Posts Tagged ‘type 2 diabetes’

Diabetes – Having it and not being aware

Among people suffering from diabetes it is safe to say that almost one third of them are not aware of it. Just like the symptoms of growing old, the symptoms  also seem quite harmless. This diabetes blog post tells you about the different types and some of the general symptoms of each to help you comprehend it better.

In this blog post we go over the three main types .

  • Type 1 Diabetes
  • Type 2 Diabetes
  • Gestational Diabetes

Type 1 Diabetes

Type 1  is also called insulin-dependent and immune-mediated diabetes. It crops up when your body cannot generate insulin owing to the fact that the immune system attacks the insulin producing cells in the pancreas. Type 1 diabetes was previously known as juvenile diabetes and is usually seen in children and young adults. Type 1 diabetes amplifies the risk of a number of severe complications such as kidney damage, heart disease, blindness, and nerve damage.

The symptoms of Type 1  include increased thirst and urination, weight loss even with increased appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and fatigue.

Type 2 Diabetes

The most common type that fails to be diagnosed is Type 2 . Type 2  results in symptoms such as kidney and vision problems, skin infections, reduced healing. Sometimes even years and years of suffering from mild symptoms of the same, diabetes is not diagnosed.

The issue here is that more often than not people have no severe symptoms and do not seek medical attention whatsoever; people mostly end up blaming the symptoms on old age. It is for this reason extremely important to get tested on a regular basis once you have passed the age of 40 years.

Gestational Diabetes

Gestational diabetes happens to women during pregnancy. Pregnant women who have never suffered from this disease before but have high blood sugar levels during pregnancy are said to be susceptible to it. It affects almost four percent of all women during pregnancy. Many women that suffer from gestational diabetes believe that their symptoms are due to the pregnancy, it may as well be , but why take the chance.

The Symptoms of Gestational Diabetes include heightened thirst and urination, you end up losing weight inspite of having an increased appetite Weight loss in spite of increased appetite, Blurred vision Fatigue, Nausea and recurrent infections of the bladder and vagina. Regardless if you’re pregnant or not, getting yourself tested for gestational diabetes should be your top priority.

Diabetes Diet Plan Tips For Type 2 Diabetes

No set formula for eating will be able to keep your type 2-diabetes in check. People should determine the most feasible combination for its own health management. There are some specific rules that will help you make the right choice, however. Your food choices will be healthy. Diabetes leads to additional risks of heart disease, stroke, and other serious health problems. Making healthy food choices will benefit your type 2 diabetes as well as helping to steer clear of other health problems. Eat a wide variety of foods available. Do not think that a diet consisting mainly of protein will help you steer clear of blood sugar spikes. The problem with diets is that it could lower your blood sugar levels and bring on ketoacidosis.

Always mix what’s on your plate at every meal or snack. Combining carbohydrates with healthy fats and proteins. Make sure you also get raw vegetables and fruits as well. Eating foods high in fiber can help regulate the speed at which the body absorbs glucose. Be sure to select the fat herbal healthy fats from meat when possible. This will certainly help keep your cholesterol under control. Add whole grains to your diet. Absorbed more slowly than their refined cousins ​​absorb and contain fiber. You eat is as important as what you eat.

Establish a daily routine for meals and snacks spread from about 3 to 5 hours apart. This will help keep your blood sugar stable. Do not consume more than large meals. It is better to have several small meals instead of the great years. Portion control of all types of food can help keep blood sugar levels stable as well. It’s not a good idea to miss meals. You might think it will help you lose weight. But you will also face problems instead of glucose. Enter a diagram will help your body naturally regulate blood sugar. Leave the trend will reverse the problem.

Habit is very important to read labels ever. You will be amazed at the amount of empty calories you eat each day. If you find sugar, corn syrup, high fructose, or something that shows, in particular sugar in the ingredients first, run away from that food. Find healthy ingredients on top. A habit is a great additional constant hydration. Dehydration increases the treatment of type 2 diabetes management. Drink water constantly throughout the day and avoid or limit soft drinks. The caffeine can actually dehydrate even coffee, tea or soda.

