabetes Control Center in Orangeburg, South Carolina, learned he had type 2 diabetes, he went straight to insulin as his preferred method of control.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2002
Twenty-four-hour continuous glucose monitoring can provide extremely useful information about an individual's blood-glucose pattern and fluctuations during the day and night.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2002
June 2002
Scott W. Lee, MD, Saima Sajid, MD, and Michelle Cao, MD, of Loma Linda University Medical Center in Loma Linda, California, have reported two case studies on square-wave and dual-wave bolusing.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2002
In a small study conducted by researchers in the Netherlands, a drug normally used to treat asthma and bronchitis helped to improve awareness of hypoglycemia in people with type 1 diabetes. Hypoglycemia unawareness can be a dangerous condition—a person with diabetes who cannot detect an episode of low blood glucose cannot take quick action to correct it.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2002
May 2002
When it comes to exercise, there's literally no place but home for some of us. Many people cite a lack of transportation, finances or time as reasons for not going to a gym or fitness center. And many rural areas simply don't have gyms or fitness centers. Whether real or perceived, these problems do bring one option to the fore—exercising at home.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2002
What do the school nurse and the education staff of your child's school know about insulin pump therapy? What should you tell the school system?
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2002
It is not uncommon to read an article about physical activity that advises you to eat a snack before you exercise. Sometimes the article also advises you to perform the exercise after a meal or to avoid activity while insulin is peaking.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2002
They won't come to the table when called, they dawdle over their food, they would rather drink than eat and they might refuse to eat starches.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2002
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2002
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2002
Are you planning to start your child on an insulin pump during summer vacation? While this may be a great time to get comfortable with a pump, the next challenge will come when the child returns to school.
2 comments - Posted May 1, 2002
April 2002
“You shouldn't have to futz around with shots,” says Wendy S. Lane, MD, of Asheville, North Carolina. ”[If I had my way], newly diagnosed type 1s would be put right on pumps, if it weren't for insurance companies.”
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2002
You keep your A1Cs in line by testing your fasting and before-meal blood-glucose levels, but could you have a time bomb ticking in your body by failing to keep after-meal glucose levels down?
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2002
March 2002
Living with diabetes means living in a world of limitations—some imposed by society and some by the disease itself. Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 5, I've spent the last 35 years trying to break free of those limitations.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2002
It's happened again. You test and the number that pops up on your meter is low. Way too low! But you feel fine. Shouldn't you be experiencing that fuzzy-headed, heart-pounding, shaky-bodied, world-swirling feeling that goes with hypoglycemia?
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2002
Metformin is safe and effective for the treatment of type 2 diabetes in children, according to new research.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2002
February 2002
Who says the people who invent computers, cell phones and other devices that make our life easier should have all the fun?
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2002
As you may be aware, NovoLog (insulin aspart) is the new rapid-acting insulin analog from Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals, Inc. On paper, its action is supposed to be similar to Lilly's Humalog (insulin lispro). However, my experience, as well as the experiences of other people I've talked to who are using it in pumps, is very different.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2002
Who says the people who invent computers, cell phones and other devices that make our life easier should have all the fun?
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2002
January 2002
As a trial lawyer in California who has type 1 diabetes, I have represented more than two dozen people with diabetes whose driver's licenses were suspended by the state Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). While all of my clients eventually had their licenses returned, they all suffered emotionally and financially while inadequately trained and overworked DMV hearing officers delayed and denied the return of their driving rights for weeks or months at a time.
8 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2002
When Will Medicare Cover the Cost of Insulin Pumps for Type 2s?
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2002
December 2001
A new insulin preparation reduces after-meal blood-glucose (BG) values in people with diabetes without causing hypoglycemia.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2001
Correction: In the Letters to the Editor of the November issue (p. 61), we made an incorrect statement about the use of Lantus. The sentence should read "..those who take three meal-time shots of short-acting insulin plus basal Lantus will take four shots of insulin a day." We apologize for this error.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2001
November 2001
Researchers at three centers in the United Kingdom have been successful in demonstrating that using an insulin pump helps to control blood sugar and A1c levels, and can assist in preventing serious diabetes complications in a variety of patients—from long-term type 1s with erratic control to children and pregnant women.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
Working in collaboration with diabetes health-care professionals at the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes, Kathy Jensen, RD, CDE, has produced the first in a series of programs designed to be available and affordable to families with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
For decades, people with diabetes have known the drill: prick your finger, get a good-sized drop of blood, apply the drop of blood to a meter, wait for the result and adjust your insulin, eating or exercise regimen accordingly.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
On September 18, Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals announced that its rapid-acting insulin aspart (NovoLog) is now available in the United States.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
The September issue of Technology Review reported that a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based company called Sentek Group "has come up with a new, non-invasive way of monitoring diabetes that doesn't require any pricey machinery."
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
For type 1s who fast during Ramadan, it was discovered that blood-sugar control—measured by after-meal readings—was improved and hypoglycemia significantly reduced when using insulin lispro compared with Regular human insulin.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
The majority of parents do not correctly administer Glucagon, according to the results of a recent study.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
Researchers at three centers in the United Kingdom have been successful in demonstrating that using an insulin pump helps to control blood sugar and A1c levels, and can assist in preventing serious diabetes complications in a variety of patients-from long-term type 1s with erratic control to children and pregnant women.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
October 2001
On July 25, the Advisory Committee of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted to not recommend approval of Symlin (pramlintide acetate), a new drug for controlling blood-sugar levels in type 1 and insulin-using type 2 people with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2001
Jane Seley, RN, MPH, MSN, GNP, is a doctoral candidate from New York City and a good friend of mine. Jane has served on our advisory board since the very beginning, over 10 years ago.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2001
"I am currently incarcerated at a medium-security prison," writes James Mackenzie, in a letter to Diabetes Health from a jail in Shirley, Massachusetts. "I am 38 years old and suffer from diabetes and severe pain in my spine. The medical staff has tried to reduce my blood sugars—which range from 140 to 427 mg/dl. The problem is that it brings my readings into the hypoglycemia range of 50 to 72 mg/dl. This happens even with the lowest dosages.
2 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2001
September 2001
There are many factors to consider before adding exercise to your diabetes management. The benefits of physical activity are often celebrated and touted; however, safely and effectively incorporating these benefits into your workout is not always obvious.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2001
I am in my 32nd week of pregnancy with my second child, and I wonder if I have developed gestational diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2001
MiniMed's Continuous Glucose Monitoring Device was used to measure the prevalence of nighttime hypoglycemia (BGs below 40 mg/dl) and associate the occurrence of nighttime hypos and interstitial glucose levels every five minutes in a study of 47 children with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2001
August 2001
There may come a time when your health-care provider wants to have some tests done to help diagnose a condition or to decide the most appropriate course of action. A diagnostic test is a laboratory, or other non-invasive, invasive or imaging procedure. Non-invasive diagnostic tests include urine tests, electrocardiograms, simple X-rays, MRI and CAT scans. Invasive diagnostic tests include any non-surgical procedure that includes an insertion of a medical device or medication for the purpose of evaluating or measuring a physiological function or response.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2001
Taking rapid-acting insulin before meals may reduce major incidents of nighttime hypoglycemia and minor incidents of daytime hypoglycemia, according to research conducted by Novo Nordisk presented at the ADA's scientific sessions in June.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2001
Pregnant women who use lispro (Humalog) have better blood-sugar control and few incidents of hypoglycemia during pregnancy, say researchers in both Germany and Colorado. In addition, German researchers say babies born to mothers who use Humalog have a better outcome and those in Colorado say the need for caesarian section is reduced in women who use Humalog.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2001
Pregnant women who use lispro (Humalog) have better blood-sugar control and few incidents of hypoglycemia during pregnancy, say researchers in both Germany and Colorado. In addition, German researchers say babies born to mothers who use Humalog have a better outcome and those in Colorado say the need for caesarian section is reduced in women who use Humalog.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2001
July 2001
I am in my 32nd week of pregnancy with my second child and I wonder if I have developed gestational diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2001
In July 1999, John Buse, MD, PhD, CDE, director of the University of North Carolina's Diabetes Center told Diabetes Health that patients enrolled in clinical trials for insulin glargine (Lantus) absolutely "loved" the 24-hour-a-day long-acting (basal) insulin. Most of the people who participated in the clinical trials were not doing well on just NPH or Ultralente, and Lantus improved their control. However, Buse added, "[The clinical-trial participants are] upset that they cannot continue on it." That was because, at the time, the clinical trials had ended and the participants were told they would have to wait at least one year for FDA approval of Lantus and longer until they could get their hands on it.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2001
When Karl Smith was first diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in August 1922, he started out on what he calls "starvation" to treat his condition. He stayed on that "treatment regimen" until December 24, 1922.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2001
A new basal insulin now in Phase III trials worldwide promises to offer a smoother action than NPH with a more predictable activity curve.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2001
Not much strikes fear into the hearts of the parents of a type 1 child than one who is sick and cannot hold his or her food down or who refuses to eat. But researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, have found a solution.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2001
Stomach Stapling Not a Cure for Type 2 Diabetes
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2001
I am in my 32nd week of pregnancy with my second child and I wonder if I have developed gestational diabetes. Diabetes does not run in our family, and I am not overweight. Furthermore, I did not develop gestational diabetes with my first child.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2001
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2001
June 2001
For many parents, the most troubling aspect of diabetes is the possibility of low blood sugars during the night. We have recently tested two new products that are providing solutions to this problem.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2001
"Camps offer a support system that isn't available in other places because [kids] are meeting other kids with diabetes," says Suzanne Apsey, program director for Triangle D Camp of Northern Illinois.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2001
Infusing insulin on a continuous basis has been shown to help control sugar levels and hypoglycemia in children and adolescents.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2001
Nighttime hypoglycemia is prevalent among children with diabetes. As a preventive measure, doctors tell their patients to eat a bedtime snack to increase sugar levels while sleeping.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2001
Carla Elliot liked to keep busy. A bright and outgoing 14-year-old girl, Carla involved herself in as many activities as she could. Whether it was swimming, cheerleading, softball, 4-H club meetings or simply running around the neighborhood, Carla was there.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2001
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2001
Camps offer a support system that isn't available in other places because [kids] are meeting other kids with diabetes, says Suzanne Apsey, program director for Triangle D Camp of Northern Illinois.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2001
May 2001
Cygnus, Inc. of Redwood City, California, has finally completed its long journey to receiving FDA approval for its GlucoWatch Biographer. People with diabetes, however, should expect to wait until the end of 2001, or later, before being able to purchase one.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2001
I am a type 1 insulin-pump user and I intend to try the GlucoWatch as soon as it's available.
