Free Diabetic Supplies

There are nearly 24 million Americans diagnosed with diabetes and there are more efforts to help unify the diabetes community and help them live healthier lives. The American Diabetes Wholesale a diabetes supply company trying to keep diabetes managable for all diabetics, especially the uninsured, has partnered with Charlie Kimball, the 24 year old Firestone Indy Lights Race Car Driver who has Type 1 diabetes. They have announced the launch of GlucoStories and Charlie Kimball Share Your Story Contest.

The goal is to bring people living with diabetes together and provide them with a way to share their personal experiences. The contest is asking people to explain how their diabetes has affected their lives and the grand prize winner will receive the a trip to the Firestone Indy Lights Championship Race at the Homestead- Miami Speedway on Friday, October 9, 1009 in Florida.

“Reaching out and supporting people in the diabetes community is what American Diabetes Wholesale is all about,” said Chris Maguire, Vice President of American Diabetes Wholesale. “GlucoStories is an extension of our commitment and partnering with Charlie Kimball to bring this program to the community was a win-win for everyone involved.”

Charlie was diagnosed in 2007 at the age of 22, but has been involved in competetive racing since he was 9 years old. He has some special accommodations to help him continue racing, including a continuous glucose monitoring system installed on that shows his glucose levels constantly on his steering wheel. He also has a drink pack installed in his cockpit in case he needs to sip orange juice if his blood sugar is low when he is driving.

“Diabetes doesn’t slow me down and is as much a part of my life as racing. Being able to merge the two is an incredible opportunity,” said Charlie Kimball, Professional Indy Lights Race Car Driver. “My hope is that by sharing my story, other people will be comfortable and open about sharing theirs. We’re all working towards the same goal of finding a cure and living a healthy, productive and successful life in the meantime.”

OFFICIAL INFORMATION

With the support of Home Diagnostics, Defeat Diabetes Foundation, Diabetic Rockstar, American Diabetes Wholesale and other partners, GlucoStories is a platform for people with diabetes or those who support people living with diabetes to inspire and feel inspired about living the best life possible. To learn more about the prizes, rules and to enter the contest, please visit www.glucostories.com and share your experiences with diabetes. Contest and story submissions deadline is July 6, 1007 Midnight, EST.

GlucoStories Contest Rules: no purchase necessary. A purchase will not increase your chances of winning. Legal residents of the 50 United States (D.C.), 13 years and older who did not purchase any equipment for purposes of entering the promotion and are not a practicing physician at time of entry. Void where prohibited. Enter Contest by: 7/6/09. Sweepstakes starts 7/15/09 and ends 8/17/09. For Official Rules, odds disclosure and prize descriptions, visit http://www.glucostories.com. Sponsor: American Diabetes Wholesale, 2501 NW 34th Place, Suite 35, Pompano Beach, FL 33069.
Reaching Out to Help with Diabetes

We are constantly keeping watch regarding problems with healthcare – especially with seniors and those who are disabled – these days. It is obvious to anyone who reads the papers, uses the internet or watches the news that there are some serious problems with healthcare and Medicare that lawmakers have no choice but to work on and they are trying to figure it all out. Meanwhile, there are real people with some serious problems falling through the cracks. The following editorial from Kalamazoo, Michigan shows just how serious the situation is. I usually don’t reprint other people’s stories, but this one is critically important and the credits are on the bottom of the page. Thank you Joyce Pines from the Kalamazoo Gazette for bringing situations this important to our attention. We all need to know what is happening not only in Kalamazoo, but in cities and towns throughout the country, a thousand fold.

Three different perspectives on health care crossed my desk Monday — a call from a woman who has been notified that her Medicaid payments are being cut, an e-mail implying that President Obama’s health proposals are out to cut Medicare and leave senior citizens to fend for themselves and an editorial board meeting with state Sen. Tom George about a package of bills he’s introduced in the Michigan Senate to expand health care coverage to more state citizens.

Let’s start with the phone call. A 47-year-old Kalamazoo resident called to discuss her dilemma which is: pay the rent or buy prescribed medications. She has diabetes which has left her blind. She is on five different medications which cost more than $1,200 a month by the time you add up the cost of both the pills and the supplies she needs to take those pills and monitor her condition (needles, test strips, alcohol swabs). She is disabled.

She is married but her husband, a veteran, fell in 2005 and suffered a severe spinal cord injury. He is also permanently disabled. Their total income from Medicaid, Social Security and such is $1,100 a month. They also receive food assistance.

In April, the state sent her a letter explaining her Medicaid benefits were going to be subject to a “spend down.” Her explanation of what that means is that basically the state says she has to pay the next $618 for her medication before the state payments will kick back in.

As she doesn’t know where the $618 is going to come from, she is likely to skip the medication for awhile, which is probably not a good idea given that her diabetes is so severe it caused her to go blind.

But that is a real world example of what happens when the state budget is cut.

Getting health care spending under control has been a priority for Tom George for all of the time I have known him as a state senator representing the 20th District, which is all of Kalamazoo County and a small piece of Van Buren County.

In short, he believes that Michigan residents should be encouraged to do things that will help them be healthy — like not smoke, exercise regularly and get appropriate health screenings. During the editorial board meeting Monday he said studies show that between 40 and 70 percent of health care costs are related to behaviors like smoking, not exercising, etc.

At the same time he believes there is an obligation to provide health care to all of Michigan’s citizens. To that end, he has worked with others to create a package of bills to address the concerns of insurers like Blue Cross Blue Shield and also the need to provide affordable insurance to as many people as possible.

