StemCell Therapy

During your pregnancy, you might dread the renowned sugar test that your doctor will probably order around 2428 weeks. You have to drink a sugary liquid and wait around for its effects to spread throughout your system. If you screen through the one-hour and three-hour tests with both positive results, youll have to work with your doctor to keep your blood sugar stable through a proper diet, often called an ADA diet. With this diet plan, many pregnant women can control their gestational diabetes and deliver happy, healthy babies.

What is an ADA diet?

Simply put, the ADA diet is a meal plan recommended by the American Diabetes Association for those dealing with diabetes. This diet encourages you to eat a variety of healthy foods while watching the intake of starches and sugar. You should also choose foods high in vitamins and minerals and balance starch with fiber to keep your sugar levels under control.

In addition, the American Diabetes Association recommends that you work with a dietitian and/or your doctor to learn about proper nutrition for gestational diabetes. If you cannot control your sugar levels through the ADA diet alone, your doctor may add insulin shots.

Controlling Blood Sugar

To control your blood sugar through diet, you can choose one of several ways: carbohydrate counting, the glycemic index, or the plate method. All of these methods focus on balancing starchy foods with protein and low-starch vegetables to improve energy, control weight, and balance blood sugar.

Carbohydrate Counting

For carbohydrate counting, you and your doctor will work to set a number of carbs that you will incorporate into each meal. At first, this process may have some trial and error since your carb intake will depend upon your lifestyle, metabolism, and physical activity. Once you have a set number, youll need to learn the amount of carbs in the foods that you eat. You should never exceed your carbohydrate limit during a meal.

The Glycemic Index

If you choose to use the glycemic index, you will need to incorporate mostly foods that are low or medium on the scale. With this system, youll still need to work closely with medical help since one food may change its glycemic index when paired with another food. For example, you can eat a food high on the glycemic index with one lower on the scale to balance out the glycemic effects.

The Plate Method

To use the plate method, you would aim to fill a certain portion of your plate with either protein, non-starchy vegetables, or starches. You may find this method the easiest one to use, but it doesnt always fit a persons lifestyle.

According toStephanie Dunbar, ADAs director of nutrition and medical affairs, you should fill half your plate with non-starchy vegetables. Then, you can fill another quarter with protein and the final portion with whole grains or starchy vegetables. Finish with a small serving of fruit and low-fat dairy, and youll leave yourself filled and happily balanced.

Choose Foods Wisely

When planning meals for gestational diabetes, you should make wise choices about the foods you eat. You will need to restrain yourself with some types of food and completely eliminate others from your diet. Below, youll find examples that you can eat and some that you should avoid.

Foods to Eat

Foods to Avoid

While having gestational diabetes does require some diet changes and extra care, you can still enjoy filling, healthful foods throughout your pregnancy. Then, with your doctors guidance and the balanced ADA diet, you should successfully control your sugar levels and deliver a happy, healthy baby into the world.

Dr. Manny Alvarez serves as Fox News Channel's senior managing health editor. He also serves as chairman of the department of obstetrics/gynecology and reproductive science at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. Click here for more information on Dr. Manny's work with Hackensack University Medical Center. Visit AskDrManny.com for more.

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Caring for your gestational diabetes - Fox News

Science Daily

New role for immune cells in preventing diabetes and hypertension Science Daily Immune cells which are reduced in number by obesity could be a new target to treat diseases such as type 2 diabetes and hypertension that affect overweight people, according to a collaborative study between the University of Manchester, Lund University ... Targeting immune cells could treat diabetes and high blood pressure in obese peopleFierceBiotech all 2 news articles »

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New role for immune cells in preventing diabetes and hypertension - Science Daily

Nearly 30 million Americans have diabetes -- a condition where the body fails to properly metabolize sugar. Left untreated, thatsugar builds up in the bloodstream and the body, which can lead to a number ofserious additional health problems such ascardiovascular disease, kidneydisease and eye disease.

Treating diabetes is expensive, costing America alone some $322 billion each year. Naturally, a market that big has attracted plenty of companies to focus on the disease state. Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO),Insulet (NASDAQ:PODD), and DexCom (NASDAQ:DXCM)are three such businesses, and I think that they all could be great choices for investors.

Image Source: Getty Images.

Many people who have diabetes take drugs to help keep their blood sugar levels in check. One of the long-term leaders in the industry isNovo Nordisk, a Danish drugmaker that has been selling insulin for nearly a century.

Novo's top line has charged upward for years as it brought new treatments to market. Recent hits includeTresiba, a long-acting insulin that has been taking share from Sanofi's megahit Lantus, andVictoza, a GLP-1 inhibitor that lowers blood sugar levels and tends to help some patients lose weight. Novo also boasts a number of new drugs that should be coming to market soon, such as the recently FDA-approved Xultophy, which combines Victoza and Tresiba, andFiasp, an ultra-fast rapid-acting mealtime insulin.

And yet, despite its long history of successful drug development and its leadership position in treating an increasingly common disease, Novo's share price and valuation have been crushed over the past year.

NVO data by YCharts

What gives? You can blame the decline on increasingpricing pressurefrom insurers on the company's legacy products. To maintain its market share, Novo has been offering discounts. As a result, management dropped its long-term profit growth target from 10% to 5%.