2 comments - Posted May 1, 2001
March 2001
Nerve and kidney damage, taking beta blockers, alcohol use and the length of time with type 1 diabetes are all factors that can contribute to more frequent incidents of severe hypoglycemia.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2001
When your mother tells you to eat your broccoli, you should listen.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2001
February 2001
In addition to being a big hit for people with type 1 diabetes, it is my opinion that insulin-pump therapy can be beneficial to type 2s as well.
1 comment - Posted Feb 1, 2001
Hypoglycemia is defined as a blood glucose level of less than 60 mg/dl. Many type 2s, however, may be well above this level but still say they feel "low." A common mistake for type 2s is to eat sweets because you feel low, only to later find they have a very high blood sugar.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2001
On December 22, 2000, Novartis Pharmaceuticals received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its type 2 drug nateglinide (Starlix) as a therapy on its own and in combination with Glucophage.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2001
January 2001
“Skydiving was like being reborn,” says type 1 Josh Glazov, 30, of Chicago. “It established a purpose in my life and restored a goal to pursue. Before skydiving, life was something to be endured. After I began jumping, however, life was something to be enjoyed and cherished.”
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2001
The New Haven Register reported on November 2, 2000 that Yale University accepted a $5 million grant from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) to establish a center to study and control hypoglycemia.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2001
New research is showing that what matters after dinner is not dessert. In a study published in the September 2000 issue of Diabetes Care, a team of researchers say their findings show that good postprandial (after-meal) glucose levels are key to overall control and lowering HbA1cs.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2001
December 2000
Recently, I was leafing through the latest research findings of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Israel. I found a lot of interesting research on diabetes that I would like to share with you.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2000
Do family, friends and co-workers treat you "special" because of your diabetes?
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2000
Fresh out of the starting gate with its April FDA approval, insulin glargine is on its way to overtaking other insulins as a viable treatment option for people with diabetes. A human insulin analog designed to have a smooth, peakless action, glargine is the first insulin to offer people with diabetes 24-hour insulin action.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2000
October 2000
How does massage therapy come into the picture of diabetes treatment? What are its benefits? What does a person with diabetes need to know about massage?
1 comment - Posted Oct 1, 2000
Q: My 11-year-old son is using an insulin pump. Sometimes, especially at night, I will give him a bolus correction for an unexpected "high" BG number. For example, for a BG of 200, I would give him a bolus of one unit, aiming for a BG of around 100 to 120. Oftentimes, however, his BGs are the same, or even higher, two hours later, even after the bolus. Sometimes this problem persists through two such corrections, and then, suddenly, the next bolus will work as expected. At the next set change, the cannula looks fine.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2000
Exercise for people with diabetes is crucial for good glycemic control. Type1s can reduce their insulin doses and type 2s can reduce the risk of numerous complications. But exercise for people with diabetes also requires special attention because it has special risks.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2000
September 2000
Mixtures of Insulin:
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2000
Has your child with diabetes ever come home from school upset, because a teacher said something that made him or her feel "weird" or "different"? Has your child ever missed a snack or a shot because the teacher did not want it to interfere with the class schedule? Whether you are aware of it or not, that's discrimination and it's illegal. Public schools that discriminate against children with diabetes violate their civil rights, since every child is ensured a free and appropriate public education.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2000
Parents who are concerned about the insulin pump's relative complexity but relish the possibilities of the increased control it can offer children may finally have the solution to their problem. A recent study suggests that part-time pumping can offer improved control for younger children without requiring them to operate the pump on their own.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2000
On July 13, President Clinton announced the 10 centers chosen to replicate the Edmonton Protocol.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2000
On June 6 and 7, academic and industry researchers joined in San Jose, California, for a two-day Artificial Pancreas Symposium. The tone of the conference was to discuss technology capable of monitoring glucose and automatically delivering the correct amount of insulin for the control of blood glucose in people with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2000
As blanket bans on commercial driving licenses for people with diabetes come under increasing fire, a new study leaves the debate on safety at a crossroads.
1 comment - Posted Sep 1, 2000
August 2000
Active people living with diabetes love the flexibility and finite control that using an insulin pump provides. Life no longer revolves around timed snacks and meals. Long-acting insulin peaks no longer control you. Even exercise participation can become spontaneous again. Whether you are new to pumping or a veteran, there are things to consider when you manage exercise blood sugars.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2000
Recently, Dr. James Shapiro and a team of transplant surgeons at the University of Alberta in Edmonton transplanted islets into 10 people with type 1 diabetes. In previous studies, only eight percent of islet-transplant recipients have remained off insulin for one year. The Edmonton Protocol is the first study in which 100 percent of islet-transplant recipients have been insulin-independent for one year.
1 comment - Posted Aug 1, 2000
July 2000
You'll find this months "letters to the editor" to be very interesting. On several topics, our readers are clearly divided. Our article on nighttime hypoglycemia shocked one reader and drew praise from another.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2000
Years ago, restaurant eating was reserved for special occasions. It was a time for celebration and overindulging in foods not typical of our normal fare. Today, eating out has become second nature for many, a by-product of our fast-paced life on the run.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2000
June 2000
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2000
Getting lost in the Amazon rain forest without a backpack is bad news for a person with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2000
Many little girls dream of someday becoming professional ballerinas, dancing with the grace of a swan, in the spotlight before thousands. Ballerina Zippora Karz, 35, is proof that diabetes doesn't stop dreams and goals from being reached.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2000
Short of finding a cure for diabetes, the next best thing is probably perfecting a "closed-loop" insulin delivery system with an implanted glucose sensor capable of continuous monitoring of blood glucose levels. This would reduce the incidence of hypoglycemia, a risk faced by people who are on intensive insulin therapy.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2000
According to the March issue of Diabetes Care, scientists at the University of Edinburgh found that it takes as long as 1.5 days for cognitive function to return to normal after severe hypoglycemia in insulin-dependent people who were prone to such episodes. If such episodes occur frequently, they may permanently and adversely influence cognitive function and mood.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2000
Jean Betschart MN, RN, CDE is a pediatric nurse practitioner in the Department of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. She has also written many books and articles for children with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2000
Kellie Kuehne, 23, is in her third year on the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour. Kuehne (pronounced key-knee), who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 10, is a two-time U.S. Women's Amateur champion.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2000
Diabetes Camp-The Best Thing to Happen to My Son
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2000
There are an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 young people who attend diabetes camps each summer. Summer camps provide young people, ages 6 to 18, an opportunity to effectively manage their diabetes in an environment that is educational, safe and fun.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2000
May 2000
Editor's note: Before changing your treatment plan, always advise your physician or health care practitioner.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2000
On March 20, Eli Lilly and Company announced the availability of the first pre-mixed insulin containing the rapid-acting insulin lispro (Humalog). Called the Humalog Mix 75/25 Pen, the mixture combines 75 percent insulin lispro protamine suspension (similar to NPH) and 25 percent insulin lispro injection (rDNA origin).
