Diabetes and the Prevalence of Heart Disease.

Topic	Description
About Diabetes	Diabetes is not a single disease, instead, it is better described as a group of diseases in which abnormally high levels of blood glucose result due to defects in insulin secretion, insulin action, or both. People who have diabetes that is left untreated have more risk for heart disease as atherosclerosis may occur. People who have diabetes-related atherosclerosis in their coronary arteries often have “silent ischemia” or silent heart attack. Silent meaning without the usual pain as neuropathy, or nerve damage, results from uncontrolled diabetes. These people will typically not feel sensations of touch, vibration, heat, cold or pain, which may also include the usual pain of a heart attack. So the vague symptoms may be ignored. If the autonomic nervous system is damaged, signals normally sent to the brain to regulate heart rate and blood pressure get blocked. Early diagnosis and learning how to monitor and control the deadly disease can help in avoiding complications down the road like heart disease and so on. Diabetics respond to similar health regimen that assists heart patients recover. A closely monitored and controlled diet are of greatest importance to both groups. A particular exercise regimen can bring down triglycerides and blood glucose, increase sensitivity to insulin and lower blood pressure. If you are over 40 years of age and suffer from fatigue, constant thirst, excessive urination, transient blurred vision, or even that minor skin injuries take a long time to heal, please understand these may be the warning signals. If there are other diabetics in your immediate family or if you are more than 20 percent over your ideal body weight, schedule a physical examination immediately. At present, there is no cure for diabetes, but with careful monitoring and commitment, diabetics can avoid the disastrous complications and instead enjoy a long, productive life. Making an equally dedicated effort to reduce the risks of cardiovascular disease can help make this possible.
Diabetes and Heart Disease	The link between diabetes and heart disease is known to all. Diabetics are much more likely to have cardiovascular disease than nondiabetics, and two-thirds will die of an early heart attack or stroke. However, the link itself is poorly understood. A person with diabetes and no cardiovascular history has similar risk of having a heart attack as a person who has had a heart attack before. Every patient with diabetes should be treated as acutely as a heart attack survivor. This means going beyond the traditional focus on just lowering blood sugar levels. Patients should also minimize other risk factors that are common to diabetes as well as cardiovascular disease such as obesity, hypertension, unhealthy cholesterol profiles and also inflammation. Hence this also means that doctors should screen patients with heart disease for diabetes, and visa versa. There are many mechanisms through which diabetes damages the heart and it is now recognized that there are so many factors in diabetes that increase the incidence of heart disease. Those other conditions may hold the key to the diabetes-heart connection, and many of them boil down to the simple factor, fat. Now researchers realize that fat tissue itself can become inflamed, and this explains how obesity induces both diabetes and heart disease. These same inflammatory molecules can actually harm the arteries. They are providing new diabetes diagnostic markers and new targets for diabetes drugs that protect the heart as well. Researcher Nesto said an upcoming report on the first stage of the Phase III diabetes trial, which he heads, will depict how salsalate reduced blood sugar levels to a great extent, but it will take many years to see if it also is able to decrease heart disease. "We really need to figure out this link between diabetes and heart disease because we have more young people getting Type 2 diabetes every year and they will have heart attacks earlier in life."
Common Cause for Child Diabetes	Scientists have now proved that a common form of sugar used to make thousands of food products and soft drinks can be detrimental to human metabolism and is the main cause for the obesity crisis nowadays. Fructose, a sweetener extracted and manufactured from corn, can cause dangerous growths of fat cells around vital organs and is able to bring about the early stages of diabetes and heart disease. It is been used more and more as a substitute for more expensive types of sugar in yoghurts, cakes, salad dressing and cereals. Even some fruit drinks that promise health contain fructose. Experts say that the sweetener — which is found naturally in little quantities in fruit — could be a factor in the prevalence of diabetes among children. This week, a new report is expected to claim that by 2015, about one in 10 children in England will be obese. Previous studies of the potentially adverse impact of fructose have focused on rats, and the first experiment involving humans has now shown serious health concerns. 16 volunteers on a controlled diet which included high levels of fructose, produced new fat cells around their heart, liver and digestive organs too. They also displayed abnormalities in food-processing, linked to diabetes and heart disease. Another group of volunteers on identical diet, but with glucose sugar replacing fructose, had none of these problems. Volunteers in both groups put on a similar amount of weight. Researchers at the University of California conducted the trial and they said that over longer period of time, the levels of weight gain among the fructose consumers would be more. Fructose bypasses the digestive process that breaks down other types of sugar. It reaches intact in the liver and causes many abnormal reactions, including the disruption of mechanisms that inform the body whether to burn or store fat. "This is the first evidence we have that fructose increases diabetes and heart disease independently from causing simple weight gain," said Kimber Stanhope, a molecular biologist who led the study. "We didn’t see any of these changes in the people eating glucose." Natural fructose represents 5%-10% of the weight of any fruit. In 1971 there was a discovery that synthesised a 55% fructose and 45% glucose syrup from maize, creating an ingredient cheaper and six times sweeter than cane sugar and thus started its use in processed foods. High-fructose corn syrup, or glucose-fructose syrup, is an ingredient in many food and drink products in Britain, although it is virtually impossible for consumers to know the quantity of it used in the product. Barry Popkin, professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, and a US government adviser on health policy, observed: "Historically, we never consumed much sugar. We’re not built to process it."