While the waning profit growth is disappointing, I can't help but think that the markets have overreacted. Novo's still cranking out profits, and it has a huge tailwind at its back, so I can't help but like its long-term prospects. With shares trading at a discount and offering up a dividend yield approaching 4%, I think this is a top stock for conservative investors to consider.

Not every person who has diabetes requires insulin injections to stay healthy, but millions of them do. Those daily injections can be a pain, and dosing with precision can be difficult, which is why many insulin-dependent patients prefer instead to use an insulin pump.

However, wearing a pump presents its own issues. Traditional insulin pumps require tubing, which can easily get snagged or tangled during everyday living. To solve that problem, Insulet launched a patch pump called the OmniPod that is worn directly on the body and disposedof after three days of use. The device is alsowaterproof and features automatic cannula insertion, which makes it far easier for patients to place it in tough to reach spots.

Insulet's unique tube-free system has allowed it to gobble up market share over the last decade. Better yet, the company's "razor-and-blade" business model creates a lot of recurring revenue. When combined, the company's top-line -- and share price -- have soared.

PODD Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts

While Insulet is still losing money, there's reason to believe that profits could finally be on the horizon. Revenue from the company's core OmniPod business is still growing by double-digit percentagesboth stateside and abroad. Meanwhile, the other drug delivery business is growing nicely, powered mostly by the company's partnership with Amgen. Margins are also on the riseand are expected to continue to push higher. Longer term, CEO Patrick Sullivan expects the company to pump out more than $1 billion in revenue. If the company can hit that ambitious target, its top line would nearly triple.

Of course, Wall Street is aware of the company's potential and has priced shares at more than seven times sales. While that's a pricey valuation, if the company can deliver on its growth targets, I could easily see shares continuing to outperform from here.

Many people with diabetes are required to measure their blood sugar levels at various times during theday in order to ensure it is within a healthy range. For most, this requires a finger prick to obtain a small blood sample that is tested on a monitor. As you may guess, this isn't a process that many people like.

In an effort to ease this burden, Dexcom launched a small medical device a decade ago that is worn on the body for up to seven days and continuously measures blood glucose levels. This information is then uploaded directly to a smartphone or other receiver, making it far easier for users to track their blood sugar, and allowing them to do it in real time.

This product -- now called the DexcomG5Mobile Continuous Glucose Monitoring System -- has been wildly successful. Like Insulet, Dexcom also benefits from a razor-and-blade business model, which has allowed the company's revenue to soar. In turn, long-term shareholders have been extremely well rewarded.

DXCM Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts

Despite its history of success, there's reason to believe that DexCom's growth engine is just getting warmed up. The company only counts 200,000 patients as active users, just a small fraction of the415 million people with diabetes worldwide.

While Dexcom is still losing money, that's expected to change in 2017. However, Wall Street has caught on to this growth story and is valuing the company at 11 times sales. Despite that nose-bleed valuation, I still think shares could be worth owning since the company is closing in on profitability and staring down a massive growth opportunity. Share prices are likely to remain volatile for the foreseeable future, but if you are a growth investor at heart, I think that DexCom is certainly worthy of a closer look.

Brian Feroldi owns shares of Insulet. The Motley Fool recommends Insulet and Novo Nordisk. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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3 Top Diabetes Care Stocks to Buy in 2017 - Motley Fool

New York Times

Patient Voices: Type 2 Diabetes - The New York Times New York Times Nearly 400 million people around the world have Type 2 diabetes, including about 28 million in the United States. Of those, as many as eight million don't know ... and more »

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Patient Voices: Type 2 Diabetes - The New York Times - New York Times

Type 2 diabetes is generally considered to be a chronic health condition that can't be cured once it develops, and can only be managed with a combination of medication and healthy living assisted by gastric band (bariatric) surgery in some cases.

But new research suggests that people may actually be able to beat the disease for set periods, by undertaking an intensive short-term course of medical treatment that's been shown to reverse type 2 diabetes in a significant proportion of patients.

"By using a combination of oral medications, insulin, and lifestyle therapies to treat patients intensively for two to four months, we found that up to 40 percent of participants were able to stay in remission three months after stopping diabetes medications," says one of the researchers, Natalia McInnes from McMaster University in Canada.

"The findings support the notion that type 2 diabetes can be reversed, at least in the short term not only with bariatric surgery, but with medical approaches."

Type 2 diabetes is caused by the body not producing enough insulin the hormone that enables cells to absorb glucose - or becominginsulin resistant. As a consequence, blood sugars build up in the body, and can lead to serious health problems like organ damage and heart disease.

Over 29 million Americans have type 2 diabetes, and estimates indicate that it could cost the US health care system as much as US$512 billion annually by 2021 so any interventions that can effectively treat the condition are desperately needed.

To investigate whether intensive health treatments could trigger remission in type 2 diabetes patients, the researchers recruited 83 participants with the condition and randomly divided them into three groups.

Two of these groups received the short-term interventions lasting for eight weeks or 16 weeks respectively where they were given personalised exercise plans, meal plans that lowered their calorie intake by 500 to 750 calories a day, and regular meetings with a nurse and dietitian.

During the treatment period, they also took insulin and a set course of oral medications to help them manage the condition.

The third group of participants acted as controls, and received standard blood sugar management and health advice during the same period.