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2000
Biocontrol Technology of Pittsburgh announced on March 28 that its subsidiary, Diasensor.com, has purchased an equity interest in Diabecore Medical, a Toronto-based company working to develop a new insulin for the treatment of diabetes.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2000
Is diabetes driving you crazy? If so, welcome to the club. In fact, a very large club.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2000
April 2000
On February 24, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned people with diabetes not to use five brands of Chinese herbal products. The FDA says that the herbs illegally contain the prescription diabetes drugs glyburide and phenformin which can cause dangerous drops in blood sugar.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2000
Sande Francis has a veritable gymnasium at her home in Fresno, California. A type 2 since 1992, Francis started exercising after she was diagnosed with a random blood sugar reading of 264 mg/dl.
1 comment - Posted Apr 1, 2000
March 2000
Q: My father is a 62-year-old man and he has had diabetes for a little over 10 years. He has showed an allergic reaction to the 70/30 insulin. When he first started using this insulin, after injecting the proper dose he would start to itch all over his body and he would feel hot inside and sweaty and his face would turn red. He couldn't understand why this was happening and his family doctor could not provide him any answers regarding this reaction. My father kept using the same insulin for months after that and he always had that reaction.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2000
February 2000
Researchers at the Walton Diabetes Center in Liverpool, United Kingdom, are saying that in certain individuals with poor hypoglycemia unawareness, the use of lispro in insulin pumps may increase the frequency of hypoglycemia.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2000
Neutral protamine Hagendorn (NPH) insulin contains several components which need to be evenly mixed to be the most effective. If the solution is not mixed well, it can produce potentially severe episodes of hypoglycemia in its users.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2000
Excessive weight gain is a fear that haunts many adolescents and young adults, and contributes to the prevalence of eating disorders in this age group. For young people with type 1 diabetes, however, the fear of gaining weight, coupled with the perception that insulin is fattening, may prompt them to reduce their insulin intake. This results in poor blood glucose control and exposes them to the complications associated with it.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2000
Insulin lowers elevated blood sugars. Glucagon raises low blood sugars. Insulin shifts the metabolism into storage mode. Glucagon shifts it into the burning mode. Insulin converts glucose and proteins into fat. Glucagon converts proteins and fat into glucose. Insulin converts dietary fat into storage and glucagon converts dietary fat into ketones for energy. Insulin removes fat from blood and transports it into fat cells in the blood to tissues. Glucagon releases fat from fat cells for energy. Insulin increases the body's production of cholesterol. Glucagon decreases it. Insulin stimulates the use of glucose for energy. Glucagon stimulates the use of fat for energy. Insulin makes the kidneys retain water and glucagon makes them release excess fluid. Insulin stimulates the growth of arterial smooth muscle and glucagon stimulates regression. Source: adapted from"Protein Power."
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2000
Aerobic workouts can be safely enjoyed by people with diabetes. These are fun exercises that can increase your muscle tone and aerobic fitness. A typical workout consists of greater-intensity aerobic work and lesser-intensity stretching and toning activities using hand-held or ankle weights and multiple repetitions (such as abdominal crunches). Classes vary in intensity based on individual ability and level of participation, as well as the nature of the class: high-impact, low-impact, step, hip-hop and others.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2000
January 2000
A British study published in the April issue of Diabetes Care has put caffeine under the microscope again. After a two-year study, researchers conclude that caffeine can intensify the warning symptoms of hypoglycemia without affecting a patient's glycemic control.
0 comments - Posted Jan 7, 2000
For all children, the time between 6 and 12 years of age is marked by dramatic growth in many areas. For this reason, these years have been called the "I can do anything years."
0 comments - Posted Jan 6, 2000
Ramadan is an annual month of fasting observed by as many as 1 billion Muslims globally. During Ramadan, which takes place this year from December 9, 1999 to January 8, 2000, Muslims fast from dawn until sunset. Although Islamic leaders allow exemptions on medical grounds, many devout Muslims with diabetes prefer to fast during Ramadan. As a result, they must make adjustments to their insulin dosages to avoid hypo- or hyperglycemia. Previously, doctors had reservations about allowing people with diabetes to fast but recent research indicates that fasting can be done safely as long as proper self-monitoring and close professional supervision are guaranteed.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2000
An advisory panel of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unanimously recommended approval of the GlucoWatch monitor on December 6, 1999. The advisory panel, which approved the GlucoWatch monitor with conditions, said that the monitor could offer a tremendous benefit by measuring glucose far more often than blood tests can.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2000
December 1999
How Will My Blood Sugars React To Being Pregnant
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1999
According to Cygnus Inc., the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has scheduled December 6 as the date for an advisory committee review of the GlucoWatch monitor.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1999
A high school Spanish teacher in California, Linda Vernier relies on beef-pork insulin from Eli Lilly and Co. to stay healthy.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1999
November 1999
I am 28 years old and I've had juvenile diabetes for 21 years. I want to try for a family. I'm concerned about my frequent dropping out with low blood sugars at any given time, for a hundred different reasons (hormone levels is one). My big question is, how low can your blood sugars go before it starts to harm a fetus? Or, is it a matter of how long you have a low blood sugar?
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1999
I am a 39-year-old type 1. What is a good strategy for controlling BGs during the night?
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1999
When 5-year-old Jennifer Peurrung woke up hourly and started begging for a drink in the middle of the night, her mother Victoria told her to stop drinking and go back to bed. Jennifer started to cry.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1999
Q: One of my students is 9 years old and has diabetes. Many times, the student's BG is greater than 200 mg/dl at lunch time. My reaction would be to take insulin. Are these high BG readings normal for children that age?
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1999
Balance Bar Company has added a new line called Balance Outdoor, bars designed to sustain energy during outdoor activities. Balance Outdoor bars follow the 40-30-30 plan: 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent protein and 30 percent fat. In comparison, most sports energy bars are 75 percent or more carbohydrates and low in fat.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1999
October 1999
Welcome to this month's issue, and our feature story on driving.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1999
In 1993, Ross Adler of Lakewood, Washington, was 58 years old and taking a four-shot-per-day regimen of NPH and Regular insulin for a total of 110 units per day. His HbA1c was 8.4%, and his fasting C-peptide was 3 ng/mL which strongly suggested type 2 diabetes was caused by insulin resistance. Obviously, with such a high HbA1c, his injected insulin was not lowering his blood sugars.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1999
The Case of Meyer K.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1999
Blood Glucose Awareness Training (BGAT) is a private institute developed over 18 years ago to teach patients how to better recognize low blood glucose symptoms. BGAT was started by Daniel Cox, PhD, William Clarke, MD, and Linda A. Gonder-Frederick, PhD, of the University of Virginia. All three are authors of the article in the August 25 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, which studied people with diabetes and their decisions to drive. The institute sells manuals, gives workshops and teaches people how to do BGAT.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1999
In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Bell v. Burson that driving is an "important interest" that may not be taken away from a licensed driver without a government agency's providing procedural due process.
3 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1999
September 1999
Not too long ago, I received a hero's medal from Joslin Diabetes Center for having diabetes for more than 50 years. Now approaching 52 years with diabetes, I'm still going strong. I've had a few complications from diabetes, but nothing that has kept me from leading an active life. The complications I've experienced have made me more determined to maintain my present quality of life.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1999
Two new drugs have received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. In clinical trials, Avandia (rosiglitazone maleate) and ACTOS (pioglitazone hydrochloride) lowered blood sugars an average of 76 mg/dl and 95 mg/dl respectively, when compared to a placebo.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1999
Another bedtime nutrition bar for people with diabetes came on the market in June. The Extend Bar is a long-acting carbohydrate snack that lasts for up to nine hours, and helps prevent episodes of hypoglycemia.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1999
August 1999
Recently, while trying to keep track of the kids and the shopping list at a big department store, yours truly had a low blood sugar. I immediately sat down, and my meter confirmed a reading of 52 mg/dl. Fortunately, I was carrying glucose tablets and everything was okay.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1999
The following studies on insulin pump therapy were presented recently at the American Diabetes Association's Scientific Sessions in San Diego:
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1999
German researchers say that using Regular insulin prior to every meal improves blood glucose control without causing weight gain in obese patients with type 2 diabetes. Their research was presented at the American Diabetes Association's scientific sessions in June.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1999
Researchers at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital in Dorset, United Kingdom, discovered that alcohol consumption in people with type 1 diabetes is less than average, and that at least half of them experience some form of acute blood glucose change when drinking.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1999
Several years ago, I had a severe insulin reaction while vacationing in the mountains. This was the result of exercising a lot more than usual. Pharmacists often spend eight to 12 hours a day, six days a week behind the prescription counter. On vacation, however, with the combination of increase in exercise, altitude, less stress and changes in food patterns, I went into a convulsion around 3 a.m. My wife could not awake me, and I had forgotten to inform her that I had a Glucagon injection with me. I awoke just in time for her to tell me the paramedics were on the way. I drank orange juice, ate glucose tablets, used a tube of Insta-Glucose and scolded her for telephoning for help.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1999
July 1999
DIABETES HEALTH: Can you give us a typical day for you, in terms of diabetes self-care?