Diabetes will double and costs triple by 2034	According to a study by University of Chicago researchers published in the December issue of the journal Diabetes Care, over the next 25 years in US, the number of people having diabetes will almost double, soaring from the 23.7 million who have the disease at the moment to 44.1 million in 2034. Along with it, spending on diabetes will virtually triple, rising from $113 billion to $336 billion, even if there's no more increase in the already unhealthy existence of obesity in this country. So there will be disastrous economic consequences due to the huge burden the diabetes epidemic will place on the healthcare industry. The number of those with diabetes insured by Medicare will jump from 8.2 million to 14.6 million and Medicare spending on diabetes will increase from $45 billion to $171 billion. How to change the future The projections are horrific but at same time the facts show that this projected dire future can be changed. The rise in diabetes is expected to be primarily as a result of the type 2 variety. And type 2 diabetes is almost always preventable with easy common sense health strategies that mainly involve eating healthy diets filled with fruits and giving up sedentary lifestyles. The challenge is for people to realize they can -- and must -- take control of their own health and prevent type 2 diabetes. "If we don't change our diet and exercise habits or find new, more effective and less expensive ways to prevent and treat diabetes, we will find ourselves in a lot of trouble as a population," the study's lead author Elbert Huang, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, pointed out, in the press statement. NaturalNews has always reported on a lot of evidence that type 2 diabetes can be prevented and treated naturally by weight control, regular exercise and easy, inexpensive and natural nutrition therapies. Here are a few examples: Cinnamon regulates blood sugar and may prevent diabetes. Some Chinese herbal remedies have been found to normalize blood sugar. The trace mineral chromium improves insulin sensitivity, and reduces the risk of diabetes. The spice turmeric contains anti-diabetes properties. Eating legumes can cut down diabetes risk by 40%. If nuts are added to the Mediterranean style of eating, it treats the pre-diabetic condition known as metabolic syndrome.
Timing of eating can promote weight loss and fight diabetes, researchers find	Researchers have noted for a long time that shift workers -- folks like nurses, security personnel and others on the night shift -- are extremely susceptible to developing metabolic syndrome, a pre-diabetic condition consisting of insulin resistance, weight gain around the middle and high cholesterol levels. But why? Do they simply eat too many snacks or is it related to disturbance of the circadian clock, the body's internal master clock in the brain that's set by light exposure? Turns out, according to new research by scientists at the Salk Institute, there's probably another important factor: not only is what you eat important to health but the time you eat seems to be critical to weight control and healthy metabolism. In experiments with mice, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies saw that there's a daily waxing and waning of thousands of genes in the liver, the organ that's the body's metabolic clearinghouse, mainly controlled not just by food intake and not by the body's circadian clock, as was previously assumed. "If feeding time determines the activity of a large number of genes completely independent of the circadian clock, when you eat and fast each day will have a huge impact on your metabolism," said the study's leader Satchidananda (Satchin) Panda, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Salk Institute's Regulatory Biology Laboratory. The Salk researchers' findings, which are ready for publication in an upcoming issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, explains why shift workers are at such great risk for metabolic syndrome, diabetes, high cholesterol levels and obesity. "We believe that it is not shift work per se that wreaks havoc with the body's metabolism but changing shifts and weekends, when workers switch back to a regular day-night cycle," Dr. Panda said. The new research consisted of putting mice on a strict feeding schedule. They were allowed to eat during an 8 hour period but had to fast for the next 16 hours. The scientists saw that genes that encode enzymes the body needs to break down sugars rise up right after a meal, while the activity of genes which encode enzymes needed to break down fat increases the most during fasting. Hence a clearly defined daily feeding schedule causes healthy regulation of the enzymes needed for metabolism and maximises burning of sugar and fat. "The liver oscillator in particular helps the organism to adapt to a daily pattern of food availability by temporally tuning the activity of thousands of genes regulating metabolism and physiology," Dr. Panda observed. "This regulation is very important, since the absence of a robust circadian clock predisposes the organism to various metabolic dysfunctions and diseases." The more defined fasting and feeding periods are, the more efficient the regulation. Dr. Panda himself tried the scheduled eating. "I even lost weight, although I eat whatever I want during the day," he noted.
