Free Diabetic Supplies

The debate about stem cell research has gone back and forth and back again. In the public. In the medical field. In between the President and lawmakers. And today, President Obama at least put some boundaries on the situation by signing a bill with some specifics in allowing stem cell research.The order will expand embryonic stem cell research. There are safeguards that respect the people who want to be sure that these stem cells and embryos are not misused or abused.

The American Diabetes Association applauds President Obama for issuing an Executive Order that will advance stem cell research by lifting existing restrictions on the use of embryonic stem cells, while maintaining strict ethical guidelines.

“The ethical use of stem cell research holds the promise of accelerating medical advancements in many fields. This brings hope to the nearly 24 million American adults and children with diabetes who face its many complications including heart disease, amputation, and blindness. Diabetes is also deadly — it is a leading cause of death in the United States,” said R. Paul Robertson, MD, President Medicine & Science, American Diabetes Association.

The American Diabetes Association has long been a strong advocate for ending the current restrictions on stem cell research. “As a person with type 1 diabetes, I’m encouraged by President Obama’s decisive action on advancing this very important area of research that has the potential for finding a cure for diabetes and so many other devastating diseases,” said George Huntley, CPA, Chair, American Diabetes Association.

The American Diabetes Association is leading the fight against the deadly consequences of diabetes and fighting for those affected by diabetes. The Association funds research to prevent, cure and manage diabetes; delivers services to hundreds of communities; provides objective and credible information; and gives voice to those denied their rights because of diabetes. Founded in 1940, its mission is to prevent and cure diabetes and to improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes. For more information, please call the American Diabetes Association at 1-800-DIABETES (1-800-342-2383) or visit www.diabetes.org. Information from both these sources is available in English and Spanish.

As if Diabetes or Obesity or Heart Disease are not difficult enough to deal with alone or in combination, there are now research resuts that show the strong possibility these illnesses, especially when a person has two or more of them, increases the chances of dementia, AKA Alzheimer’s disease. Not only are the chances of contracting dementia more possible if an individual has one or all of these health issues, the dementia will develop more quickly than it would if these other diseases aren’t present.

One expert thinks that papers, published in the March issue of Neurology, deliver an important, strong message, which is that people can take steps to reduce their risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Since there has been little or no information available linking all these illness to dementia and Alzheimer’s, most individuals think about lifestyle factors in preventing heart disease, he says, but they do not think about losing mental abilities in addition to the other ilnesses.

It is important that this issue be front and center in talking about the fact that this may influence our risk of developing cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease down the road.”

In one report, Dr. Kristine Yaffe, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and director of the Memory Disorders Clinic at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, found that among older women, obesity, high blood pressure and a low level of HDL, the “good” cholesterol — collectively labeled metabolic syndrome — were each associated with a 23 percent increase in risk for cognitive impairment.

Yaffe’s research team collected data on 4,895 women who averaged 66 years old and who had no cognitive impairment at the start of the study. Among the 497 women with metabolic syndrome, about 7 percent developed cognitive impairment, compared with 4 percent of the women without the condition.

“As the obesity and sedentary lifestyle epidemic escalates throughout the world, identification of the role of these modifiable behaviors in increasing risk for development of deleterious outcomes, such as cognitive impairment, is critical,” the authors concluded.

In a second study, Yaffe’s group found a cognitive risk for obese men, too. For that study, the researchers collected data on 3,054 older men and women.

Comparing people’s scores on tests given at the beginning of the study and again three, five and eight years later, the researchers discovered that obese men were more likely to show signs of cognitive decline. However, there was no correlation between obesity and cognitive decline among women, the study reported.

“The greatest dementia risk was found in underweight individuals at older ages,” the researchers concluded. “These findings suggest the predictive ability of BMI [body-mass index] changes across time.” They added that the findings “help explain the ‘obesity paradox’ as differences in dementia risk across time are consistent with physical changes in the trajectory toward disability.”
They found that people with higher total and LDL, or “bad,” cholesterol levels and diabetes had a more rapid cognitive decline after developing Alzheimer’s disease.

The study “provides further evidence for the role of vascular risk factors in the course of Alzheimer’s disease,” the researchers concluded. “Prevention or treatment of these conditions can potentially slow the course of Alzheimer’s disease.” Obesity, Diabetes and Heart Disease May Speed Dementia

More and more data are showing the connection between lifestyle and cognitive decline, Petersen stressed. “This series of articles underlines that,” he said. And people need to improve these lifestyle factors in middle age, he said.