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1999
June 1999
I wish that someone had handed me this issue when I got diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1999
Researchers say that combining some NPH insulin with each injection of lispro (Humalog) has several benefits. It improves 24-hour blood glucose, lowers HbA1c values, and reduces hypoglycemia.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1999
The trick to a bedtime snack is to eat just enough to sustain blood sugar while not overeating.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1999
Hundreds of responses came back when DIABETES HEALTH ran its survey on the popular children's Web site, childrenwithdiabetes.com, asking parents for their favorite products and tips on diabetes care. Here are a few of the responses we received.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1999
May 1999
A type 2 medication can reap huge sales, and the world's pharmaceutical businesses compete fiercely for a part of the type 2 market of 14 million people. The push for these sales has brought out many new drugs during recent years. Yet, the recent Rezulin controversy serves as a reminder that knowing all you can about your medication can improve your health.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 1999
In a study conducted in Finland, it was discovered that insulin combined with metformin (Glucophage) taken at bedtime appears to be an effective regimen for controlling type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 1999
Q: If an individual with diabetes has numbers that are all within normal when compared to a healthy nondiabetic, are there adjustments that must be made in terms of diet? By normal numbers, I mean fasting blood glucose less than 100, HbA1c less than 5.3%, body mass index less than 23 percent, and a lipid panel within normal.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 1999
For people with type 2 diabetes, exercise is an imperative companion piece to managing blood sugars. For people with type 1 diabetes, however, it is a more difficult proposition.
1 comment - Posted May 1, 1999
It's one of those things you should always have but you hope to never use-glucagon.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 1999
April 1999
At a recent British Diabetes Association Annual Meeting, a study was presented saying that many people with diabetes are not taking adequate precautions against hypoglycemia.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1999
A study published in the December 1998 issue of the Canadian Journal of Diabetes Care says that regular exercise is an important component of the treatment regimen for all people with diabetes. Gayle Lorenzi, RN, CDE, who conducted the study at the University of California, San Diego, says that exercise, when combined with dietary management and drug therapy, generally contributes to improved blood glucose control, as well as decreased cardiac risk, blood pressure control, lipid profiles and psychological well-being. Oftentimes, however, initiating an exercise program is a tough sell for most diabetes physicians and educators. The decision to start an exercise program requires motivation to get started, and then a commitment to maintaining the program.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1999
March 1999
Bodybuilders try many substances, both legal and illegal, to develop muscle mass. Lately, insulin has emerged as a popular muscle-enhancing agent, and, according to an article in the May 28, 1998 issue of theJournal of the American Medical Association, it could come with dangerous side effects.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1999
Two of Beth Schatzman's patients called her in a panic. Schatzman, RD, CDE, is a diabetes educator in the Eureka, California, area. Both patients got word on the Internet that aspartame (NutraSweet), their favorite artificial sweetener, was harmful.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1999
February 1999
Dear Scott King-From Ann Landers - Many thanks for your letter and the excerpts from emails sent by your readers in response to my column on diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1999
January 1999
Ann Landers, the newspaper guru of American folk wisdom, has spoken on public glucose testing and insulin injections. Many people with diabetes do not like what she said.
4 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1999
Adapted from article entitled "Childhood Diabetes and the Family," by Tim Wysocki and Wynola Wayne, from Practical Diabetology, June 1992, pg. 31.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1999
December 1998
Q: Last week, we had a speaker at our pump group who talked about hypoglycemia awareness and its difficulties. When she asked how we treated hypo situations, I commented that I shut down my pump and consumed some quick-acting and complex carbohydrates.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1998
The Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT) demonstrated that intensive insulin treatment could lead to severe hypoglycemia in adults with type 1 diabetes. The study, however, did not address the effects of intensive insulin treatments and their effects on type 1 children. While it has been documented that severe hypoglycemia causes neurological damage in adult type 1 patients, there has been no conclusive evidence of what it does to children.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1998
November 1998
How do you know the differences between a new pump user, and a not-so-new pump user?
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1998
In early September, researchers concluded a landmark, 20-year study on type 2 diabetes. The $38.6 million study, known as the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS), examined the effects of various therapies on patients with type 2 diabetes. The study is considered the first of its kind in relation to examining diet, oral drug and insulin therapies for patients with type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1998
Q: My daughter was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 2. She is now 7. I have read Dr. Bernstein's book, Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1997) several times, and would like to put my daughter on the program. What do you think about it? I don't remember you ever talking about it in DIABETES HEALTH.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1998
According to the August 1998 issue of Diabetologia, a study revealed that an increase in the intake of fiber has beneficial effects in preventing ketoacidosis in people with type 1 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1998
For many years, sulfated beef insulin has been produced for insulin users. By 1993 there were 26 people taking sulfated beef insulin in Canada. By 1996 only 15 people were still using sulfated beef insulin.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1998
October 1998
Q: The subject of treating diabetes with a low carbohydrate diet is virtually untouched by other publications. I would like to see a series of articles about it. Of course, a quicker way would be to read Dr. Richard K. Bernstein's book Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1997).
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1998
If you wish to complain about the shortage of beef-pork insulin, file a shortage complaint using the Medwatch Form 3500 discussed below. You may also wish to appeal to Congress (the FDA's boss).
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1998
How does the cost of increased blood glucose testing and more injections affect those with lower incomes? According to the third National Health and Nutrition Survey, "those without health insurance are twice as likely to suffer a lack of food as those who have health insurance."
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1998
Christine Klemp of West Bend, Wisconsin, received a shock when she opened her box of insulin on August 16. A message printed in red ink said, "This insulin will be discontinued. Contact your physician to change to another insulin." Klemp was horrified, because this particular insulin (Iletin I beef-pork) is the only insulin that works well for her. "My life is about to come to an end. I just could not believe this was happening."
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1998
September 1998
I, personally, enjoy reading the recently published diabetes research. We subscribe to several journals which publish findings from doctors and other researchers.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1998
Caroline was 29 when she first came to my office in October 1994 for evaluation of her type 1 diabetes. Just over 5 feet tall and weighing 122 pounds, she was a petite and vivacious woman, happily married with one child, and working part-time.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1998
A recent study published in the May issue of Practical Diabetes International showed that insulin therapy is a safe option for elderly type 2s and can significantly improve their metabolic control.
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
Hypoglycemia is technically a blood sugar level below 60 mg/dl. The effects of hypoglycemia, however, can strike people at different blood sugar levels. Hypos can be caused by tight control, too much insulin, too little food or too much exercise. Alcohol consumption or slowed digestion of food from the stomach can also cause a hypo.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1998
For a person with diabetes the prospect of going into a hypo while driving is frightening at the least. On the evening of June 12, this is exactly what happened to 34-year-old Virginia resident Tom Moore, who was plunged into a bizarre series of events as a result.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1998
A series of new studies has shown that Prandin (repaglinide), a new oral antidiabetic drug, is effective in providing 24-hour control of blood glucose levels in people with type 2 diabetes. Prandin stimulates beta cells within the pancreas to produce insulin and is taken just before each meal, when insulin is needed. The drug reduces risk of hyperinsulinemia (excess insulin) or severe hypoglycemia (low glucose levels) by allowing insulin levels to return toward baseline between meals and at night.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1998
Heralded as the best thing since insulin, pramilitide, a new drug being studied by two U.S. research centers, may soon be available to help type 1 individuals reduce hypoglycemia risks. The St. James Center for Diabetes in Chicago and Tulane University Medical Center in New Orleans both recently launched studies of the drug's effectiveness in improving glucose control and lessening the risk of hypoglycemia in type 1 patients. In preliminary studies, patients not only improved glucose control while using pramilitide, but had better cholesterol profiles and lost weight. The current studies seek to confirm the earlier findings.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1998
July 1998
Prompted by Scott King's April 1998 column ("Questions for a Cure"), Camillo Ricordi, MD, sent in his response to Scott's series of questions regarding islet cell transplantation. Ricordi is a Professor of Surgery and Medicine and Chief of the Division of Cellular Transplantation, Department of Surgery at the University of Miami School of Medicine and the scientific director of the Diabetes Research Institute in Miami. He is a pioneer in the field of islet cell transplantation and is credited with developing an islet cell isolation technique that allows researchers and doctors to obtain enough islets from a single pancreas to treat a recipient.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1998
Summer is when pump wearers need to plan ahead and take special precautions. Sun, sand, heat and water are just a few of the hazards that come with the job of summer fun that can impair your pump's performance. If you spend a significant amount of time outdoors, here are a few tips on how to make your pump time worry-free. Have a sensational summer!