Three months after the experiment, 11 out of 27 patients in the 16-week intervention group showed complete or partial diabetes remission, as did six out of 28 individuals in the eight-week group.

Comparatively, only four of the participants in the control group showed signs of remission as a result of receiving standard, non-intensive health advice and the team thinks this gap is evidence that there's a lot more we can do to try and fight off, rather than just manage, the disease.

"The research might shift the paradigm of treating diabetes from simply controlling glucose to an approach where we induce remission and then monitor patients for any signs of relapse," says McInnes.

"The idea of reversing the disease is very appealing to individuals with diabetes. It motivates them to make significant lifestyle changes and to achieve normal glucose levels with the help of medications."

To be clear, that motivation and sense of purpose has to be kept up in the long term for the health gains and subsequent diabetes reversal to actually persist for longer than three months.

A year after the trial, the difference between participants who received the treatment and those that did not had become negligible, indicating that more work is needed to figure out how to make type 2 diabetes remission a permanent proposition.

"If you don't sustain the lifestyle intervention, then the disease is going to come back," endocrinologist Philip Kern from University of Kentucky, who wasn't involved with the study, told HealthDay News.

While the remission did not persist and the results reported here are based on only a small sample of participants in the trial the findings are the latest to give scientists hope that type 2 diabetes can be beaten if patients commit to dietary and lifestyle changes.

Last month, a study by researchers from the University of Southern California found that a fasting diet in mice could reverse diabetes and repair the pancreas.

And in Britain, researchers being funded by charity Diabetes UK are currently running a large clinical trial to investigate whether diabetes can be reversed in the long term if people stick to a low calorie diet.

"We're looking forward to seeing the results in 2018. In the meantime, we encourage people with type 2 diabetes to follow a healthy diet that is low in sugar, saturated fats, and salt," Diabetes UK spokesperson Emily Burns told Sarah Knapton at the The Telegraph.

"We know that diet, exercise, and medications can help people with Type 2 diabetes to manage their condition. We're starting to see mounting evidence that putting type 2 diabetes into remission is feasible as well."

The findings are reported in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

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Type 2 Diabetes Has Been "Reversed" in 40% of Patients for 3 Months - ScienceAlert

DALLAS, March 17, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --Tracy Herbert was diagnosed September 1978 at the age of 17 with Juvenile Diabetes. She learned how to give herself shots by practicing on an orange during a one-week stay in the hospital during complications. The diagnosis was that she would die within 20 years and that she would never have children. Upon researching her disease in the library for months she decided to make drastic diet changes and set off on a life plan to beat the disease. In May of 2016, she wrote a book called "Diabetes Tragedy to Triumph" which chronicles the life plan and success over her 40-year journey of defeating the disease of Type 1 Diabetes.

Tracy is married and has two children and has made a decision on what to accomplish on her 40th birthday celebration from conquering diabetes. She will be riding her bike from the Golden Gate Bridge in California to the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. Her 20th celebration was completing the "Hotter than Hell" 100-mile bike race while her 30th anniversary she completed a triathlon even though she is scared of water. "The Lord has blessed me and people need to understand that diabetes does not have to rule your life," says Tracy.

Many people question the term "celebrate" but her life changed that moment in 1978. Because of what she learned about how important the mindset is along with smart eating and moving all the time, she has been spreading the word about living healthy with or without diabetes for her entire adult life. Her 40th celebration isn't until 2018 but we don't know what tomorrow holds. This is why at the age of 55 she will be celebrating her 56th birthday riding her bike to celebrate life and living successfully with Type 1 diabetes. Of course, she will be riding with all her diabetes supplies, which includes insulin because without insulin she can die.

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/diabetes-survivor-rides-her-bike-from-golden-gate-bridge-to-brooklyn-bridge-300425242.html

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Diabetes Survivor Rides Her Bike From Golden Gate Bridge to Brooklyn Bridge - Yahoo Finance

An intriguing study, published this week in the journal Endocrinology, compares the benefits of whole-body vibration with regular exercise. Could this innovative intervention help to stave off obesity and diabetes? Preliminary findings suggest that it could.

It is difficult to ignore the obesity crisis currently sweeping across the United States and the rest of the West. As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) write: "Obesity is common, serious, and costly."

More than a third of U.S. adults are obese and, in some states, over 35 percent of adults fall into the obese category.

It is now well documented that obesity brings with it a range of negative health consequences, not least of which is diabetes.

One of the best ways to combat obesity is physical activity, but many people struggle to exercise regularly for a number of reasons. Anything that can either replace or add to the benefits of exercise could be hugely beneficial for a large proportion of the population.

A team of researchers from Augusta University in Georgia, led by Meghan E. McGee-Lawrence, set out to investigate a potential alternative to exercise - whole-body vibration (WBV).

WBV involves standing, sitting, or lying on a machine with a vibrating platform. As the machine vibrates, it transmits energy through the body, resulting in muscles contracting and relaxing many times per second.

First tested for its therapeutic benefits in the late 19th century, WBV has been studied for use in a range of situations. For instance, the European Space Agency is investigating it as a potential way to maintain muscle mass on long space flights.

Over recent years, WBV has also been assessed for use in a number of medical conditions. For example, a study in 2009 concluded that WBV might be beneficial for increasing muscle strength in the knees of females with osteoarthritis. Another study from the same year showed that WBV improved cardiorespiratory fitness and muscle strength in older adults. Similarly, an investigation in older adults found that WBV could help to improve balance.

