Diabetes News & Updates ~ Drugs, Food, Exercise & more 2 B Better!

just thought I would share something of personal interest to me as a Diabetic.... & will use this thread to post updates & information

~ Please add yours!  Knowledge is Power!  Sharing support can get us through the rough times...  so don't ever feel alone in your struggles...  let's talk about it!

************* 1st things thing that caught my mentally allergic to exercise eyeballs.... :::giggles::: ************

Diabetes is a lifelong illness.  There is no cure.  Diabetics can often improve symptoms by controlling blood sugar through appropriate diet and exercise.  Tight Blood Glucose Control, appropriate diet and exercise has been shown to also reduce the risks for the horrible other complications and diseases that Diabetics are more susceptible to such as Heart Disease, Stroke, Kidney Disease and Renal Failure, Metabolic Sydrome X, Diabetic Retinopathy eye disease, Neuropathy Nerve Disease, failure to heal well, gout, etc.... 

Check out the News on Combo Exercise!!!  Here's an Excerpt of a very exciting article!!!  Bold is mine :) 


~~ "Exercise Combo Improves Diabetes Control" ~~ 

17-SEP-2007 NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A combination of aerobic exercise and strength training may help control type 2 diabetes better than either form of exercise alone, researchers reported Monday.

In a study of adults with type 2 diabetes, researchers found that the exercise combination improved blood-sugar control to twice the degree that either type of exercise alone did.

Meanwhile, study participants who remained inactive showed no change in their average blood sugar levels.

Exercise has long been a cornerstone of managing type 2 diabetes -- a disorder that is closely associated with obesity. But it has not been clear what types of exercise are best for reining in high blood sugar levels -- and, in particular, whether strength conditioning is helpful.

Click the link for the rest of the article!  Very exciting!!!

http://www.diabetes.org/diabetesnewsarticle.j sp?storyId=15960372&filename=20070917/reu ters20070917health00000029reutershealthEDIT.x ml

The author concludes that if there were a pill as effective as combo exercise may be, it would be widely prescribed! 

Oh Happy Dance!!!  We CAN do this ourselves.  & it's Free of Cheap to do!  We just have to get up off our tukus and do it!!!

Who's with me???  A little walking????  A little weights, bands or stability ball??? 

Exercise should include some aerobic exercise for cardiovascular heart health and increasing endurance and stamina (walking, riding, biking, swimming, tennis, etc).  Also, strength and resistance to help you avoid losing muscle and for many health reasons (calisthentics, weights, bands, stability ball, pilates, yoga).  Also, flexibility and stretching exercise (like pilates & yoga) for range of motion and movement :)

Working out will may improve your overall health but will not bulk up and give you bodybuilder type muscles... You would have to really train hard for that to happen.  Long and lean muscles ~ check out pilates!

Here are some of my fav links about getting started... You may be beyond beginner, but there's lots of links to click for tougher workouts :)

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/strength-tra ining/HQ01710

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/fitness/SM00 025

http://exercise.about.com/cs/exbeginners/a/be gstrength1.htm

http://exercise.about.com/cs/exbeginners/l/bl begstrength.htm

If you have not been exercising at all, check with your Healthcare provider before starting any kind of exercise program.

If you have physical limitations or haven't exercised in a very long time, don't over do!!!  Start slow and Easy! 

• Walk for a few minutes,
• do chair exercise,
• start with a beginner's routin,
• get Tai Chi for old women,
• or try beginner's yoga. 
• A little Pilates maybe?

~ these things will improve your strength, flexibilty and stamina ~ and give you a mood lift to boot!!!

Who's in???

I am type II. What meds are you on? I am on a regime of injections.  thanks for the article. Go to makingnoise@diabetes.org to get  updates on bills being present to our senate and congress for presidential approval.

Just thought you would like that too.

wonder about cinnamon...

<snagged> from Clairelaine's thread...

NY Times Article - Looking Past Blood Sugar To Survive with Diabetes

For anyone with diabetes,   This article in today's Times  is really interesting. 

It's about preventing the damage of diabetes by controling things like cholesterol and high blood pressure, not just blood sugar.  It's interesting!

excerpt (bold is mine):  But in focusing entirely on blood sugar, Mr. Smith ended up neglecting the most important treatment for saving lives ? lowering the cholesterol level. That protects against heart disease, which eventually kills nearly everyone with diabetes.