Diabetes: Types of Diabetes

There were only 3 major types of diabetes known earlier listed as below:
Type 1 Diabetes – You produce no insulin at all.
Type 2 Diabetes – You don’t produce enough insulin, or your insulin is not working properly.
Gestational Diabetes – You develop diabetes just during your pregnancy.
Diabetes Types 1 & 2 are chronic medical conditions – this means that they are persistent and perpetual. Gestational Diabetes usually resolves itself after the birth of the child. Now a fourth sort of diabetes has been added to this list i.e. Pre-diabetes

Types of diabetesLet’s check out all four types in detail.
1. Type 1 Diabetes
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease i.e. the person’s body has destroyed his/her own insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. It is actually failure of body to produce insulin. Insulin is the hormone that unlocks the cells of the body, allowing glucose to enter and fuel them. Having type 1 diabetes will increase your risk for many serious complications. People with Diabetes Type 1 are not able to produce insulin at all. Most patients with Diabetes Type 1 developed the condition before the age of 40. Approximately 15% of all people with diabetes have Type 1. Some issues of sort 1 diabetes include: coronary heart illness (cardiovascular disease), blindness (retinopathy), nerve damage (neuropathy), and kidney injury (nephropathy).

2. Type 2 Diabetes
A person with type 2 diabetes either does not produce enough insulin or suffers from ‘insulin resistance’. This means that the insulin is not working properly. So it results from insulin resistance (a condition during which the body fails to properly use insulin), mixed with relative insulin deficiency. The majority of people with Type 2 have developed the condition because they are overweight. Type 2 generally appears later on in life, compared to Type 1. Type 2 is the most common form of diabetes. Having type 2 diabetes will increase your danger for a lot of serious complications. Some problems of type 2 diabetes include: heart disease (cardiovascular disease), blindness (retinopathy), nerve harm (neuropathy), and kidney injury (nephropathy). Study extra about these issues and the way to cope with them.

3. Gestational diabetes
Gestational diabetes affects about 4% of all pregnant girls – about a hundred thirty five thousand instances within the United States every year. As a result of gestational diabetes can harm you and your child, it’s good to begin remedy quickly. Treatment for gestational diabetes goals to maintain blood glucose ranges equal to those of pregnant girls who do not have gestational diabetes. Therapy for gestational diabetes always contains particular meal plans and scheduled bodily activity. It could additionally embody every day blood glucose testing and insulin injections. You have to help from your doctor, nurse educator, and different members of your health care team in order that your treatment for gestational diabetes could be changed as needed.

For the mother-to-be, therapy for gestational diabetes helps decrease the risk of a cesarean section start that very massive infants could require. Sticking along with your therapy for gestational diabetes will provide you with a healthy being pregnant and beginning, and may help your child avoid future poor health. (see Diabetes Symptoms)

4. Pre-diabetes
Pre-diabetes is a stage between normal and diabetes stage. It is an alarming sign for upcoming diabetes or a chance to change your future. Universally, numerous terms are given like, Borderline Diabetes, Chemical Diabetes, Touch of Diabetes etc. Pre-diabetes is a situation that happens when an individual’s blood glucose ranges are higher than regular however not excessive sufficient for a prognosis of sort 2 diabetes.

Type 2 Diabetes Drug Approved by NICE

Patients suffering from type 2 diabetes will be able to benefit from an injectable drug that NICE has approved for use by the NHS.

NICE gave its backing to wider use of once-a-day Victoza (liraglutide), designed to help patients stabilise their blood sugar levels.

The drug can be used on obese people as well as diabetics who are not overweight. It acts by reducing appetite and stimulating the release of insulin.

The drug itself differs from insulin in its make-up and provides patients with a “step” between oral tablets and going on to insulin.

