Research
Mothers and Sons Share Life in Face of Diabetes Threats
Ty Arlint remembers how his mother constantly worked to live with her diabetes. He hoped to contribute to curing her diabetes some day. Recently he had a chance to provide her with something just as valuable in life.
Preliminary Chromium Study Finds Possible Benefit to Diabetics
01/08/07
Treatment Options, Research, General
Today researchers released the results of a small preliminary study indicating that patients using a combination of chromium picolinate and biotin improved blood glucose scores in 36 people with diabetes.
Diabetes Drug ACTOS May Be First Effective Fatty Liver Disease Medication
11/30/06
Treatment Options, Research, General
You constantly hear about all of the things that can go wrong in people who do not or cannot properly manage their blood sugar. We need to be more sympathetic to the tiresome message that is constantly directed toward the diabetes community. Nevertheless, please consider one more little reminder that we hope helps you. The liver works extra hard in a diabetic to compensate for the condition. Sometimes, it also gets confusing signals from a number of imbalanced hormones that can occur. People who are obese and people who live with diabetes often suffer from fatty liver disease. The best way to treat fatty liver disease is—you guessed it—diet and exercise. Medications have been very ineffective so far.
"Inside" Scoop on Insulin Patches
11/22/06
Clinical Trials, Research, General
Some of our comrades over at the The Diabetes Blog have been following the development of an insulin delivery patch. A product called Passport(TM) from Altea Therapeutics is currently in clinical trial. The benefits of the transdermal patch are many. One of the primary benefits is that it can provide a continuous dose of insulin. A user could wear it at night to help manage blood sugar levels while sleeping. However, there are rumors that the insulin in the patch is having trouble penetrating the skin and getting into the blood stream.
Inflamation Again Accused as Diabetes Culprit
11/15/06
Prevention, Research, General
Inflammation is increasingly identified as a possible culprit in the development of many diseases and conditions. There is ample medical research that shows that people who develop diabetes, have also been battling inflammatory processes in their bodies.
Many Diabetics Good Candidates For Heart Transplant
11/06/06
Treatment Options, Research, General
It has been a big question in the world of heart transplant: do diabetics survive for a shorter time after heart transplants than nondiabetics? From that question comes another tough question: if a potential heart transplant recipient may live a shorter period of time because of diabetes, should they be overlooked for heart transplants, so the donor heart can go to someone who will benefit for a longer period of time? This question was answered in part today by a study appearing in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
In this Associated Press story printed in the Washington Post, you can read some of the findings of the study. From the information the American Heart Association provided, My Diabetes Information learned that transplant recipients with uncomplicated diabetes had a median survival of 9.3 years, which was not significantly different from recipients without diabetes who had a median survival of 10.1 years. Statistically, this small difference of less than one year is not significant. The survival rates are essentially the same.
Diabetics with additional complications related to diabetes prior to transplantation experienced shorter post-transplant survival times. The median survival of diabetic recipients with one complicating condition was 6.7 years. Median survival was almost half that (3.6 years) when diabetes was combined with two or more complications. Furthermore, the risk of post-transplant complications increased significantly with increasing severity of diabetes.
“The question is not whether a person has diabetes but how much damage the diabetes has done,” said Mark Russo, M.D., M.S., one of the study’s authors from New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. “A person should not be disqualified from transplantation solely because of diabetes.”
It is currently estimated that 60,000 people in the United States could benefit from heart replacement therapies. Median survival following heart transplantation exceeds 10 years, and many recipients live 20 years or more after receiving a transplant. However, due to a critical shortage of donor organs, fewer than 2,500 people undergo this procedure in any given year. Therefore the findings in this study have important implications for the allocation of hearts available for transplantation. “Many patients with end-stage heart failure, even those with severe diabetes, will live longer after heart transplantation,” said the study’s senior author, Yoshifumi Naka, M.D., Ph.D., director of Cardiac Transplantation at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
He emphasized, however, that given the limited number of organs available, it is important to understand the risks and benefits associated with various groups of patients; this will enable the benefits from these limited resources to be maximized. “In the pre-transplant screening, we must identify diabetic patients who have severe end-organ damage,” Naka said. “Those patients do not do as well after transplantation; so we must consider alternative treatment strategies for these patients. However, diabetics with only minimal damage should be considered for transplant.”
