Investigate.Inform. Inspire
While a gluten-free diet has been shown to be beneficial for both those with celiac disease and those without, the jury is still out on whether going gluten free can help benefit those with type 1 diabetes. Recent research has determined that there is a relationship between type 1 diabetes and celiac disease, since both diseases result in the body’s immune system mistakenly attacking itself.
Read moreWhile the media has been calling obesity is our nation’s biggest killer, it turns out being a couch potato is even more dangerous. A new study from the University of Cambridge found that lack of exercise might be twice as deadly as obesity, according to a report that appeared recently in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. According to the study’s lead author, Ulf Ekelund,
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If you have diabetes, the flu can be particularly risky. According to the results of a new study, working-age adults with type 2 diabetes are at an especially increased risk of doctor visits, hospitalizations and death from the flu, making an annual vaccine all the more important for this at-risk group. Researchers from Manitoba, Canada, looked at more than 160,000 subjects of an average age
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Research into a cure for type 1 diabetes proceeds on several fronts. One interesting approach is seeking ways to manipulate the autoimmune system to prevent the body’s mistaken destruction of pancreatic beta cells. Another tack is the transplantation of pancreatic tissue, either from human cadavers or carefully isolated “clean” pigs that have been specially raised for the purpose. It turns out pigs will be crucial
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Australian researchers have released a study on stem cells that potentially could lead to type 1s being able to make their own insulin, erasing the need for regular injections. Dr. Ilia Banakh and Professor Len Harrison from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne report that they not only devised a way to identify and isolate stem cells from the adult pancreas, but also
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According to a report by the inspector general of the US Department of Health and Human Services, dozens of purported weight-loss and immune-system supplements are illegally labeled and do not have appropriate scientific evidence to support their claims. According to the report, 20 percent of the 127 purported weight-loss and immune-boosting supplements purchased by investigators had labels claiming that they cured or treated disease, including
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Massachusetts researchers have found that even years after they are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, some people continue to possess functioning beta cells. This finding departs from the conventional thinking that in type 1 diabetes beat cell activity inevitably ceases–the result of attacks on the cells by the body’s immune system. In their study, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston checked blood samples from
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Australian scientists have discovered that when a complex sugar crucial to the survival of insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells is degraded by the body’s immune system, the beta cells die. The sugar, heparan sulphate, helps in the defense of beta cells against destruction from oxidation caused by free radicals. In people with type 1 diabetes, immune system cells produce an enzyme called heparanase, which depletes heparan
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My baby girl had just been born. I was in the postoperation room after going through a cesarean section. My husband went to get my parents, who had been waiting for twelve hours in the waiting room. A nurse laid my little girl in an incubator next to my bed and checked her blood sugar, which was normal, in the mid-40 range. Fifteen minutes later
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Throughout pregnancy and all the way up until labor, I was adamant that I was not having a cesarean section. I was terrified of being cut open because I know that my healing time is longer due to my lowered immune system. In 2009, I had to go to the emergency room for an infection caused by cutting my leg while shaving, so how could
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