The current project set out to understand whether WBV could mimic the benefits of regular exercise on muscle and bone. McGee-Lawrence and her team studied the effect in a mouse model.

Five-week-old male mice were used in the study: half were normal mice, and the rest were genetically unresponsive to leptin. Leptin is a hormone that helps to generate a sense of fullness; animals without a leptin response are predisposed to overeating and are therefore more likely to develop obesity and diabetes.

Both types of mice were split into three experimental groups:

For the first week, the mice were allowed to get used to their equipment. Then, a 12-week exercise regimen began. They were weighed each week.

At the end of the trial, the genetically obese, diabetic mice showed similar benefits from both treadmill exercise and WBV. The obese mice gained less weight following WBV and exercise than the obese mice in the sedentary group, although they were still heavier than the normal mice.

Both exercise and WBV increased muscle mass and improved insulin sensitivity in the obese mice.

"Our study is the first to show that whole-body vibration may be just as effective as exercise at combatting some of the negative consequences of obesity and diabetes. While WBV did not fully address the defects in bone mass of the obese mice in our study, it did increase global bone formation, suggesting longer-term treatments could hold promise for preventing bone loss as well."

Meghan E. McGee-Lawrence, Ph.D.

Although WBV is not intended to entirely replace exercise, it could play an important role for individuals who either cannot exercise or cannot exercise enough. However, although the results are encouraging, they should be reinterpreted with caution; as McGee-Lawrence says, "because our study was conducted in mice, this idea needs to be rigorously tested in humans to see if the results would be applicable to people."

Learn how obesity and diabetes might be prevented by a novel protein.

Originally posted here:
Can whole-body vibration stave off obesity and diabetes? - Medical News Today

By Karen Pallarito

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, March 15, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Instead of managing type 2 diabetes as a chronic condition, what if people could beat the disease?

That was the thinking behind a small pilot study, which suggested that intensive treatment with oral medicine, insulin, diet and exercise might knock out the disease, at least for several months, in certain patients.

Up to 40 percent of patients who were treated experienced complete or partial remission for three months, the study found.

"We are now able to possibly reverse diabetes, and that really motivates patients to do their best in terms of losing weight and making sure their sugars are normalized," said lead author Dr. Natalia McInnes.

She's an assistant professor of endocrinology and metabolism at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada.

However, relatively few participants remained in remission a year later, diabetes experts noted.

"Rates of diabetes remission did not appear to differ significantly at 52 weeks between 'control' and 'intervention' groups, so the effects do not appear to be sustained," said Dr. Christine Lee of the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).

And, Dr. Philip Kern, professor of endocrinology at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, added, "If you don't sustain the lifestyle intervention, then the disease is going to come back."

The bodies of people with type 2 diabetes don't use insulin properly. Insulin is a hormone that helps move sugar into cells to be used as fuel. At first, the body responds by making more insulin, but eventually, your body cannot make enough insulin to keep up with the demand. This leads to increasing blood sugar levels. Over time, uncontrolled blood sugar levels can damage the nerves, eyes, kidneys or heart, according to the American Diabetes Association.

Adults newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes were invited to participate in the trial. Each was randomly assigned to receive either two months or four months of treatment, or "usual diabetes care" (the control group).

The trial included 83 people, aged 30 to 80 years. The participants had had type 2 diabetes for up to three years, and managed their diabetes with diet alone or with one or two drugs. People already taking insulin were excluded from the study.

Senior investigator Dr. Hertzel Gerstein of McMaster University devised the drug combo used in the trial, McInnes said.

Patients received two oral diabetes medicines -- metformin (Glucophage, Glumetza, Fortamet) and acarbose (Precose) -- plus a long-acting type of injectable insulin called insulin glargine (Lantus), based on evidence that these drugs can slow or prevent diabetes, Gerstein explained in a news release from the Endocrine Society.

Once the experiment began, the two intervention groups stopped other diabetes medicines and started the new regimen, according to the report.

A dietician provided a suggested meal plan, encouraging patients to cut 500 to 750 calories a day.

A kinesiologist (body movement expert) prescribed individual fitness programs with a goal of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week, by week 16 of the trial. Patients were also given pedometers and instructed to work toward 10,000 steps per day.

Control group members received standard blood-sugar management advice, the study authors noted.

Hemoglobin A1c tests, which measure average blood sugar levels over the past two to three months, were administered at four points during the study. An A1c level below 5.7 percent is considered normal, according to the American Diabetes Association.

In the study, complete remission was defined as an A1c under 6.0 percent and no need for diabetes medication. Partial remission was an A1c of less than 6.5 percent and no need for diabetes medication.

Three months after the intervention, 11 out of 27 people in the 16-week study group experienced complete or partial diabetes remission, versus six out of 28 in the eight-week study group, and four out of 28 in the control group, the researchers found.

It isn't clear whether the diabetes remission was due to medical therapy with drugs or weight loss with intensive lifestyle therapy, said NIDDK's Lee, who is program director in the diabetes, endocrinology and metabolic diseases division.

The study authors didn't evaluate the cost of the intervention versus potential cost savings. McInnes suspects it would save money in the long term if it reversed the disease and prevented expenses related to ongoing diabetes care and complications.