NICE has published draft guidance recommending a 1.2mg dose of the drug each day was suitable for some diabetics, but adding there did not appear to be any extra benefit gained from a higher 1.8mg dose.

Victoza must be taken in combination with other diabetes drugs, according to the the guidance, and treatment should only be continued if the patient is benefiting.

Type 2 diabetes is linked to obesity and inactive lifestyles.

Dr Carole Longson, health technology evaluation centre director at NICE, said: “There are about 2.5 million people in the UK living with diabetes – 90% of whom have type 2 diabetes.

“It is a serious, progressive disease, and so we are pleased to be able to recommend liraglutide 1.2mg daily as a clinically and cost effective treatment option for some patients with type 2 diabetes.”

Evidence from the manufacturer Novo Nordisk suggests almost 5,500 patients would go on to the drug in the first year.

Absorption of oral insulin has a fast onset and short duration of action in patients with Type 2 diabetes.

A pilot study has shown that absorption of oral insulin is possible in fasting conditions and that it has a fast onset and short duration of action in patients with Type 2 diabetes.

Oral insulin exhibited early, enhanced pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic responses compared with subcutaneous injection of regular human insulin, report Christoph Kapitza (Profil Institut für Stoffwechselforschung GmbH, Neuss, Germany) and colleagues.

Gastrointestinal absorption of oral insulin is hampered by factors such as enzymatic degradation and lack of permeation through epithelial cells, say the researchers.

They tested the value of combining human insulin with the novel drug-carrier molecule monosodium N-(4-chlorosalicyloyl)-4-aminobutyrate (4-CNAB) to facilitate gastrointestinal absorption in a single-center, open-label randomized study.

The proof-of-concept research included 10 men who had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes for over a year who were not treated with insulin therapy.

Participants underwent an overnight fast before receiving two capsules that each contained 150 U of oral insulin plus 200 mg 4-CNAB, or a subcutaneous injection for 15 U of regular human insulin on two separate occasions separated by up to 20 days.

Maximum plasma insulin concentration was significantly greater with oral administration than subcutaneous injection, at a mean of 93 versus 33 µU/ml. Oral insulin also had a faster onset of action, with a corresponding area under the curve for glucose infusion rates in the first hour of 173 versus 27 mg/kg.

Mean insulin concentration and glucose infusion rate returned to baseline within 3 hours of oral insulin administration. A mean of just 7%was absorbed in the 2 hours following oral insulin administration.

Reporting in the journal Diabetes Care, the team suggests: “The fast pharmacokinetic and metabolic time-profiles of [oral insulin] observed in this study may be advantageous in patients with Type 2 diabetes by restoring normal first phase insulin secretion and potentially leading to an improvement in glycemic control.”

Genital, digestive cancer in women could be due to Type 2 diabetes

Women with Type 2 diabetes have significantly increased risk for genital and digestive cancers compared with their nondiabetic peers, show study results.

However, men and women with diabetes have significantly reduced risks for prostate cancer and skin cancer, respectively.

“Type 2 diabetes mellitus has been associated with an increased risk of a variety of cancers in observational studies, but few have reported the relationship between diabetes and cancer risk in men and women separately,” write Gabriel Chodick (Tel Aviv University, Israel) and team.

They therefore followed up 16,721 Type 2 diabetics and 83,874 nondiabetics (52.6% male) for 8 years for incidence of cancers by gender.

In total, 1639 and 7945 cases of incident cancer were reported in diabetic and nondiabetic participants, respectively, over the study period. Women with diabetes had a significant 23% increase in risk for total cancer compared with nondiabetic women, but no such increase in total cancer risk was seen in diabetic versus nondiabetic men.

Regarding different cancer subtypes, women with diabetes had a significant 96% and 41% increase in relative risk for cancers of the genital and digestive organs, respectively, compared with nondiabetic women.

Conversely, diabetic women were a significant 62% less likely to develop skin cancer than nondiabetic women.