“People should start paying attention now, regardless of your age or stage in life,” he said. “It may be when you are in midlife, when you are in your 40s or 50s, what you do then with respect to your lifestyle — your diet, your weight, your activity level — may have a bigger impact on what’s going to happen to you at age 70 and beyond than if you wait until you start getting a little forgetful or a little bit fuzzy.”

More information:

The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has more on dementia.

A new grant awarded to the American Diabetes Association will fund research regarding how hormones in the gut could one day prevent or treat type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The American Diabetes Association- Novo Nordisk Clinical/Translational Research Award will provide $1.2 million to support researchers studying the effects of intestinal hormones on obesity and pre-diabetes, two risk factors for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

The researchers will study the role of glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) and other hormones in people at risk for or with diabetes. GLP-1 is a hormone secreted in the intestine during digestion that decreases blood glucose levels.

The two grants, totaling $600,000 per grant, will fund investigation in two key areas:
1. Preventing or treating obesity, pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes. The research will help to better understand the role of incretins, including GLP-1, in the progression of obesity, pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes. The findings could provide more insight into what biomarkers might be used to allow earlier intervention to prevent and/or treat obesity and/or pre-diabetes before type 2 diabetes develops.

2. Regulating weight, satiety and cardiovascular risk factors. The investigation will look beyond the direct effects of incretins, including GLP-1, and into areas such as weight control, satiety and the effects on cardiovascular risk factors such as triglycerides and blood pressure.

These studies re encouraging because they point to a situation where GLP-1 treatments can positively affect glucose metabolism and may increase beta cell mass, two important elements that could someday lead to a cure for type 2 diabetes.

Studies involving individuals with type 2 diabetes have determined that lowering their blood pressure protected their kidneys from renal disease.

It has been widely acknowledged that high blood pressure – especially when an individual has diabetes – can create very serious problems in the body including stroke, eye damage, cardiovascular issues and more. However, there is a particularly difficult problem with high blood pressure damaging the kidneys, especially in individuals with type 2 diabetes.

In a research study involving over 11,000 participants, researchers were trying to determine how lowering blood pressure – even lower than the normal 120/75 – would affect the kidneys. What they found was extremely encouraging. The researchers randomly assigned patients to a fixed combination of perindopril-indapamide or placebo.

The risk for kidney disease decreased by 21% in patients with BP–lowering treatment, according to the researchers. Lower rates of renal events/kidney problems were associated with lower systolic BP.

In another exciting discovery, renal disease was decreased in patients who did not initially have high BP. Risk for kidney disease was also reduced in patients with BP of 120/70.

These results raised the possibility that patients with type 2 diabetes should be considered for antihypertensive treatment even if they have normal BP, because bringing their blood pressure down to a low level – even lower than the suggested national “normal” numbers – could keep their kidneys from being damaged and keep them healthier longer.

These days when you look in the phone book or on the internet you will find lists and pages of diabetes supplies available. It wasn’t so long ago that if you had diabetes, you had to go to the pharmacy with your prescription from the doctor toget your supplies. Now there are entire companies that specialize in diabetes supplies. There are all sorts of syringes and needles of various sizes and materials. There are alcohol swabs and other supplies that can help administer insulin and keep people from getting infected and there are receptacles to throw needles and other used or contaminated supplies away without getting pricked or cut, thus keeping infection to a minimum.

There are many websites and many providers in the phone book, so searching for what you need can be a bit confusing. It is important that you take your time and compare the website, the materials advertised and the prices shown. Take the time to determine what is the best set of supplies for your situation.

Some information to compare is prices for each type of needle and syrige, the amount and the shipping prices. Some companies advertise free shipping and put in other charges like a handling fee that actually pays for the shipping. Sometimes the handling fee is pretty high. It is important to add up the entire cost and compare several different sites. Try to compare the same size and type of syringe and needle so that you are comparing what you need and the exact prices.

If you have questions, call the phone number and don’t be afraid to ask them. You can also call your local pharmacy. Check their prices for the same items. If the pharmacy’s price is a bit higher, let the pharmacy know how much less the price is through the mail order pharmacy. Quiie often, the local pharmacy will match the mail order price to keep you as a customer.

Wih so many choices you have to do more comparing, but because of these choices you should be able to get the supplies you need at a reasonable price.

Over the past few years there have been many discoveries regarding treatment, maintenance and control of diabetes. There are numerous accounts of diabetes controlled by diet and controlled by certain types and amounts of exercise.