She said additional studies are needed to assess whether it's possible to achieve higher, and prolonged, rates of remission with similar combinations of therapies.

Kern said the study serves as a reminder that lifestyle interventions in diabetes "really do work."

The study was published online March 15 in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

WebMD News from HealthDay

SOURCES: Natalia McInnes, M.D., assistant professor, endocrinology and metabolism, department of medicine, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada; Christine Lee, M.D., program director, division of diabetes, endocrinology and metabolic diseases, U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md.; Philip Kern, professor of endocrinology, University of Kentucky, Lexington; March 15, 2017, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, online

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Intensive Type 2 Diabetes Treatment Promising - WebMD

Diabetes mellitus is a huge concern in Lancaster County and the surrounding areas; roughly 15 percent of people in Lancaster have diabetes. Diabetes is a multifocal problem. Patients are more likely to have high blood pressure, a stroke, heart disease, blindness, poor circulation to the lower extremities, and even mortality.

Per 100,000 people in Lancaster, 362 will die as a result of diabetes. When diabetes is poorly managed, the risks for complications greatly increase. It is extremely important for diabetics to always have the supplies they need to control their blood sugars.

As your article mentioned, supplies are often too costly to buy. This leaves patients buying cheaper, expired supplies that may be faulty.

Nationally, we spend $174 billion annually on diabetic care. This number will continue to rise as more people are diagnosed with diabetes. I urge you to continue to write well-informed articles on diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure. We can bring more awareness to the disease by sharing these alarming statistics.

Rather then just writing on the cost of the disease, I encourage you to increase the knowledge of Lancaster residents. The newspaper is a prime opportunity to educate people who are at high risk for diabetes and how they can decrease their risk. We must try to decrease our rates of countywide diabetes or we will continue to see these problems.

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Educate the public about diabetes | Letters To The Editor ... - LancasterOnline

Health Check 12: Diabetes Awareness

Nicole Zymek, KPNX 5:41 PM. MST March 12, 2017

Photo: ELMER MARTINEZ/AFP/Getty Images (Photo: ELMER MARTINEZ, 2011 AFP)

PHOENIX - Here's a sobering fact: one in three Americans has pre-diabetes, and 90 percent of them don't know about it.

"Diabetes is an epidemic in our country right now, and it's becoming a real health problem," said Dr. Tiffany Pankow, a Family Medicine doctor with HonorHealth.

More than 29 million Americans are living with diabetes, and 86 million are pre-diabetic.

The good news is Type 2 diabetes is preventable.

Looking at a patient's risk factors and testing to see if there's abnormalities in blood sugar can be the difference.

"If we can find those patients early, we can get them on different lifestyle choices, get them eating healthier, get them moving, and we can actually prevent this," said Dr. Pankow.

What is Dr. Pankow's No. 1 piece of advice? Find out you have it early.

Which means, if you have any of the following risk factors, talk to your doctor about getting your blood sugar tested:

2017 KPNX-TV

Link:
Health Check: Diagnose diabetes early - 12news.com

Lisa Miller and Sanford Miller enrolled in a Methodist Hospital's diabetes prevention program each loosing over 20 pounds after Sanford was diagnosed prediabetic and both registered high cholesterol.(Photo: Jim Weber, The Commercial Appeal)Buy Photo

Construction worker Sanford Miller rarely ate a midday mealthat didn't include a fast-food burger andfries because, as he says, "that's what you did for lunch."

Not any more.

With his weight, cholesteroland blood-sugar levels surging, Miller, 56, decided to make a change. He and his wife Lisa joined a diabetes-prevention class at Methodist Le Bonheur Germantown Hospitaland began taking walks and eatinga more healthful diet. TheMemphis native and Olive Branch resident not only shed nearly 30 pounds, but lowered hisblood-sugar levels from the pre-diabetes range to normal.

Much like Miller, Michelle Norman says she was"absolutely" destined fordiabetes, what with her family history and struggles to manage weight. But that was before she became an exercise devotee, bicycling up to 150 miles at a time and leading a regular Zumba class.Although still considered pre-diabetic, the 49-year-old Whitehaven resident has reversed the steady increase in her glucose levels, which now are dropping toward the normal range.

Miller and Norman are among a growing number of people acrossGreater Memphis and Tennessee who are eludingone of the region's most widespread and devastatinghealth problems diabetes without prescription drugs.Under the National Diabetes Prevention Program, local hospitals and healthcare providers are targeting pre-diabetic residents for intervention efforts focused mostly on diet, exercise and behavioral changes.

There are early, but tantalizing signs that the effort is helpingbluntwhat area health officials have described as an epidemic. The number of new diabetes cases diagnosed in Shelby County fell nearly 19 percent, from a peak of 7,918 in 2008 to 6,439 in 2013, the most recent year for which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has statistics.

Other urban counties in Tennessee have experienced similar drops. In Davidson County, new cases fell from a high of 5,201 in 2007 to 4,032 in 2013, while Knox County experienced a decline from 3,964 to 2,642 during the same period.

Not eventhose declines, however, change the fact that Type 2 or "adult" diabetes remains a major scourge. Greater Memphis,along with most of Tennessee, lies within what the CDC calls the "diabetes belt,"a 644-county region stretching from eastern Texas to West Virginia and the Carolinas in which 11 percent or more of the adult population has been diagnosed with the disease.