For patients with severe heart failure and severe diabetes, alternatives to transplantation include the use of left ventricular assist devices, small electrical pumps placed in the heart, or the use of “alternative” wait lists for high-risk heart transplant candidates.
Technorati tags: Diabetes, Heart Transplant, my diabetes information.
100 Bottles Of Red Wine May Keep You Happy Like Some Lab Mice
There are so many people that would love to find out that wine was more healthful than harmful. As time goes on science will help us separate the facts and understand the truth. In the mean time, a compound derived from red wine, reversitrol, increased the life span and health of obese mice.
“After six months, resveratrol essentially prevented most of the negative effects of the high calorie diet in mice,” said Rafael de Cabo, Ph.D., the study’s other co-senior investigator from the National Institute on Aging’s Laboratory of Experimental Gerontology, Aging, Metabolism, and Nutrition Unit. “There is a lot of work ahead that will help us better understand resveratrol’s roles and the best applications for it.”
So, now scientists and non-scientists are speculating that reversitrol may be a miraculous substance that can enhance the health of portly people as well as people who maintain a healthy weight.
You can read more about the research on reversitrol by following this link. We encourage you to pay special attention to the cautious words of Dr. Eisenson. He reminds us that results that we see in lab animals often do not occur in humans. So, lets see what happens.
We would be thrilled if reversitrol had miraculous effects on people. We would be hard-pressed to chug down the 100 bottles of wine we would need to consume to get the equivalent reversitrol that the mice in the study got. However, we are sure that scientists can figure out how to put it in a pill – without the hangover.
So, while scientists subject the preliminary data on wine extracts to more scrutiny, we can point you to another strategy for health that is well-founded. According to this New York Story the current Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee, is going to run in the New York City Marathon this weekend. In response to diabetes, he willed his way through dramatic weight loss. He went from significantly overweight, to marathon runner.
Diabetics - Ask Your Doctor About ACE Inhibitors to Protect Your Kidneys
11/01/06
General, Research, Prevention, Treatment Options
Washington, DC (October 31, 2006) — In diabetic patients with hypertension, ACE inhibitors reduce the risk of developing diabetes-related kidney disease, independent of their effect in lowering blood pressure, reports a study in the December Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
“Our results clearly show that an ACE inhibitor should always be used in patients with high blood pressure and diabetes, even when they have no evidence of renal or cardiovascular disease,” comments the study’s lead author, Dr. Piero Ruggenenti of Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Bergamo, Italy.
The BErgamo NEphrologic DIabetes Complications Trial (BENEDICT) study included 1,204 patients with type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. At the beginning of the study, none of the patients had any signs of kidney disease. They were randomly assigned to treatment with an ACE inhibitor, another type of blood pressure drug called a calcium channel blocker, a combination of an ACE inhibitor with a calcium channel blocker, or an inactive placebo. Rates of microalbuminuria—small amounts of the protein albumin in urine, the first sign of diabetic kidney disease—were compared between groups.
After an average of 3½ years, patients who had good blood pressure control—regardless of which treatment they received—had lower rates of microalbuminuria. Patients taking the combination treatment had the greatest reduction in blood pressure and were less likely to require additional drugs to keep their blood pressure under control.
Taking an ACE inhibitor, alone or as part of the combination treatment, provided further protection against diabetic kidney disease. This was also the case for patients whose blood pressure remained high—as long as they were taking an ACE inhibitor, their microalbuminuria risk was similar to that of patients whose blood pressure was well-controlled. Dr. Ruggenenti points out, “Treatment with an ACE inhibitor was particularly important when the blood pressure was poorly controlled—as may happen in most diabetic patients with hypertension, despite the use of two, three, or even more drugs.”