Unfortunately, it is often difficult for many people to stick to a diet, especially if they have to eliminate certain things from their diet that they really like. Keeping up the willpower to avoid certain foods is too much for many people.

As for exercise, people say that they don’t have more than a very few minutes a day to spare, so they do not have time for a good workout. There is more information about exercise and diabetes that has recently
come out. It is somewhat different with a new way of thinking.

Regular aerobic exercise helps prevent diabetes. But if you don’t have time for several lengthy workout sessions each week, researchers have come up with a quick approach to diabetes prevention. They have shown that 7 1/2 minutes per week of high-intensity exercise substantially improved insulin sensitivity in healthy, sedentary people.

The study involved 16 young men who participated in two weeks of high-intensity interval training. The training consisted of four to six 30-second sprints on an exercise bike. The men rested four minutes between each sprint. The total time commitment of each workout session ranged from 17 to 26 minutes, and they burned only 250 calories a week from the workouts.

The study participants were given an oral glucose test, which measures how the body responds to sugar, before and after the two-week training period. In the later test, the amount of time the men’s blood sugar and blood insulin levels were above normal was reduced by 12 percent and 37 percent, respectively.

The authors of the study, from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, say they think the brief workout program works so well on insulin because it involves large muscle groups. Skeletal muscle is the major tissue responsible for the uptake of glucose following a meal. The kind of muscle contractions and breakdown of muscle fibers that occurs in high-intensity interval training seem to result in changes in muscle insulin sensitivity.

So even if you have only a small amount of time to devote to some intense exercise it can help control diabetes blood sugar and blood insuin and reduce blood sugar by 12% and blood insulin by 37%, not to mention the 250 calories burned by investing a few minutes per week. This should be easy to do in an effort to stay healthy and keep your symptoms under control.

There are some new and innovative approaches to help diabetic patients better manage their diabetes. Diabetes has become the most increasingly common condition, according to a report by the National Business Coalition on Health.

At least 85% of health plans now offer support for health promotion and wellness programs at no extra charge to purchasers, and 56% of health plans available offer free biometric testing, according to the analysis of 130 HMOs and PPOs nationwide.

About two-thirds of plans offer disease-management tools and 72% of plans offer practitioner and/or hospital comparison tools on diabetes care. The report used data from the coalition’s standardized tool, eValue8, to measure and compare health plans.

Diabetes medical costs and lost productivity totaled $174 billion in 2007 alone. Each year the total increases, especially since the number of people diagnosed with diabetes in increasing rapidly.

“The emerging diabetes epidemic is a tsunami approaching and employers need to head to higher ground by investing in health promotion, prevention and diabetes-care management,” said Andrew Webber, president and chief executive officer of the Washington-based National Business Coalition on Health.

The findings were released at the Health and Productivity Forum held by the Integrated Benefits Institute and National Business Coalition on Health in Los Angeles.

Many U.S. Hispanics with diabetes are unaware that a potential complication of their condition is eye disease, and they do not get regular eye exams that could identify any problems.

Eye disease is present in many individuals with diabetes but often they have not been diagnosed with diabetes or they assume the problems have to do with needing reading glasses or newer glasses and an eye exam.

That’s the finding of a new survey led by Johns Hopkins University, published in the current Archives of Ophthalmology. The researchers focused on Hispanics because their rate of diabetes is especially high – 1.9 times the rate in non-Hispanic white people – and because for some, the language barrier hinders discussion and understanding about the condition.

Even with bi-lingual or Spanish language conversations only 36 percent of newly diagnosed diabetics knew that. In addition, the percentage climbed to 52 percent among those who’d known they had diabetes for more than a year. Just 30 percent of the diabetics had been to the eye doctor in the previous year.

There are several reasons for this situation including lack of eye-care medical coverage, inability to obtain affordable private insurance or coverage at work, and inability to get medicaid due to various immigration and paperwork issues.

It is essential to begin taking care of your eyes as soon as you notice any sort of problem including blurred or fuzy vision, twitching, pain or anything else out of the ordinary. Often, the situation can be caught i time to keep the eyes from getting worse. In many cases, getting your eyes checked can identify the fact that you have diabetes, helping to save your health on a larger scale.

Don’t ignore your eyes. They can tell you and your doctor a lot about your health.

In today’s news there was a surreal, stunning and horrifying story regarding a 9 year old girl with diabetes who died due to neglect.

This little girl was dependent on her mother for care and control of her diabetes. These areas would include medication, diet and anything else that this young girl needed to keep her diabetes in check.

Unfortunately, Chastity Butler died because of “complications from diabetes.” She died in her mother’s bed lying next to a bag of candy and a artially eaten cupcake.