In Shelby County alone, more than 82,000 people, or 12.2 percent of the adult population, had diabetes in 2013, according to CDC data. Although thatfigurerepresentsa leveling-off from the previous twoyears, it'ssignificantly higher than2004, when fewer than 60,000residents, 9.4 percent of the adult population, had the disease. In Davidson and Knox counties, the percentage of adults with diabetes in 2013 was 10.6 and 11.2, respectively.

Characterized by an excess of glucose in the blood, diabetes is an incurable disease that can lead to nerve damage, blindness, kidney disease, heart trouble and death. It kills nearly 250 people in Shelby County each year.

The disease also presents a crushing cost burden. People diagnosed with diabetes at age 50 will spend up to $135,600 more in lifetime medical costs than those without it, according to a 2014 study.Nationally, the disease produces an annual$245billion drain on the economy, including$5.8 billion in Tennessee.

But while it may not be curable, diabetes is clearly preventable, even among those who are especially at-risk because theirblood-sugar levels have reached the pre-diabetic stage.

Dr. Sam Dagogo-Jack, professor of medicine and chief of the division of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, helped lead a major studyshowing that lifestyleand diet changes can reduce by up to 58 percent the occurrence of diabetes amongpeople who are pre-diabetic. Lifestyle and diet, the study showed, wasalmost twice as effective as medication in preventing the transition from pre-diabetes to diabetes.

"We can prevent the progression from pre-diabetes to diabetes, and even sweeter still, we can observe remission from pre-diabetes back to normal glucose levels," Dagogo-Jack told The Commercial Appeal in a 2015 interview.

While 29.1 million Americans have been diagnosed with the disease, 86 million others have pre-diabetes. Because it typically takes five to 10 years for pre-diabetes to turn intoto diabetes, specialattention should be focused on that lattergroup, Dagogo-Jack said.

"Very few diseases give you that much of a window of opportunity for intervention."

People at-risk for diabetes include those who are obese, overweight and sedentary, orhave a family history of the disease. Also, certain ethnic groups, including African-Americans, are more predisposed to diabetes.

Jennifer Reed, diabetes program manager at the Baptist Medical Group Outpatient Care Center, said just the loss of 5-10 percent of body weight can have a "tremendous effect" on blood-sugar levels. She citessugary drinks, particularly thatSouthern favorite, sweet tea, asa good place to start cutting back.

Kristy Merritt,diabetes education coordinator, Methodist Le Bonheur Germantown, instructs at-risk people how to eat healthier, become more active and manage their stress. She said that among arecent class of nine participants, the average weight loss was 7.65 percent, and, by the end of the program,all had reduced blood-sugar levels to the point they were no longer pre-diabetic.

At Church Health, at-risk patients are assigned health coaches help thembecome more active and improve their diets and behavior. It's led to significant reductions in blood-sugar levels, said Dr. Scott Morris, CEO, and the effort should become even more successful with the organization's imminent move to Crosstown Concourse, where the Church Health YMCA is opening.

Preventing diabetes has become a major focus of private-practice physicians in the city. Patients of Dr. Beverly Williams-Cleaves benefit fromthe workout room and learning kitchen at her practice on Lamar. "Between the exercise and nutrition, I have several (pre-diabetic patients)who have totally corrected" their blood-sugar levels, she said.

David Sweat, chief of epidemiology for the Shelby County Health Department, said the key to controlling diabetes is reducing the area's high rate of obesity. There are some hopeful signs in that regard, as well. CDC figures show a slight dip in the county's obesity rate, from 34.7 percent in 2011 to 32.3 percent two years later.

Sweat said the recent addition of walking and bicycling trails is having an effect.

"It's very heartening. If you're out on the (Shelby Farms) Greenline, or atShelby Farms, you see a lot of people walking, biking and hiking," he said.

Reach Tom Charlier by email at thomas.charlier@commercialappeal.com, by phone at (901) 529-2572, or on Twitter at @thomasrcharlier.

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Positive Outcomes in Type 2 Diabetes Treatment Intensification Endocrinology Advisor HealthDay News For patients with type 2 diabetes, not delaying intensification of oral antidiabetic drugs is associated with greater reductions in hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), and with reduced risks of cardiovascular events and amputations, according to ...

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The research, the first of its kind, could pave the way for an overhaul in the management of the condition which is linked to obesity and affects almost three million people in the UK.

Most diabetics are advised to eat a balanced diet, including carbohydrates.

However, scientists, who carried out the study on 238 patients, found that restricting carbohydrates and increasing fat led to dramatic improvements.

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Half the patients saw their condition reversed after just 10 weeks and were able to reduce or stop taking diabetes drugs.

This is the first time we have seen such a drastic change in such a large group of people outside bariatric [weight loss] surgery

Professor Sarah Hallberg

Eighty nine per cent of those in the study, who had been reliant on insulin due to the severity of their disease, were able to dramatically reduce or stop taking it.

Professor Sarah Hallberg, an expert in obesity medicine, who led the study at Indiana University, said: This is the first time we have seen such a drastic change in such a large group of people outside bariatric [weight loss] surgery.

It is something we would never previously have known was possible. I was so blown over by the results and we should now think about using this approach as a standard of care as it outperforms current treatment.