About 30 percent of people with diabetes will go on to develop kidney failure, while even more may be at risk of premature death from cardiovascular disease. Eighty to ninety percent of patients with type 2 diabetes also have hypertension, a major risk factor for diabetic kidney disease. “Optimizing blood pressure control appears extremely important to reduce or prevent the risk of kidney failure or death for these patients,” says Dr. Ruggenenti.
All doctors who treat diabetes need to know about the protective benefits of ACE inhibitor treatment—especially primary care doctors who care for the vast majority of diabetic patients without kidney disease. “Early and effective treatment of hypertension is of paramount importance in people with diabetes, and ACE inhibitors should be the treatment of choice,” Dr. Ruggenenti concludes. “However, in most patients, an ACE inhibitor alone is not enough to achieve good control of arterial blood pressure—less than 130/80 mm Hg. In these patients, the doctor should also use other antihypertensive drugs, including a diuretic, in most cases, to achieve this target. Although using an ACE inhibitor is important, so is achieving the target blood pressure whenever possible.”
For patients who can’t take ACE inhibitors, another class of drugs—the angiotensin II receptor antagonists—may be a valid alternative.
By the way a good basic resource for medications has always been Medline Plus. We encourage you to explore the Medline Plus page about ACE inhibitors. You may notice that is specifically refers to Captopril as a medication that helps to reduce kidney problems in people with diabetes.
Kidney Disease in Diabetes Predicted by Albuminuria
10/31/06
General, Research, Prevention, Treatment Options
Here’s another vocabulary word to add, if you don’t know it already: Albuminuria. Albumin is a protein that your body makes and uses. It transports a number of other chemicals around through your blood stream. Albuminuria is the excess discharge of albumin in the urine. Albuminuria can be a sign that your kidneys and/or liver are getting sick. A simple urine test can help you and your doctor to know if you are suffering from albuminuria.
Check back with us tomorrow, because the American Society of Nephrology is preparing to release a study suggesting how people with diabetes can reduce their risk of developing kidney disease. There is already evidence that ACE (angiotensin converting enzyme) inhibitors and ARBs (angiotensin receptor blockers) can slow the progression of kidney disease. So, we’ll look forward to learning what the new study has verified, or any other new knowledge it has uncovered.
Some common ACE inhibitors include:
- captopril (Capoten)
- enalapril (Vasotec)
- quinapril (Accupril)
- benazepril (Lotensin)
- lisinopril (Prinivil, Zestril)
- ramipril (Altace)
- perindopril (Aceon)
- fosinopril (Monopril
Some common ARBs include:
- (losartan) (Cozaar)
- valsartan (Diovan)
- irbesartan (Avapro)
- candesartan (Atacand)
Cumulative Damage of Diabetes for Those Who Develop it in Middle Age
10/31/06
Prevention, Research, Disease Basics, General
If you develop diabetes in middle age, you can expect different challenges resulting from diabetes than people who develop it closer to retirement age. The burden will be different. In a recent study, elderly persons who had been living with diabetes since middle-age were more likely to have retinopathy, reflecting the cumulative damage of high glucose levels over the course of many years. They also had much worse glycemic control. In contrast, elderly persons with newly diagnosed diabetes had a comparable burden of cardiovascular disease but required less aggressive treatment to reach blood pressure and cholesterol treatment goals.
Elderly persons diagnosed with diabetes during middle age (40-64 years) and those diagnosed later in life (over 65 years) comprise two distinct groups, according to new research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The study, published in the November 2006 issue of Diabetes Care, found that these two age groups have different disease burdens and may require different treatment goals.
“The two types of elderly persons with diabetes have distinct characteristics, including different burdens of disease,” said Elizabeth Selvin, lead author of the study. “Elderly people with diabetes are a heterogeneous group and doctors may need to consider different treatment goals for these two groups in clinical practice.”