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1998
Diabetes control is the place where two worlds collide - the world of the known and the world of the unknown. You know certain things affect your blood sugars - what you eat, how much insulin you take, when you take it and the exercise you do. When you take charge of these areas, you often have good blood sugar readings.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1998
I was among the 400 individuals who attended Today's Solutions for Type 1 Diabetes in St. Louis this past May. The seminar, organized and hosted by the Insulin-Free World Foundation, brought together leading researchers and those of us living with the disease to discuss current transplant options and possible future treatments.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1998
There are few feelings as potent or deep as the love we hold for our children. Their playful innocence reaches into our hearts, past many adult concerns and preoccupations, and reminds us about simplicity. A toothless smile, the infectious laughter from a tickle, a clinging hug - simple, yet profound reminders of what is truly important. Our children change us from the inside out, if we let them. Yet I have never liked drastic change. I prefer slow, predictable adjustment. But neither slow nor predictable characterized the type of change I experienced in the summer of 1990.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1998
June 1998
Researchers in the Netherlands recently found that well controlled type 1s on multiple injection therapy have less variable fasting blood glucose levels and a lower total frequency of hypoglycemia when nighttime pump therapy is substituted for their bedtime NPH insulin injection. In addition, warning signs of hypoglycemia were enhanced and aspects of the counter-regulatory hormonal response to hypoglycemia were improved when subjects were on nocturnal pump therapy.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1998
Sixty-seven-year-old Gerald Lundstrom thinks it's his hearty Swedish stock that has something to do with his good health after fifty years of diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1998
When the first pancreas transplant was performed in 1966 at the University of Minnesota, doctors considered it a risky venture at best. Three decades later and over a 1,000 people in the United States undergo a pancreas or simultaneous pancreas/kidney transplant every year. Still, a cloud of misinformation surrounds the procedure.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1998
The following is a list developed by the California Diabetes Control Program and the Diabetes Coalition of California detailing the specifics of good diabetes care. This list can be used to illustrate to your HMO the level of care essential to maintaining your good health, and its financial incentive to provide you with these services.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1998
The following is a greatly abridged list of quotes from respected medical journals on the financial and medical impact of various diabetes practices and products. These can be used in letters to HMOs and purchasers of HMO plans to impress upon them the importance and financial good sense of providing good diabetes care. Again, this list is just a short list of the many facts gathered on the subject. The more you investigate and the more you learn the stronger the case you can present to get the coverage you need and deserve.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1998
May 1998
This month DIABETES HEALTH posed a few questions to an expert in pump therapy, Bruce W. Bode, MD, of the Atlanta Diabetes Association. Bode first became familiar with pump therapy in the '70s and has been putting people on the pump in his own practice since 1985. To date, Bode has started over 800 patients on insulin pump therapy. He also maintains the largest database in the world on people who have undergone pump therapy.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 1998
April 1998
I was thrilled to hear President Clinton had allocated $300 million more to diabetes research. It felt like diabetes was finally getting some of the attention it deserved. Still, it feels like the battle is only half won. I firmly believe that the research community should be held accountable to us - the people with diabetes who will eventually benefit from their work. Unfortunately, the average person with diabetes has very little say in what sort of research gets funded.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1998
Work, or academic performance, is not affected by a hypoglycemic episode the night before, according to a study in March's Diabetes Care. Low blood glucose at night can have an affect on feelings of well-being, vitality and sleep. The "hung over" feeling many people with diabetes experience may actually be caused by the interruption in sleep brought on by the hypoglycemia, not the hypoglycemia itself.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1998
Ketoacidosis is an extremely serious diabetic complication that can lead to coma and even death. Unfortunately it is also fairly common. The good news, however, is that with proper care and an eye towards prevention, this costly and dangerous complication can be avoided.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1998
Several companies are actively working on technologies to improve blood sugar testing and thereby capture a share of the two- to three-billion dollar blood sugar testing market. The goal is to make testing easier, more convenient and, the hope of many, continuous without sticking the finger. Here are some of the companies trying to become the first to offer improved testing and how they plan to do it:
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1998
Are you looking for an effective way to fight low blood sugars but unsure which product to take - candy, cake frosting, honey? These are all good choices. However, they contain sucrose, or white sugar, which takes a while to digest in the stomach - minutes which you might not want to waste when suffering from a low blood sugar.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1998
March 1998
This month Spencer turns five. He was born two years after we started Diabetes Health, and Miranda followed 19 months later. In many ways, we have all grown up together.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1998
No one enjoys going to the dentist, but for people with diabetes, getting that cleaning and check-up are especially important. The link between diabetes and oral health can't be ignored. In fact, dental problems in people with diabetes are so rampant that Mark Finney, DDS, believes oral disease should be referred to as "the sixth 'opathy' of diabetes," deserving of the attention given to retinopathy, neuropathy, nephropathy and the like.
4 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1998
If you're thinking about joining the battle of the bulge you may want to check out the latest fitness and exercise equipment options available to you. In today's fitness crazed world, the choices are nearly limitless, and many of today's hottest exercise trends have actually been around for decades.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1998
February 1998
Susan has type 2 diabetes and is under the care of diabetes specialist Nancy Bohannon, MD. Like many other type 2s she is also hypertensive, has high cholesterol and suffered a heart attack. She has arthritis, is postmenopausal and is trying to quit smoking as well. To cover all these conditions she is on a list of pharmaceuticals that might have made even Elvis Presley take a step back.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1998
January 1998
The first study to determine how severe hypoglycemic episodes in type 1 patients impact spouses was recently conducted by researchers Linda Gonder-Frederick, PhD, Daniel Cox, PhD, et al. Two sets of spouses were compared: spouses of diabetics who had a severe hypoglycemic episode within the last year and spouses of diabetics who had not. Data on psychological status and intensity of marital conflict was measured and compared.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1998
Naturally, people with diabetes want to avoid labels that imply that there is something wrong with them. Because of this, many in the diabetes community are hesitant to wear medical ID. While this aversion to being labeled is understandable, ID provides medical workers with valuable, potentially life-saving information in an emergency.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1998
It can be difficult enough being a child, not to mention a child with diabetes. Luckily, there are educational toys, products and information that can help children with diabetes conquer some of the mountains that diabetes can create. DIABETES HEALTH looked into various products and logged onto a web site for children with diabetes - www.castleweb.com/diabetes/ - to ask parents of children with diabetes firsthand how they deal with the day-to-day challenges of diabetes. Here are a few products and parents' tips that you may want to look into.
1 comment - Posted Jan 1, 1998
Another food designed for people with diabetes has entered the market. Gluc-O-Bar, from Apic USA, Inc., is especially notable because the bars are designed to stabilize blood sugars and keep patients from eating high fat foods like ice cream and peanut butter to avoid hypoglycemia.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1998
December 1997
Last month, hundreds of thousands of African-American women marched on Washington, D.C. in a show of solidarity. This followed on the heels of the Promise Keepers' rally and the Million Man March two years ago. Each of these called for the participants to take a more active role in their own families and communities.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1997
Imagine this. You enter a grocery store and on the directory directly above "Diapers" is "Diabetes". This aisle contains every food made for people with diabetes. And thankfully, a number of choices exist in this land of sugar-free sweets, sweeteners and snacks.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1997
November 1997
October 1997
Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of 80 percent of America’s insulin is planning to take Iletin I (beef/pork) insulins off of the market.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1997
When human insulin first appeared on the market it was thought to be a "special" insulin and the beef/pork insulin that I had taken for years was termed "standard" insulin. A lot has changed since those days. What was once thought to be the standard is now in danger of being pulled from the market.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1997
The British Diabetic Association's (BDA's) insulin campaign is committed to securing choice for people with diabetes for the kind of insulin that they use. The BDA is therefore committed to securing long-term availability of animal and human insulins, and provision of animal insulins in pen cartridges.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1997
In the early '70s, Elke Austenat, MD, spent her days working at the largest diabetes clinic in Eastern Germany. It seemed to her at the time that many of the patients passing through the clinic were overwhelmed and confused by the task of controlling their diabetes. The clinic once counted 400 patients in diabetic comas admitted in just one year.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1997
Awake and Aware to a Sleeping Hypoglycemic Coma
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1997
Can insulin injections delay or prevent the onset of type 1 diabetes in high-risk groups? Metabolism magazine reports that Rodriguez-Villar, Conget, et al at the Endocrinology Unit in Barcelona, Spain, investigated this possibility by giving insulin injections to people at risk of developing type 1. The theory behind this practice is that injecting insulin keeps the immune system from recognizing and attacking beta cells and their product, insulin.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1997
Last May, DIABETES HEALTH ran a story about 13-year-old Eric Carr who was suspended and branded a drug dealer by his Missouri middle school for passing out glucose tablets. We received many letters and phone calls from readers shocked by the school's ignorance.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1997
September 1997
I recently learned of a famous diabetologist, Dr. Lawrence in England, who made all the endocrinologists he trained take a shot of insulin to experience an insulin shock. He felt this was necessary for them to become good doctors.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1997
Laura Greenfield has lived with type 1 diabetes for over 18 years. When told by health professionals that exercise would help her control BGs she tried it. Unfortunately, Laura discovered that exercise is a tricky balancing act and not simply a matter of physical exertion. At first, she found it made it even more difficult to maintain stable BG levels.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1997
August 1997
Many young women with diabetes are putting looks before their health, even going so far as to stop taking insulin to lose weight.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1997
If you have an eating disorder and need help, contact the American Anorexia/Bulimia Association (AABA) at (212) 575-6200 or write them at 165 West 46th Street, Suite 1108, New York, NY 10036. You can also contact psychologist William Polonsky, PhD, CDE, for referrals at (619) 965-5659 or he can be contacted by e-mail at WHPolonsky@aol.com.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1997
Switching patients from an established insulin regimen to Humalog does not necessarily improve glycemic control, but it does reduce the frequency of mild and severe hypoglycemia and improves their quality of life.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1997
The following case study was submitted by board member, Steven Edelman, MD an endocrinologist at the Veterans Hospital in San Diego.