He also was missing a second treatment that protects diabetes patients from heart attacks ? controlling blood pressure. Mr. Smith assumed everything would be taken care of if he could just lower his blood sugar level.

Blood sugar control is important in diabetes, specialists say. It can help prevent dreaded complications like blindness, amputations and kidney failure. But controlling blood sugar is not enough.

Nearly 73,000 Americans die from diabetes annually, more than from any disease except heart disease, cancer, stroke and pulmonary disease.

Yet, largely because of a misunderstanding of the proper treatment, most patients are not doing even close to what they should to protect themselves. In fact, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just 7 percent are getting all the treatments they need.

?That, to me, is mind-boggling,? said Dr. Michael Brownlee, director of the JDRF International Center for Diabetic Complications Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. ?It makes me ask, What is going on? I can only conclude that people are not aware of their risks and what could be done about them.?

In part, the fault for the missed opportunities to prevent complications and deaths lies with the medical system. Most people who have diabetes are treated by primary care doctors who had just a few hours of instruction on diabetes, while they were in medical school. Then the doctors typically spend just 10 minutes with diabetes patients, far too little for such a complex disease, specialists say.

In part it is the fault of proliferating advertisements for diabetes drugs that emphasize blood sugar control, which is difficult and expensive and has not been proven to save lives.

And in part it is the fault of public health campaigns that give the impression that diabetes is a matter of an out-of-control diet and sedentary lifestyle and the most important way to deal with it is to lose weight.

Most diabetes patients try hard but are unable to control their disease in this way, and most of the time it progresses as years go by, no matter what patients do.

Mr. Smith, like 90 percent of diabetes patients, has Type 2 diabetes, the form that usually arises in adulthood when the insulin-secreting cells of the pancreas cannot keep up with the body?s demand for the hormone. The other form of diabetes, Type 1, is far less common and usually arises in childhood or adolescence when insulin-secreting pancreas cells die.

And, like many diabetes patients, Mr. Smith ended up paying the price for his misconceptions about diabetes. Last year, he had a life-threatening heart attack.

...... cut out a bunch....

Mr. Smith thought his biggest risk from diabetes was blindness or amputations. He never thought about heart disease and had no idea how important it was to control cholesterol levels and blood pressure. He said his doctor had not advised him to take a cholesterol-lowering or blood pressure drug and he did not think he needed them.

Most people with diabetes are equally unaware of the danger that heart disease poses for them.

A recent survey by the American Diabetes Association conducted by RoperASW found that only 18 percent of people with diabetes believed that they were at increased risk for cardiovascular disease.

Yet, said Dr. David Nathan, director of the Diabetes Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, ?when you think about it, it?s not the diabetes that kills you, it?s the diabetes causing cardiovascular disease that kills you.?

please see the article for much more!

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anyone heard about Diabetes Drug Linked to Fractures Risk

United, a couple of extra points about that article and DM.

When they did the initial trials on metformin and sulfonylureas (ie glipizide and glyburide) they found a reduction in hemoglobin A1c of about 1.5-2 points...however that was before the "goal" for A1c was below 6.5 or 7...the people in those trials had much higher A1cs and for any given Dm therapy you get more "bang for your buck" the higher the A1C is....for example someone whose A1c is 11 has a LOT more room for improvement than someone whose A1c is 7.5.

Now, in the article, they had people in the 7-8 range and got a reduction in 1.3 ish if I recall right which IMPLIES that combination exercise actually has a MORE dramatic effect than oral meds.  Pause for a moment. THat is freakin' incredible.

A few flaws with the study: they didn't control for time spent exercising...the cardio + resistance group spend more TIME exercising so it's not clear yet whether it is the TIME or the COMBO that does the trick (there are physiologic reasons why resistance would be beneficial but they didn't "prove" it with this study).  Also, did you look at the intensity of the exercise...WOW...it's pretty serious considering the majority of diabetics are older and probably not in the best shape.

Nevertheless, wow. A lifestyle intervention with few adverse consequences is stronger than meds with a whole host of problems....I'm actually kind of annoyed that this trial hasn't made it into the popular media, I mean that stupid fat friends article did...