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People should be aware signs and symptoms of diabetes are not always obvious and the condition is often diagnosed during GP check ups.

She added: Diabetes is a state of carbohydrate toxicity. Insulin resistance is a state of carbohydrate intolerance.

"Carbohydrate intake is the single biggest factor in blood sugar levels.

Type 2 diabetes is a serious disorder leading to high blood glucose levels because the body is unable to make proper use of insulin, the hormone which metabolises sugar.

Without insulin, sugar derails the metabolism causing life-threatening conditions such as cancer, heart and liver disease.

Current guidance states there is inconclusive evidence to recommend a specific carbohydrate limit.

Professor Hallberg said this advice needs to be changed because she believes Type 2 can be reversed, in many if not most situations, especially if treated early.

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The results of the study, which will be finalised over the next year, have excited experts.

Professor David Haslam, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, said: This study is highly significant and suggests carbohydrates are damaging. We urgently need to conduct more studies to confirm this finding and this I hope will lead to a complete overhaul of the management of Type 2 diabetes.

The charity Diabetes UK is funding another clinical trial to assess the impact of a low-calorie diet.

The study of 280 patients from 30 GP practices will also assess whether the diet could be delivered through routine NHS care.

The results are due in 2018.

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(Reuters Health) - Women who got their first period at age 11 or earlier are at higher risk of developing diabetes during pregnancy, a recent Australian study suggests.

Being overweight is known to be a factor in early periods and also in whats known as gestational diabetes, but it did not fully explain the link between the two conditions, the researchers write in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Diabetes develops in as many as 9 percent of pregnant women in the United States and can carry serious health risks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Mothers with gestational diabetes are more likely to have high blood pressure and go into premature labor, said lead study author Danielle Schoenaker, a research officer at The University of Queensland.

There are also consequences for the baby, which is more likely to grow faster and be larger at birth, Schoenaker told Reuters Health by email. In the longer term, both mothers and their children are at higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes later in life.

To explore the link between womens age at first menstruation, known as menarche, and their risk of developing gestational diabetes, the study team analyzed data on nearly 5,000 women participating in the larger Australian Longitudinal Study on Womens Health between 2000 and 2012.

The women included in the analysis all reported a live birth during the study and had completed a questionnaire every three to four years, answering questions about when they had their first period and whether they were diagnosed or treated for diabetes during pregnancy. None had type 2 diabetes or a previous history of gestational diabetes at the start of the study.

The average age at which women got their first period was just under 13 years, researchers found.

Women who had their first period at or before age 11 were more likely to have been overweight in childhood, to engage in little physical activity as adults and to currently be overweight or obese.

Overall, 357 women, or about 7.5 percent of the participants, reported being diagnosed with gestational diabetes. These women were also more likely to be overweight or obese and to have a sedentary lifestyle at the beginning of the study.

Women who got their first period before age 11 were 51 percent more likely to develop gestational diabetes, compared with those who started menstruating at age 13.

This was true even after the researchers took into account things that might influence age at menarche or risk for gestational diabetes, including mothers education level, physical activity, previous children, a hormonal condition known as polycystic ovary syndrome and body mass index (BMI), a measure of body fat based on height and weight.

Chronic disease risk, such as risk of type 2 or gestational diabetes may be programmed much earlier in life by exposures occurring during developmentally sensitive periods such as puberty, infancy or even intrauterine life, said Dr. Dana Dabelea, a professor at the University of Colorado Denver who studies gestational diabetes but was not involved in this research.

Interventions to address these health issues may need to start earlier to address the risk of diseases like diabetes, Dabelea said by email.

Women with early menarche are at increased risk of diabetes later in life so they should take additional precautions, especially active lifestyles and maintaining a healthy body weight, to mitigate this increased risk, Dabelea said.

Supporting healthy environments and behaviors from early in life are important strategies, and promoting healthy eating and physical activity should be a priority for young mothers and schools, and for all women throughout their lives, Schoenaker said.

SOURCE: bit.ly/2n66XQ5 American Journal of Epidemiology, online March 5, 2017.

CHICAGO A commercial flock of 17,000 chickens in Tennessee has been culled after becoming infected with low-pathogenic bird flu, state agricultural officials said on Thursday, days after a more dangerous form of the disease killed poultry in a neighboring county.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is investigating a multistate outbreak of listeriosis linked to the consumption of soft raw milk cheese made by Vulto Creamery that has led to two deaths.

(Reuters Health) - Up to one-fourth of adults in sub-Saharan Africa suffer from chronic kidney disease and only a small fraction ever reach a dialysis treatment center, a new study finds.

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Gluten-free diets are all the rage these days, but for most people, shunning gluten may offer no benefit to overall health, a new analysis suggests.

In fact, the people in the study who ate more gluten were 13 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes over the 30-year study than those who ate less gluten, the researchers found.

Some people should not consume gluten a protein found in grains such as wheat, rye and barley for health reasons. For example, some people have an intolerance to gluten, and others have Celiac disease, the researchers said. Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder that affects mostly the small intestine; when people with this disease eat gluten, their immune system responds by attacking the intestine's lining. A gluten intolerance, by contrast, means that a person experiences symptoms such as abdominal pain, bloating or fatigue after eating gluten but does not actually have Celiac disease.