He would prefer that each state create a workable system for its residents instead of creating a national single-payer system that would, in essence, give everyone health care but without an incentive to take better care of themselves. “If Republicans sit on their hands, we’ll end up with a national single-payer system,” he said.

What George does not have an answer for, right now, is that phone call I received from the woman with diabetes. Her story illustrates another aspect of the health care problem. A person has an illness, in this case diabetes, that requires an expenditure of more than $1,200 a month to control — that’s $14,400 a year. My question to him and in general is why does medication for an illness that is pretty common cost so much? How can we ever have an affordable system while the cost of medical procedures and medications continues to skyrocket?

George advocates health care plans that give people a financial incentive to quit smoking, exercise every week and get regular health screenings. I don’t object to that.

But I think the diabetic who called about her Medicaid changes would suggest that forcing anyone to choose between keeping a roof over their head or filling their prescriptions also endangers lives and may contribute to their early demise.

We need to ask tough questions about health care and we can start with carefully examining both the state legislation and the national legislation now being offered. Read up on it and contact your legislators, get involved and write responsible e-mails to promote discussion, not fright.

Health care is definitely the giant elephant in the room that everyone is having trouble talking about
Posted by Joyce Pines | Kalamazoo Gazette

People with type 2 diabetes have an almost triple risk of acute pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas) and two-fold greater risk of biliary disease (disease of the gallbladder and bile ducts), compared with people without diabetes, a study shows.

“The increased risk of pancreatitis for patients with type 2 diabetes…combined with the increasing prevalence of diabetes and the associated risk factors, may be contributing to a meaningful increase in the incidence of acute pancreatitis in the US,” Dr. Gary L. Bloomgren, at Amylin Pharmaceuticals in San Diego, California, and colleagues suggest in the journal Diabetes Care.

Their study was supported by Amylin Pharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly, producers of the diabetes drug exenatide (Byetta), which has been associated with spontaneous reports of acute pancreatitis, which the investigators say “prompted this investigation.”

Bloomgren and his colleagues used a nationwide managed care claims database that included nearly one million adults enrolled for at least 12 continuous months between 1999 and 2005. There were 337,067 patients with type 2 diabetes and a similar number of people without diabetes.

According to the investigators, the incidence of pancreatitis was nearly 3 times higher, and the incidence of biliary disease nearly 2 times higher, in diabetics compared to non-diabetics. This is a significant amount, especially when you are talking about millions of people.Though there were a million people in the stucy, they obviously represent only a sample population of individuals with type 2 diabetes who are prone to pancreatitis. gall bladder amd bo;e duct disease.

For both conditions, younger diabetics (aged 18 to 30 years old) had the highest risk of developing pancreatitis or biliary disease.

A study in the U.S. recently found that there was a big difference in the way and the amount that people who had diabetes and were also obese worked compared to those who were of lower weight and didn’t have diabetes or had controlled diabetes..

Researchers surveyed 7,338 working adults about missed work time, reduced work effectiveness and experienced 20 to 34 percent of impairment of daily activities. The results they discovered showed that people who were obese and had type 2 diabetes lost 11 to 15 percent of work time (about 5.9 hours a week) because of health problems, compared with 9 percent of work time (about 3.6 hours a week) lost by people in a lower weight range.

The survey also found that obese people with type 2 diabetes rreported difficulty and obstacles in doing daily activities such as working with children, shoppng and exercising.and experienced 20 to 34 percent of impairment of daily activities in general.. he findings are in the May/June issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion.

“From an employer’s perspective, this study provides evidence that workplace wellness programs that include weight loss and weight management would be beneficial for obese employees with or at risk for diabetes,” Kathleen Fox, president of Strategic Healthcare Solutions and a co-author of the study, said in a news release from the Center for the Advancement of Health.

The study supports previously published research that found “the heavier people are, the most lost productivity at work,” Anne Wolf, an instructor at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, who specializes in researching the economic effects of obesity, said in the news release. This study was different, she said, in that it found an independent effect of diabetes on worker productivity.

“Employers who spend money in a lifestyle intervention will find their investment returned to them in the form of increased productivity and reduced absenteeism,” Wolf said.

Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc, a well known biotechnology company whose name is related to numerous medications, has asked the Food and Drug Administration to approve its highly anticipated once-weekly injectable diabetes treatment exenatide LAR.

The drug is an extended-release version of Byetta, which is injected twice daily and is a version of a protein found in Gila monster saliva. Wall Street sees Byetta and the new extended-release version as a way for Amylin to reinvigorate sales. Byetta sales fell over 30 percent in 2008 to $430.2 million because of safety concerns.

Because the drugs are injected either twice daily (Byetta) or the new extended release version at once-weekly, this will be a positive marketing tool for the company, as many diabetics must inject themselves many more times in a day. The thought of limiting the amount of injections is good news to them.

The drug’s competition would likely include Novo Nordisk’s once-daily injection liraglutide, which is currently under FDA review. Denmark-based Novo Nordisk received a split recommendation from its expert panel review at the FDA, with members expressing safety concerns over tumors associated with liraglutide. The FDA is not required to follow its panels’ advice, though it normally does.

There are new FDA safety guidelines for diabetes treatments which were issued last year after concerns about higher risk of heart attacks from Avandia, a diabetes medication fro GlaxoSmithKline. They will be looking carefully at all the new medications for diabetes, since many are of the same class of treatment, though all of them help increase the body’s indulin production.

Developers are looking closely at drugs that help diabetics control blood sugar because the drugs must be taken long-term to control the chronic condition meaning long term and continuous sales. The U.S. market for diabetes drugs is worth about $5 billion per year.

At any rate, we can only wait and see whether individuals with diabetes will receive some relief from the new weekly injection if the FDA approves it.