Scientists Discover Vitamin C can Halt Diabetes Damage	A team of US and British scientists has found out that a combined therapy of insulin and vitamin C can stop disease-related blood vessel damage in patients with Type I diabetes. Researchers at the Harold Hamm Diabetes Center in Oklahoma and the University Hospital of Coventry and Warwickshire, UK, recruited 40 people into a trial. This trial involved providing vitamin C, insulin therapy, or both, for a range of time periods and assessing the effect of each therapy on endothelial (blood vessel) injury, blood flow and oxidative stress . The trial group had a range of sufferers, from those recently diagnosed with the condition to those who had been controlling the illness for five years or more. The results showed that either therapy was mildly effective for those with a recent diagnosis of Type I diabetes, but that only the combined treatment was totally effective, particularly for longer-suffering participants. "For patients with diabetes, this means simply getting their glucose under control is not enough. An antioxidant-based therapy combined with glucose control will give patients more of an advantage and lessen the chance of complications with diabetes." Complications of blood vessel damage, even in well controlled diabetes, can include kidney problems, injury to the small blood vessels in the eye which may lead to vision impairment and blindness, heart disease and nerve damage. A 2nd outcome was that only the combined therapy was able to switch off the 'memory' triggered by the onset of diabetes. Scientists believe that a cellular 'switch' is flicked early on in the course of the illness leading to damage and deterioration, which cannot be reversed with insulin control alone. The joint vitamin C and insulin therapy was able to reset this process.
Symptoms of type 1 diabetes	Symptoms of type 1 diabetes are often dramatic and come on very suddenly. Type 1 diabetes is usually recognized in childhood or early adolescence, often in association with an illness (such as a virus or urinary tract infection) or injury. The extra stress can cause diabetic ketoacidosis. Symptoms of ketoacidosis include nausea and vomiting. Dehydration and often-serious disturbances in blood levels of potassium follow. Without treatment, ketoacidosis can lead to coma and death.
Symptoms of type 2 diabetes	Symptoms of type 2 diabetes are often subtle and may be attributed to aging or obesity. A person may have type 2 diabetes for many years without knowing it. People with type 2 diabetes can develop hyperglycemic hyperosmolar nonketotic syndrome. Type 2 diabetes can be precipitated by steroids and stress. If not properly treated, type 2 diabetes can lead to complications like blindness, kidney failure, heart disease, and nerve damage.
Common symptoms of both major types of diabetes	Fatigue: In diabetes, the body is inefficient and sometimes unable to use glucose for fuel. The body switches over to metabolizing fat, partially or completely, as a fuel source. This process requires the body to use more energy. The end result is feeling fatigued or constantly tired. Unexplained weight loss: People with diabetes are unable to process many of the calories in the foods they eat. Thus, they may lose weight even though they eat an apparently appropriate or even excessive amount of food. Losing sugar and water in the urine and the accompanying dehydration also contributes to weight loss. Excessive thirst (polydipsia): A person with diabetes develops high blood sugar levels, which overwhelms the kidney's ability to reabsorb the sugar as the blood is filtered to make urine. Excessive urine is made as the kidney spills the excess sugar. The body tries to counteract this by sending a signal to the brain to dilute the blood, which translates into thirst. The body encourages more water consumption to dilute the high blood sugar back to normal levels and to compensate for the water lost by excessive urination. Excessive urination (polyuria): Another way the body tries to get rid of the extra sugar in the blood is to excrete it in the urine. This can also lead to dehydration because excreting the sugar carries a large amount of water out of the body along with it. Excessive eating (polyphagia): If the body is able, it will secrete more insulin in order to try to deal with the excessive blood sugar levels. Moreover, the body is resistant to the action of insulin in type 2 diabetes. One of the functions of insulin is to stimulate hunger. Therefore, higher insulin levels lead to increased hunger and eating. Despite increased caloric intake, the person may gain very little weight and may even lose weight. Poor wound healing: High blood sugar levels prevent white blood cells, which are important in defending the body against bacteria and also in cleaning up dead tissue and cells, from functioning normally. When these cells do not function properly, wounds take much longer to heal and become infected more frequently. Also, long-standing diabetes is associated with thickening of blood vessels, which prevents good circulation including the delivery of enough oxygen and other nutrients to body tissues. Infections: Certain infection syndromes, such as frequent yeast infections of the genitals, skin infections, and frequent urinary tract infections, may result from suppression of the immune system by diabetes and by the presence of glucose in the tissues, which allows bacteria to grow well. They can also be an indicator of poor blood sugar control in a person known to have diabetes. Altered mental status: Agitation, unexplained irritability, inattention, extreme lethargy, or confusion can all be signs of very high blood sugar, ketoacidosis, hyperosmolar hyperglycemia nonketotic syndrome, or hypoglycemia (low sugar). Thus, any of these merit the immediate attention of a medical professional. Call your health care provider or 911. Blurry vision: Blurry vision is not specific for diabetes but is frequently present with high blood sugar levels.