Men with diabetes had a significant 47% reduction in relative risk for prostate cancer compared with nondiabetic men, but no risk increases for any cancer subtypes were observed in men with versus without diabetes.

The reduction in risk for prostate cancer in diabetic men is supported by previous research, as reported by MedWire News.

“For men, this study is good news,” said Chodick. He added that the opposite is true for women and continued: “The interaction of diabetes and female hormones appears to exaggerate the risk, and make certain organs like the uterus and ovaries more receptive to certain kinds of cancer.”

The authors conclude in the journal Cancer Causes and Control that their results “support the development of primary and secondary prevention programs aimed at women with diabetes and increased awareness of diabetes mellitus patients and healthcare personnel to the importance of cancer prevention efforts.”

How to reduce medication use and cost in Type 2 diabetics

Study results show that intensive lifestyle intervention (ILI) reduces cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors more than diabetes support and education (DSE), leading to reduced medication use and lower costs.

Previous results from the Look AHEAD (Action for Health in Diabetes) study, reported by MedWire News, showed that ILI improves quality of life, physical fitness, and weight loss more than DSE in overweight individuals with Type 2 diabetes.

In this study, J Bruce Redmon (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA) and colleagues assessed the impact of ILI versus DSE on use and cost of medications for treatment of CVD in 4358 overweight participants of the Look AHEAD trial aged 45–76 years with complete data at 1 year.

DSE involved general recommendations for healthy eating and increased exercise, attendance at an initial session, and invitations to three additional group sessions over the year. The ILI was more intensive than this, including weekly group treatment and monthly individual sessions with a lifestyle counselor.

As previously reported, patients in the ILI group had significantly greater improvements in CVD risk factors at 1 year than those in the DSE group.

In this study, the team compared use of medications to treat diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia in the ILI and DSE groups at baseline and at 1 year as well as the estimated monthly costs of the medications.

Writing in the journal Diabetes Care, Redmon and co-workers report that patients in the ILI group had significantly lower medication use and costs than those in the DSE group.

At baseline, the Look AHEAD participants were taking an average of 3.3 medications at a monthly cost of approximately US $155 (€129).

At 1 year, the average number of CVD-related medications prescribed to ILI patients was 3.1 versus 3.6 for DSE patients. This corresponds to approximate total monthly costs of $143 (€120) and $173 (€145), respectively.

ILI patients who met optimal care goals at 1 year – glycated hemoglobin below 7%, blood pressure below 130/80 mmHg, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol below 100 mg/dl – were taking an average of 3.2 medications at a mean monthly cost of $154 (€129). This compared with the DSE patients who were taking 3.8 medications on average at a mean monthly cost of $194 (€163).

“Continued intervention and follow-up will determine whether these changes are maintained and reduce cardiovascular risk,” conclude Redmon et al.

“If these changes can be sustained for the long term, the public health benefits would be substantial,” they add.

Use of Anti psychotic increases risk for Type 2 diabetes

Current and initial treatment with the antipsychotic medications olanzapine, clozapine, or mid- and low-potency first-generation antipsychotics (FGA), increases the risk for Type 2 diabetes in schizophrenia patients, report researchers.

However, current aripiprazole treatment was associated with a decreased risk for Type 2 diabetes.

“Diabetes mellitus occurs in schizophrenia patients at higher rates than in the general population,” write Jimmi Nielsen (Aarhus University, Aalborg, Denmark) and team in the journalNeuropsychopharmacology.

“Reasons for this elevated risk are poorly understood and have not been examined prospectively in antipsychotic-naive, first-episode patients,” they say.

To address this, they assessed diabetes risks in all (n=7139) antipsychotic-naive patients diagnosed with schizophrenia between January 1997 and December 2004. The participants were followed up for 6.6 years on average for incident Type 2 diabetes.

Over the follow-up period 307 patients developed Type 2 diabetes with an annual incidence rate of 0.65%.

Patients who were older, those taking antihypertensive or lipid-lowering drugs, and those who had initial treatment with olanzapine or mid-potency FGAs had a significantly shorter time to onset of diabetes than individuals who were younger and those not treated with these drugs.