However, even some people who do not have Celiac disease or an intolerance to gluten believe that gluten-free diets are healthier than those that include gluten products, and the researchers wanted to see whether this belief might have any scientific merit, said lead study author Geng Zong, a nutrition research fellow at Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. [Science You Can Eat: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Food]

In the study, the researchers looked at surveys conducted every 2 to 4 years in which nearly 200,000 people reported what they ate. The researchers estimated the participants' gluten intake based on this information, and then looked at which participants went on to develop type 2 diabetes over the 30-year study period. Type 2 diabetes the most common type of diabetes occurs when the body has lost the ability to use insulin efficiently. This inability, in turn, leads to high blood sugar levels, which over time, can damage blood vessel walls, nerves and other tissues.

The researchers focused on studying the people's risk of diabetes because this condition is one of the leading causes of death in the U.S., Zong said.

It turned out that, by the end of the study, nearly 16,000 people in the study had developed type 2 diabetes. Most people in the study ate less than 12 grams of gluten per day, the researchers found. When the researchers examined the relationship between gluten consumption and the people's risk of developing type 2 diabetes, they found that the people who ate the most gluten had a 13-percent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes during the study period than the people who ate the least gluten, according to the findings, presented today (March 9) at the American Heart Association's Epidemiology and Prevention / Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health 2017 Scientific Sessions meeting. [7 Biggest Diet Myths]

This finding suggests that there might be a link between people's gluten consumption and their risk of diabetes, the researchers said. However, it is not clear why the people who ate more gluten were less likely to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes than the people who ate less gluten, the researchers said.

One possible explanation is that the people who consumed more gluten also ate more fiber, which, as previous research suggested, may help to lower a person's diabetes risk. However, more research is needed to examine the relationship between gluten consumption and a person's risk of diabetes, the researchers said.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Research may provide solutions for the future treatment of diabetes ... Science Daily Researchers found that feeding resveratrol to obese mice over a period of 6 weeks altered the makeup of the bacteria in their intestines, improving glucose ... and more »

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Mary Noffke

A north-central Iowa woman is being honored with a medal for surviving diabetes for 50 years.

Mary Noffke, of Webster City, is a recipient of the Boston-based Joslin Diabetes Center Medal for living courageously with Type 1 diabetes. Noffke was first diagnosed in the mid-1960s.

The diabetes did not show up until I was a sophomore in college and I was put on insulin right away, Noffke says. Ive been insulin-dependant since 1965 so Ive survived a long time with it. Its difficult for todays diabetes patients to understand how traumatic it was to be diagnosed with the ailment in the 60s.

I will tell you that the treatment in that era, and even before, it was even worse, Noffke says. Treatment was almost barbaric simply because not enough was known about it. Its a wonder anybody survived that era. Noffke is one of 3,500 people to receive the medal that is named after diabetes research pioneer Elliott P. Joslin. Several decades ago, it used to be awarded to people whod lived 25 years with diabetes, as that was considered a major landmark.

I will have to thank everybody who has donated money to the cause for the research, Noffke says. They began to come up with medications and then the insulin pump which is a wonder. I went on the insulin pump in 1997 and it totally changed my life. Noffke applied for the medal in January and received it last month. She says its a big honor to receive it after after living as a diabetic for 52 years.

(Reporting by Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City)

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Nurses central to getting diabetes care off to a better start Science Daily On the basis of these results, an implementation study of Stepping Up model of care, widened beyond insulin initiation to include intensification of diabetes therapy generally, will be carried out in the North-West Melbourne Primary Health Network ...

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New potential cause of type 1 diabetes Science Daily T1D, previously known as juvenile diabetes, affects an estimated 1.5 million Americans and is the result of the loss of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. The prevailing belief was that the root cause of T1D was the immune system mistakenly ... Curing Diabetes Natural Home Remedies Offer Type 2 Diabetes CureMilitary Technologies Is the cure for Diabetes here?The Zimbabwe Daily all 4 news articles »

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Q. A friend of mine just had an LVAD inserted. What's that?

A. LVAD stands for left ventricular assist device. The left ventricle is the pumping chamber of the heart. When it is damaged, its pumping ability is reduced, and the patient may develop heart failure, often manifested by shortness of breath, ankle swelling, cough, fatigue and exercise intolerance. The damaged left ventricle can be helped by medication, but in extreme cases, sometimes the only option is a new heart a heart transplant. But some people (because of age or other medical conditions) may not be transplant candidates. And others are candidates but are so sick that in the past they used to die while waiting for a donor heart to become available. That's where an LVAD can come into play. It is a mechanical pump that is surgically implanted, and it works with the patient's own heart to improve circulation and blood flow. Symptoms often are improved, and LVADs have been a lifesaver for many patients. The devices have become better, more reliable, smaller and safer over the years. And while they certainly have important complications associated with their use, LVADs have enabled very sick patients to live better and longer lives.

Wynne is vice president for health affairs at UND, dean of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and a professor of medicine. He is a cardiologist by training.

Submit a question to Health Matters at healthmatters@med.und.edu or Health Matters, 501 North Columbia Road, Stop 9037, Grand Forks, ND 58202-9037. Remember, no personal details, please.

The content of this column is for informational purposes only and does not substitute for professional medical advice or care. The information provided herein should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease. If you have or suspect you may have a health problem, you should consult your health care provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read in this column.

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