Intimacy is a beautiful and powerful part of life. Diabetes often cheats its victims out of the tenderness and passion.

Since the scientific identified a third cause of type 2 diabetes, we have to ask the question, how do we battle it?  It may be too early for answers, but it is a great time to ask . 

Diabetes is a problem that arises when one or both of the following conditions occur:

1. A person's body cannot make enough insulin.
2. A person's body is not able to use the insulin it produces to process blood sugar

CHICAGO – It is hard to know which medications to use to lower blood glucose levels. Beside their potency as anti-diabetes medications, diabetics  must also consider side effects.  Many of them are potentially serious.

A study combining previous research suggests that use of pioglitazone, marketed as brand name Actos, significantly reduces the risk of heart attack, stroke, and death, but increases the risk for serious heart failure, according to an article in the September 12 issue of JAMA. The risk of heart failure is low, while the reduction in heart attack rate is high. As a result, we suspect that many doctors will be migrating their patients to Actos (brand name for pioglitazone).

Whole grains can reduce the risk of diabetes, and that medical notion was upheld in a recent scientific study from a major University.  We've known the benefits of whole grains for a few decades. The fiber aids digestion, and helps the digestive system assimilate carbohydrates properly. The germ from whole grains is an abundant source of nutrients like phytochemicals, vitamins, and minerals. A professional nutrition publication authored by a group of professors from Harvard University reinforces how effective whole grains are at reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes.

Your genes may be signaling how well you respond to metformin.  If you have the right genetic makeup, metformin may lower your A1C score to a healthy level.  A change or variation in gene that tells the body how to create a small structure with cells call an organic cation transporter 1 (OCT1) contributes to metformin's effectiveness.  (A simplified explanation of an organic cation transporter is a chemical that helps certain atoms to enter a cell.)

Diabetes introduces people to a whole new life complete with different rituals, a new language, and metrics that can be confusing. According to a recent story from a Las Vegas television station, many people do not know how to interpret their blood sugar measures.

According to research reported in this article, fat often builds up on the heart before the onset of diabetes. Researchers in Texas learned this while developing an exam that would allow them to take more complex images of the heart during an MRI scan.