Treatment with low-potency FGAs, olanzapine, or clozapine was associated with increased risk for diabetes within 3 months of diabetes development with odds ratios of 1.52, 1.44, and 1.67, respectively. But aripiprazole treatment reduced the relative risk for incident Type 2 diabetes by 49% compared with no aripiprazole treatment.

“The results from this largest cohort study of antipsychotic-naive schizophrenia patients indicate that in addition to general diabetes risk factors, such as higher age, hypertension, and dyslipidemia… diabetes is promoted by initial treatment with olanzapine and mid-potency FGAs, as well as by current treatment with low-potency FGAs, olanzapine, and clozapine,” summarize Nielsen et al.

They suggest that their results indicate that “educational actions and quality control and improvement initiatives should be taken and studied to improve cardiometabolic outcomes in the vulnerable schizophrenia patients.”

Diabetes Epidemic because of self-inflicted Obesity

One of the greatest contributors to the type 2 diabetes epidemic is reckoned to be obesity brought on by our modern lifestyles.

Are you eating yourself into diabetes type 2?

Check if you have these 4 eating habits that could contribute to obesity and possibly make you part of the type 2 diabetes epidemic…

1)  Unconscious eating…  No, I don’t mean ‘sleep-eating’ (I wonder if there is such a thing?) I’m talking about automatic eating without any conscious thought to what is happening.

How often do you do something else whilst eating?  Watching TV; reading a book; reading a magazine or newspaper; listening to music, a radio show or conversation?  If you’re anything like me it’s probably a rare occasion when you just sit and have a meal, without interruptions.

A recent study carried out by Penn State laboratory showed pre-school children, who consistently watch TV whilst eating, ate up to 33% more than they did when they had a meal without the TV on.

How much extra do you eat, without realizing it, because you are absorbed in a book or TV program?

2)  Eating speed.. Ever finished your meal before others?  Ever bolted your food down and then felt bloated afterwards?

In a recent Sky TV program Paul McKenna (the famous hypnotherapist) explained how the simple act of slowing down whilst eating; putting your knife and fork down between mouthfuls, can contribute to weight loss.

Think about it, if you’re eating more slowly you’ll know when you are full.  You won’t continue eating and get that uncomfortable bloated feeling.  And you won’t put extra weight on.

Watching that program gave me an ‘Aha!’ moment, because that’s exactly what my father has done all his life. It’s a standing joke in the family that he takes so long to eat a meal – he often finishes half-an-hour after everyone else.  And guess what?  Yep – he’s as skinny as a rake.  Wish I could say the same about me!

3)  Snacking…  Are you really hungry when you snack?  Or is it that you “just fancy a bite to eat”?

Snacking is probably one of the biggest contributions to weight gain.  It’s not so much the snacking, it’s what you snack on! Cookies /biscuits, chocolate, cakes, snack bars – all these contain massive amounts of sugar that increase the burden on our immune system.  If you overload your system with sugar it may not cope, you could end up with insulin resistance and that leads to type 2 diabetes.

Healthy, no added sugar or sugar free snacks are the best options if you MUST snack.

4)   Sugary drinks… Do you have a favorite soft drink?  If you do, is it a sugar-sweetened drink or a concentrated sugar-rich fruit juice?  And, on a hot day, how much do you drink of that favorite?  Half-a-liter? One liter?

It’s all added sugar, which not only impacts on your weight, it also impacts on your body’s control of the sugar levels in your blood.

In a recent medical study in the US the results indicated that having just one sugar sweetened drink of fruit juice every day made women more susceptible to becoming part of the type 2 diabetes epidemic, by up to 80%.

So, are you planning to be part of the diabetes epidemic? OK, maybe you’re not PLANNING to… but maybe your unconscious eating habits have got you on that slippery slope to diabetes.  A little thought about what you eat, where and how, can reduce the risk for you.