People often fear that they will gain a large amount of weight if they quit smoking. While a person may put on few pounds, the benefits of kicking tobacco are enormous in your fight against diabetes and other diseases.

Type 2 diabetes does not just attack a person all of a sudden, it gradually sets in.

Diabetes actually starts with prediabetes. People can detect prediabetes with the help of their doctor. More importantly, prediabetics can fight back.

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.

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.

A study of more than 10,000 Australians pointed out how heart damage and disease begin even before diabetes sets in with many people. The obvious conclusion is that physicians and health care professionals should aggressively detect and treat pre-diabetes. This study published in the journal Circulation included some of the following findings:

• Diabetes and pre-diabetes accounted for 65 percent of all heart disease deaths in the group.
• Participants who were pre-diabetic had 2.5 times higher risk of death from heart problems than those who metabolized glucose normally.
• The risk of death for pre-diabetics and diabetics is similar.