3 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1997
DIABETES HEALTH received the following letter from Advisory Board Member Matthew Kiln, MB, BS, DRCOG, FRSH, from the Paxton Green Health Center in London. The UK Diabetes Adviser wrote in response to "Hypoglycemia: What Every Person Should Know" in the July issue.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1997
July 1997
I have been taking the new insulin Humalog for almost a year now. It took plenty of getting used to - I had to increase my basal insulin and completely relearn when to take my meal shot. But it's been working great.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1997
A recent survey of diabetes educators found that they feel the telephone is a valuable tool to help patients with their diabetes care regimes. However, the survey also determined that years of experience and certification were factors that significantly affected the topics covered in their phone conversations.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1997
In addition to their many lifesaving skills, paramedics must also have expertise in treating people with diabetes in emergency situations. For instance, about once a year 36-year-old Craig Lloyd's sugars plunge unexpectedly into the 30s and he loses consciousness.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1997
Our only child, Katherine, was diagnosed with diabetes in 1991 at age eight. We immediately learned as much as possible, not only about its management, but about research for a cure. After more than six years of reading countless articles, corresponding with researchers, and living with diabetes, we consider ourselves knowledgeable about the best hope for eradicating it. Our concern today is that the last ten years of research, at a cost of millions, has turned up little to improve the lives of people with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1997
At this point, the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial's (DCCT) finding that intensive insulin treatment reduces the number of long-term diabetes complications is, hopefully, only news to the recently diagnosed. What is less commonly known is that the same tight BG control that reduces the risk of complications has a darker side. The intensive insulin therapy (IIT) described by the DCCT presents a three fold risk of severe hypoglycemia - sometimes with dire consequences.
1 comment - Posted Jul 1, 1997
Adam Greiner's story as told to DIABETES HEALTH by his mother, Barbara Greiner-Read, RN, CDE from the Valley Health System in Hemet, Calif.
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
You exercise. You do this because it's good for your health, can help stabilize your blood sugars and makes you look and feel better. It provides you with exhilarating, character-building challenges whether you run in the Boston Marathon or increase your walking distance from two to three miles per day.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1997
May 1997
April 1997
Everybody is talking about Enter The Zone these days. They are referring to the popular book on nutrition and diet by Barry Sears. But there are other zones as well - the "treatment zones" for type 2 diabetes. Knowledge of these zones will help you better understand how and why your particular treatment program was designed.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1997
Children and adolescents with diabetes are far more likely to experience moderate to severe hypoglycemic episodes than their adult counterparts.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1997
During a recent trip to visit my sister and brother-in-law I hit a piece of metal on the interstate and my front left tire was ruined. Changing the tire wasn't a difficult process, but it used energy that was not accounted for in my calculations of exercise, insulin and food intake.
2 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1997
Human ultralente is being used presently in our pediatric population with great success. To understand how to use human ultralente effectively, one must understand the action of insulin. Animal regular insulin peaks in two to four hours and lasts four to six hours. Animal NPH insulin begins working in one to one-and-a-half hours and peaks in eight to twelve hours with detectable serum levels at twenty to twenty-four hours. In practice, there is little effect on blood glucose after twelve hours. Human insulin appears to work faster than its animal counterparts.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1997
Vivian Murray, RD, a type I for 32 years, is a camp director for children with diabetes. She was recently anticipating the possible problems she might encounter this summer supervising 230 enthusiastic kids.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1997
Islet cell transplants, a treatment that could reverse diabetes, is no longer a pipe dream. Success has been demonstrated in about 30 patients at a number of institutions worldwide.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1997
March 1997
A normal blood sugar level is the primary goal of all treatment options for people with diabetes. It is especially important for young adolescents because poor control can be very problematic at that age.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1997
More than 30 percent of children on insulin may be accidentally receiving injections in their muscle tissue.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1997
Exercise for people with diabetes is crucial for good glycemic control. Type Is can reduce their insulin doses and type 2s can reduce the risk of numerous complications. But exercise for people with diabetes also requires special attention because it has special risks. The following list of recommendations should help you avoid any unnecessary risk when it comes to all forms of exercise - from dancing to jogging.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1997
February 1997
Bill King was training for the Philadelphia marathon when he noticed that no matter how much he drank, he had an inexhaustible thirst. He was easily fatigued and had to go to the bathroom constantly. He had been running and training hard since the age of 17 as a competitive runner. Yet, at 24, it suddenly seemed like everything he had worked for was slipping through his fingers due to this mysterious illness.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1997
Is your blood glucose meter giving you accurate readings? Testing under certain circumstances may be giving you misleading results. While most users expect accurate readings from their meters at all times, recent studies have found that many meters on the market today are inaccurate during hypoglycemia and when used at high altitude.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1997
January 1997
MiniMed Technologies' implantable insulin pump (IIP) has shown to be an effective alternative to multiple dose injection (MDI) therapy.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1997
Are you in danger of hypoglycemia without even knowing it? A recent study of people with insulin dependent diabetes revealed that most NPH-insulin users shake or roll their insulin only four times before injection, 16 times fewer than is necessary. This can result in concentrations of NPH that could be either too low or too high and can cause day to day blood sugar fluctuations.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1997
Knowledge Leads to Advancements
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1997
A study, conducted at the University of Wisconsin Medical School at Madison and published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in March of 1996, found that hypertension is significantly related to high HbA1c levels in people with diabetes who are taking insulin. The study concluded that controlling high blood sugars may reduce the risk of developing hypertension.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1997
November 1996
DIABETES HEALTH is proud to announce our newest column. In every column a case study about someone with diabetes will be presented by one of our advisory board members. By sharing start-to-finish experiences of people with diabetes we hope to examine problems both rare and common, and show how those problems can be tackled and solved.
3 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1996
In the spring of 1973, while on vacation in Morro Bay, California, I began experiencing severe thirst and corresponding urination, along with a loss of appetite.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1996
The new fast-acting insulin Humalog is finally here. Since Lilly's introduction of the insulin many people have been switching over. However, Humalog can produce unexpected surprises in blood sugar control. This column explains several important differences in the action of this new insulin and suggests ways to best utilize Humalog.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1996
Gary Freitag is frustrated by his three-year-old son William's blood glucose numbers. Diagnosed just this past February, William's BGs frequently bounce between 65 and 300. At night when William goes to bed, even if his blood sugar is as high as 400, Gary and his wife must give William a snack or by morning his blood sugars will be down to 50.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1996
October 1996
Like many people with diabetes, Ted Wright doesn't always wait 30-40 minutes to eat after injecting his regular insulin.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1996
In India, a country with 25 million people with diabetes, Novo Nordisk human insulin is six times more expensive than locally produced insulin, according to a June, 19, 1996 Chemical Business Newsbase report, making the Novo product a choice for the affluent only.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1996
September 1996
My mom and I were on the phone last night talking about our diabetes. She's a type 2 on insulin and really struggles keeping her blood sugars down.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1996
The future of animal insulin looks grim. Now that 90 percent of people with type I diabetes are taking human insulin, no one denies that the era of animal insulin may be coming to a close. But for those who have come to depend on it, the availability of animal insulin is vital.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1996
How do you get a giant pharmaceutical company to listen? Make a lot of noise, say the founders of three patient advocate groups that formed when animal insulins were pulled from the market in Europe and North America.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1996
August 1996
Diabetes has affected my life since before I was born. You see, my father was diagnosed with diabetes in his early teen years. By the time I was born, chronic high blood sugars had done their devastating damage to him-he was nearly blind and in the advanced stages of diabetic kidney disease. He died of the latter complication when he was just over 30 years old. I was nearly 3 at the time and my older brother was five. My mother was left to raise us alone, and developed good deal of anger at the disease. I know many of us share that anger towards diabetes and how it has affected our lives.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1996
While the specific causes of neuropathy are not fully understood, medical professionals and researchers agree the most effective treatment for neuropathy is the stabilization of blood glucose levels.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1996
Until recently, 21-year-old Don Fitzreiter didn't have any problems with his diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1996
People who have a difficult time recognizing when their blood sugar is dropping may have to look no further than a cup of coffee for help.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1996
For ages, people with diabetes have made sure to eat something before bed to keep their blood sugars up during the night. The trick has been to eat just enough to sustain blood sugar while not overeating. A nutritionist may recommend a half sandwich before bed, but the patient might fix himself a sixteen-layer sandwich like Dagwood Bumstead does in the comic strip. Overeating can lead to high blood sugars during the night and weight gain over an extended period.