Child protective services and the Dallas Police Department were familiar with the case. They had been investigating the situation because they had learned that not only was the mother not helping the child control her diabetes, but the child’s sister was administering her insulin shots.

Chastity’s mother, 27 year old Georgia Lee Jones, was arrested on February 2nd, on the grounds that she neglected her daughter and because of that neglect, the mother contributed to Chastity’s death.

“Chasity’s diabetes was not monitored properly causing her to be constantly sick and in bed rather than leading a normal life like other children her age,” police documents say.

Jones’ husband and the father of their 5 children defended her Tuesday. They were young parents, 30-year-old Marqus Butler said, struggling to do their best.

He said that he felt they had been through enough in a statement on Tuesday afternoon. “She’s in jail right now. She lost her daughter. CPS just came in and took my children away. It’s like, when does it stop?”

Chasity’s four younger sisters, ages 2 to 8, have been placed with Butler’s mother, who with her husband was given permanent custody in December.

The Dallas County medical examiner ruled the death natural, due to diabetic complications.

Since more details are not available, there is no condemnation here, however there are many questions. The biggest question is “How could this happen in this day and age when so many people – both children and adults – have a tremendous amount of information. In fact, if anyone talked to Chastity’s mother and simply told her what Chastity could eat and could not eat, that alone could have saved her life.

For parents who have a child with diabetes, it is essential that you get the information that you need so that your child will live a long and healthier life.

If you have diabetes or know someone who does, there is some basic information you should know. For instance, it is important to know about diet and exercise plus what some of the harmful and serious health effects are if diabetes is not controlled.

In addition, you should know how and when to take your blood glucose level. You should know when and how sugar can be part of the equation and be able to create a healthy meal plan. Last but not least, you should know how physical activity fits into your entire plan.

If you look at diabetes as it regards your life and the choices you have to make, you will fare better. If you put together a plan that addresses your diabetes and your whole body and your entire life you will control your diabetes better and feel better, as well.

Here are the Five Facts about Diabetes as written by Griffin P. Rodgers, MD, MACP, Director, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

(NAPSI)-To help people with diabetes better understand how to manage the disease, the National Diabetes Education Program provides five facts about diabetes.

Fact #1: Diabetes is a serious disease. It can lead to serious complications such as heart attack, stroke, blindness, kidney failure, and lower limb amputations. People with diabetes can take steps to manage it and lower their risk for complications. Make healthy food choices, be physically active, and stay at a healthy weight. Good diabetes care includes managing the ABCs of diabetes–as measured by the A1C test, blood pressure, and cholesterol–to help avoid having a heart attack, stroke, or other problems.

Fact #2: The only way to know for sure what your levels are is to check your blood glucose. The absence of symptoms of high blood glucose is an unreliable guide for judging glucose control, since symptoms may not occur until blood glucose reaches high levels. Diabetes is often called a “silent disease” because it can cause serious complications even before you have symptoms. Set your blood glucose targets with your diabetes care team. Ask your health care team to show you how to self-monitor your blood glucose. Keep a record of your results, and share them with your team. Also, know your A1C goal and keep a record of your test results, which reflect your average blood glucose levels over the past three months. It is the best way to know how well your blood glucose is controlled overall.

Fact #3: Small amounts of foods that contain sugar can be part of a healthy meal plan. If you choose to eat sweet foods, just have a small amount at the end of a healthy meal, not every day, or have a piece of fruit rather than a sugary snack.

Fact #4: A healthy meal plan for people with diabetes is a healthy meal plan for everyone. Eat foods that are high in fiber and low in saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, salt (sodium), and added sugars. Healthy foods include a colorful mix of fruits and vegetables, fish, lean meats, chicken or turkey without the skin, dry peas or beans, whole grains, and low-fat or skim milk and cheese. Ask your health care team for a healthy meal plan.

Fact #5: Physical activity is safe–and essential–for people with diabetes. Talk to your health care team about ways to safely increase your daily physical activity. Being physically active can help people with diabetes improve their blood glucose, cholesterol, blood pressure, and weight. It also helps improve strength, flexibility, and balance. Start by setting small goals until you reach at least 30 to 60 minutes of physical activity on most days of the week. Brisk walking is a good way to move more. For more information about diabetes, download or order the free Tips to Help You Stay Healthy tip sheet developed by the National Diabetes Education Program at www.YourDiabetesInfo.org or call 1-888-693-NDEP (6337); TTY: 1-866-569-1162.