1 comment - Posted Aug 1, 1996
July 1996
There has been much debate in recent years surrounding the use of animal vs. human insulin. Since the introduction of human insulin over 10 years ago, the reputation of animal insulin has taken a beating. Critics have derided it as an antiquated, impure and a less desirable alternative, and in many countries it has been taken off the market completely. This trend, however, may be unwarranted and depriving some people of an insulin which suits them best. New research is answering many questions about this controversy.
2 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1996
Though results from the DCCT study showed that intensive therapy can reduce complications of type I diabetes, it also showed that it can increase the chance of hypoglycemia.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1996
The new fast acting Lispro insulin received FDA approval on June 17, thanks in part to a study presented during the American Diabetes Association's 56th annual scientific meetings.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1996
In response to the proposed removal of animal insulin from the market in the next few years, the Bellagio Group, an international professional group sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, gathered in Bellagio Italy on April 8 to discuss what actions should be taken. The result is this document which they have issued to the World Health Organization and other public health agencies worldwide. The report is a set of guidelines for the use and value of animal insulin.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1996
June 1996
Dr. Arthur Neumann, a retired physician, has lived with diabetes since 1951. He awoke at 4:00 a.m. one morning suffering from a severe hypoglycemic attack and within minutes blacked out. Luckily, his companion was there to inject him with a shot of glucagon-a solution which raises blood sugar by forcing the liver to release stored glucose. Naturally, Neumann reported the incident to his doctor.
2 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1996
April 1996
I have been sifting through the pages of several diabetes medical journals from all over the world over. My impressions are mixed. A very few articles are clear and significant for people with diabetes, while most are written only for a select few. These have titles so complicated, I have to get out the medical dictionary even to read them. I don't question their validity, but with titles such as "Anglotensin-converting enzyme polymorphism and development of diabetic nephropathy in non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus," it makes it difficult to know whether I'm looking at the next cure or maybe a stepping-stone for someone to get their next grant. I read through over 300 articles and selected the seven which follow. I felt these had relevant information to help people with diabetes make better informed choices.
1 comment - Posted Apr 1, 1996
As a parent, you know the treatment your child deserves at school. Children are entitled to a safe educational environment where the knowledge of the staff can guarantee responsible management of their diabetes. A child with diabetes deserves the same sense of safety that non-diabetic children feel away from home.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1996
Hypo-Hyper: 101 Short Stories About Diabetes
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1996
March 1996
Jolted awake at 4 am with a low blood sugar, my heart racing, is not my first choice to begin a bright day. While it was still dark, I staggered out of bed to find my tube of Dex 4's. I should have tried to get right back in bed, but my hunger was overwhelming. Grabbing a bathrobe, I plodded out of the bedroom to plunder the fridge. I ate three oranges, a pear, and two pieces of toast before my hunger pangs subsided. I was wide awake with my heart still pounding from the hypoglycemia.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1996
The FDA has given approval to a new drug for people with type 2 diabetes. Precose (acarbose tablets) received marketing clearance in September 1995.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1996
For the majority of Americans who suffer from type 2 diabetes, a new sulfonylurea drug, Amaryl (glimepiride tablets) may be an exciting option. Recently approved by the FDA, is the only drug of its kind indicated for use either on its own or with insulin, although the combined use may increase the potential for hypoglycemia. Amaryl binds to a different insulin receptor site than other sulfonylureas to provide sustained glucose control.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1996
When a child is diagnosed with diabetes, parents frequently experience overwhelming grief and guilt. They often ask questions like, "Will my child have a high quality life?" and "Could I have caused this disease?"
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1996
February 1996
When you have a hypoglycemic incident, does it usually catch you by surprise? Probably-hypoglycemic symptoms are not always easy to recognize. For example, you more than likely have had hypoglycemic episodes when you just did not feel as many warning symptoms as you usually do. You may also have had episodes when you felt symptoms, but thought they were caused by something other than your blood glucose. If symptoms can be so hard to recognize, what can you do to improve your ability to tell when your blood glucose is too high or too low?
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1996
January 1996
Fluoxetine is the generic name for Prozac, the increasingly-popular antidepressant drug. A study published in Diabetic Medicine, May 1995, reported that fluoxetine may help elderly people with type 2 diabetes lose weight.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1996
Q: I am wondering about the benefits and problems of using different injection sites. I am also curious to know about how hormones affect glucose control. I notice that my BGs are different at various points in my menstrual cycle.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1996
It may not be your fault if your blood sugar levels are unpredictable. Recent studies have shown that during hypoglycemic episodes, food exits the stomach much more quickly than it does under normal circumstances.
1 comment - Posted Jan 1, 1996
November 1995
Precose, a new oral drug from Bayer, was recently granted market clearance by the FDA for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1995
Earline Edwards, RN, of Omaha, Neb. recently published a report called "Diabetes Care in the Schools: A Challenge for the Diabetes Educator." Information in her report supports Cynthia Halvorsen's contentions about the treatment her son has received in school.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1995
A study led by L.S. Griffith in St. Louis indicates that some patients with diabetes who believe they are having hypoglycemic incidents are actually suffering from a panic disorder.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1995
If your grandchild has diabetes, you have an important job. Only mom and dad play a more significant emotional role than grandparents in many childrens' lives.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1995
September 1995
Recently I attended a book reading by one of my favorite authors. The coffeehouse was packed with his admirers. Sometime around the middle of the reading, I sensed that I was becoming hypoglycemic. I reached into my purse for the fruit bar I put there just for this purpose. As I began to open it, I realized for the first time that the wrapper was extremely noisy. I stopped unwrapping. When I resumed, I did everything I could to silence the crinkly wrapper. When the woman in front of me looked back at me and glared, I quickly (and loudly) ripped it open to end the noise.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1995
August 1995
Hypoglycemia, extreme low blood sugar, is regularly treated in emergency rooms, and the patients are not always diabetics.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1995
I suppose it happens at least once in the life of a type I DM'er. After almost nine years, I had my first *BAD* hypo.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1995
According to a study performed at a diabetes camp, kids with type I diabetes should eat uncooked cornstarch before bedtime.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1995
July 1995
Physicians are invited to attend one of the MiniMed Insulin Pump Therapy Symposia being offered around the United States. Four symposia are scheduled during the next several months. They will take place in Seattle, Rochester, N.Y., Little Rock, Ark., and Houston.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1995
The FDA recently approved a new drug that offers excellent benefits for people with type 2 diabetes. Metformin, marketed under the name Glucophage by Bristol-Myers Squibb, is an oral medication for people with non-insulin dependent diabetes. Although metformin has been in use in other countries for over two decades, its approval in the United States has taken 38 years. An earlier form of the drug was removed from the market because it caused serious complications. Metformin has been observed in other countries and can be used with confidence by most people with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1995
DIABETES HEALTH: What is metformin?
3 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1995
June 1995
I woke up yesterday at 3 a.m. I wasn't quiet sure if it was because I was having a low blood sugar or waking up from a bad dream.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1995
Products come and go. Usually the reasons are relatively obvious, but once in a great while, a seemingly successful product vanishes into thin air.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1995
May 1995
In a recent study conducted at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, 42 insulin-dependent patients were asked to estimate their glucose levels and to rate the intensity of their corresponding symptoms.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 1995
April 1995
The American Diabetes Association published its first series of Clinical Practice Recommendations in January as a supplement to the journal Diabetes Care.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1995
March 1995
As if the adolescent experience is not traumatic enough, a number of teens must also carry the burden of diabetes through those difficult years.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1995
Though it may be a promising alternative for many people with type 2 diabetes, the drug metformin may cause severe side effects, even death, in some patients.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1995
February 1995
It appears that I am an atypical diabetic. I am a type 2 who was not obese at the time of diagnosis at age 44. In addition, I wound up on insulin within six months of diagnosis, after I had made a good faith effort to maintain my blood sugars with diet, exercise, and oral medications.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1995
The phenomena of hypoglycemic unawareness was studied in forty three people with type I diabetes in an attempt to find a common bond between people who lack hypoglycemic warning signs.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1995
January 1995
What do I do for an insulin reaction?
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1995
December 1994
Introduction This article was originally published in Balance, the magazine of the British Diabetes Association (BDA), and was written for a British audience.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1994
October 1994
Q: I am 23 years old and I have had insulin dependent diabetes for 9 years. My blood sugars during the day are generally under 150 mg/dl, but no matter what I do my fasting blood sugar before breakfast is always high, often over 300. What is going on?
3 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1994
September 1994
Q: Recently I read an article in Post Graduate Medicine ("Effective Insulin Use," Vol. 95, No. 8, June 1994, pgs. 52, 54, 58-60, 63-64, and 67). The article suggests the patient not eat if the blood glucose is greater than 150 mg/dl. I would appreciate you reading this article and giving me your opinion.
1 comment - Posted Sep 1, 1994
I've seen people functioning quite well with blood sugars in the 30's and 40's, although we certainly don't want them to be that low. I, personally, have been down to 22 using insulin infusions experimentally, and I was still thinking fairly quickly, though I was fairly uncomfortable from the sweating.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1994
July 1994
June 1994
Susan Thom, RD, LD, CDE, is a dietician and diabetes educator in Cleveland, Ohio. She runs a private practice called Diabetes Associates with her partner, an RN, and is involved in many local programs as well as national ones. Susan Thom is also the incoming president of the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE).
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1994
March 1994
Mr. Metabolism loves to follow new developments in diabetes research—in fact, that's one of the ways he makes his living. The following brief summaries give Mr. Metabolism's views on the Research Reports in the latest issue of DIABETES HEALTH.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1994
Blood glucose awareness training (BGAT) is a patient education program designed to teach people who use insulin to estimate their blood glucose levels more accurately. It is specifically designed to help them recognize episodes of hypoglycemia. BGAT is a comprehensive, seven-class course which helps people identify and increase sensitivity to the symptoms of hyper- and hypoglycemia. The course also includes information on insulin, food, and exercise relating to extreme blood glucose levels.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1994
New research is shedding light on one of the most distressing problems faced by a group of people who have diabetes (as well as their family, friends and co-workers). The problem, called hypoglycemia unawareness (HU), occurs when a person becomes incapable of dealing with his own low blood sugars. If unnoticed and untreated, HU can create serious problems, including grand mal seizures. If you've ever witnessed seizure activity or bizarre behavior in someone, you have some idea of the impact of HU and its danger.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1994
February 1994
The American Diabetes Association has suggested a series of medical prerequisites for all commercial vehicle waiver applicants. The prerequisites are intended to ensure that people with diabetes who are issued waivers "will not be contrary to public interest and will be consistent with the safe operation of commercial vehicles." The conditions, listed below, focus on applicants' ability to prove they do not suffer from severe hypoglycemia, hypoglycemic unawareness, or retinopathy, and to demonstrate their willingness and capability to properly monitor and manage their disease.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1994
January 1994
Q: I am a brittle diabetic and live in fear every day as my blood sugar goes from high to very low within a few hours, and I never know it's low until it is too late. I understand there's a new oral drug for this, and I hope you can share some information with me. Also, I'd like to know what's new in terms of a cure-I hear rumors, but never see the new techniques or good news in doctor's offices. Please share any news of new treatment.
6 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1994
In a review of the blood glucose profiles of 126 patients with insulin dependent diabetes, researchers attempted to determine the causes of fasting high blood glucose, and its effect on subsequent blood glucose control throughout the day.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1994
December 1993
This past week I was in bed for two days with a severe cold, probably stress induced. Forced to rest, I had time to reflect on this past year. What a year-what a lot of stress! I think it has been the most event-filled year in my life. Below are a few of the major changes that have filled 1993.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1993
November 1993
A study conducted for the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) indicates that only 40% of the people with type I diabetes in the United States test their blood sugars at least once a day. Among people with type 2 diabetes, the percentages are even lower: 26% of type 2's treated with insulin test daily, and only 5% of the standard type 2's do so. The study also found that of the 1.4 million people with type I diabetes, 21% have never tested their own blood glucose levels.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1993
A new program in Germany, offering a specialized office-based teaching program for people with non-insulin dependent type 2 diabetes, has had markedly effective results. After completing the program, average body weight decreased by 2.8 kg (6.2 lbs.), average HbA1c levels decreased by .64%, the dose of oral medication was decreased by almost 50%, and the percentage of people treated with oral medication decreased by 21%. The program is taught in the physician's office, by the office staff, and is being paid for through health insurance. The cost is approximately $10 per person per session, plus $9 per person for learning materials. After the initial outlay of $49, the average savings per year due to reduced medication alone is approximately $13.20 per person, making the program cost effective in less than 4 years.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1993
Thursday, Sept. 16th—San Jose, CA
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1993
August 1993
A team of French researchers report the success of an experimental study involving the implantation of a programmable insulin pump in 214 patients with insulin-dependent diabetes. The pumps used in the study were the MiniMed MIP 2001, the Infusaid M1000, and the Promedos 3. The pumps were implanted into the abdominal wall, with catheters inserted into the peritoneum (the membrane sac lining the abdominal cavity).
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1993
In a study of 48 people with non-insulin dependent diabetes, 25 individuals who had exclusively used "Humulin" insulin, and 23 who had exclusively used "Novolin" insulin were "crossed over" to the opposite brand. There were no differences measured in mean blood glucose levels, HBA1c levels, hypoglycemic threshold, or frequency of hypoglycemia either within subject comparisons or between the two groups. The study concludes that brands of human insulin are interchangeable without special precautions, and that cost should generally dictate the choice of human insulin selected.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1993
July 1993
I got a real kick out of one of the lapel buttons worn at the recent diabetes conference where the DCCT results were announced. The button stated "Joslin was right all along." This is in reference to one of the fathers of diabetes care-Elliot P. Joslin. Way back in the 1920's he said that normalization of blood sugars was instrumental for PWD to stay healthy. He founded one of the first diabetes teaching centers in the world-to show PWD how to do it. "It" was how to eat, exercise, and take insulin to achieve good blood sugars.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1993
In an effort to report on all sides of the DCCT (Diabetes Control and Complications Trial), we interviewed eleven of the participants about their experiences; four on conventional therapy, four on multiple injections, and three on the pump. Here are excerpts from our interviews with them. It is interesting to note that whenever someone from the conventional therapy group became pregnant, she was transferred to one of the intensive therapies for the duration of the pregnancy.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1993
The National Institutes of Health have announced the results of a long-term study showing that intensive treatment of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus slows the onset and progression of diabetes complications. For many people with diabetes, the standard treatment of one or two shots a day with infrequent blood sugar testing is not enough to prevent complications caused by high blood glucose. Results from this new study show that a tighter control of blood sugar can reduce the incidence of damage to eyes, kidneys, and nerves by 60% or more.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1993
Long considered a cornerstone of diabetes management, exercise has been underemphasized as a therapeutic treatment. This is not without reason, as the effects of exercise on blood glucose levels in people with Insulin Dependent Diabetes (IDDM) is physiologically complex, and requires individual tailoring rather than a rigid, uniform prescription. As always, the most effective way to integrate exercise is by being adequately informed.
1 comment - Posted Jul 1, 1993
For the last ten years the DCCT has been a big part of the participants' lives, affecting everything from what they eat to how they control their diabetes. The study is over now; the doctors have proven the effectiveness of intensive therapy, they have told us that tight control is the new standard in diabetes care. But they have not told us what the new therapies are like and how they affect our day to day life. For that we must talk to the participants themselves. We contacted eleven of the patients for their insights on the study and the therapies they used.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1993
June 1993
In contrast to European governments, which have progressively restricted driving permits for individuals with insulin-dependent diabetes, the United States has been far more liberal in its restrictions. In an attempt to determine the decline in driving capability by insulin dependent adults experiencing hypoglycemia, the University of Virginia's General Clinical Research Center conducted a study of twenty five adults, measuring both their driving performance as well as their awareness of their driving performance during and after artificially-induced episodes of hypoglycemia. The study participants were infused with intravenous regular insulin, administered to produce mild and moderate hypoglycemic reactions, while they drove high-tech driving simulators. Immediately before and after each test, the participants were asked: "Would you choose to drive right now? Yes/No." The participants were kept shielded from their blood glucose levels throughout the tests.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1993
April 1993
This is the third and fourth parts of a six part series on "How to Understand and Use Insulin." The goal of this series is to promote a better understanding of insulin for those readers who already take insulin, including the many people with Type II diabetes who have switched from pills to insulin to treat their diabetes. The first and second parts of the series dealt with the technical factors involved in minimizing variations in insulin absorption. These parts focus on adjusting insulin, and parts five and six will focus on insulin research.
6 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1993
January 1993
A study from France has concluded that implantable insulin pumps have proven to be reasonably safe and effective on a large scale, although time-limited, basis. The study was conducted by researchers from the EVADIAC Group in France.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1993
Researchers from the Diabetes Research Institute in Düsseldorf, Germany, have concluded that impaired consciousness brought on by hypoglycemia is reduced in well-controlled type I diabetes patients when compared to patients with poor control.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1993
September 1991
How easy is it for parents to guess their own child's blood glucose levels? Is the child crabby because he is overtired or is it low blood glucose? Are the children themselves any more accurate in guessing their own levels?
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1991