When to Seek Medical Care	If the patient is known to have diabetes, call a healthcare provider right away if any of the following apply: The patient is experiencing diabetes symptoms. This may mean that your blood sugar level is not being controlled despite treatment. The patient's blood sugar levels, when tested, are consistently high (more than 200 mg/dL). Persistently high blood sugar levels are the root cause of all of the complications of diabetes. The patient's blood sugar level is often low (less than 60 mg/dL). This may mean that management strategy is too aggressive. It also may be a sign of infection or other stress on the system such as kidney failure, liver failure, adrenal gland failure, or the concomitant use of certain medications. The patient has an injury to the foot or leg, no matter how minor. Even the tiniest cut or blister can become very serious in a person with diabetes. Early diagnosis and treatment of problems with the feet and lower extremities, along with regular diabetic foot care, are critical in preserving the function of the legs and preventing amputation. The patient has a low-grade fever (less than 101.5°F). Fever is a sign of infection. In patients with diabetes, many common infections can potentially be more dangerous for them than for other people. Note any symptoms, such as painful urination, redness or swelling of the skin, abdominal pain, chest pain, or cough, that may indicate where the infection is located. The patient is nauseated or vomiting but can keep liquids down. The healthcare provider may adjust medications while the patient is sick and will probably recommend an urgent office visit or a visit to the emergency department. Persistent nausea and vomiting can be a sign of diabetic ketoacidosis, a potentially life-threatening condition, as well as several other serious illnesses. The patient has a small sore (ulcer) on the foot or leg. Any non-healing sore or ulcer on the feet or legs of someone with diabetes needs to be seen by a medical professional right away. A sore less than 1 inch across, not draining pus, and not exposing deep tissue or bone can safely be evaluated in a healthcare provider's office as long as the patient does not have fever and their blood sugar levels are in control. When you call a healthcare provider, tell the operator that you or someone you know has diabetes and are concerned. The patient will probably be referred to a nurse who will ask questions and make a recommendation about what to do. Be prepared for this conversation. Have a list of medications, medical problems, allergies to medicines, and a blood sugar diary handy by the phone. The nurse may need any or all of this information to decide both the urgency of the patient's condition and how best to recommend treatment for the problem. Diabetic emergencies The following situations can become 911 medical emergencies and warrant an immediate visit to a hospital emergency department. The person with a severe diabetic complication may travel to the emergency department by car or ambulance. A companion should go along to speak for the person if the person is not able to speak for himself or herself with the emergency care provider. Bring a list of medical problems, medications, allergies to medications, and the blood sugar diary to the emergency department. This information will help the emergency care provider diagnose the problem and treat it appropriately. The following are signs and symptoms of diabetic complications that warrant emergency care. Altered mental status: Lethargy, agitation, forgetfulness, or just strange behavior can be a sign of very low or very high blood sugar levels. If the person is a known diabetic, try giving him or her some fruit juice (about 6 ounces) or cake icing if the person is awake enough to swallow normally without choking. Avoid giving things such as hard candy that can lodge in the throat. The healthcare provider can prescribe glucose wafers or gels that melt under the tongue. If the person does not wake up and behave normally within about 15 minutes, call 911. If the person is not a known diabetic, these symptoms can be signs of stroke, drug intoxication, alcohol intoxication, oxygen starvation, and other serious medical conditions. Call 911 immediately. Nausea or vomiting: If the patient is known to have diabetes and cannot keep food, medications, or fluids down at all, they may have diabetic ketoacidosis, hyperosmolar hyperglycemic nonketotic syndrome, or another complication of diabetes. If the patient has not already taken the latest insulin dose or oral diabetes medicine, do not take it without talking to a medical professional. If the patient already has low blood sugar levels, taking additional insulin or medication will drive the blood sugar level down even further, possibly to dangerous levels. Fever of more than 101.5°F: If the primary healthcare provider cannot see the patient right away, seek emergency care for a high fever if they are diabetic. Note any other symptoms such as cough, painful urination, abdominal pain, or chest pain. High blood sugar level: If the patient's blood sugar level is more than 400 mg/dL, and the primary healthcare provider cannot see them right away. Very high blood sugar levels can be a sign of diabetic ketoacidosis or hyperosmolar hyperglycemic nonketotic syndrome, depending on the type of diabetes you have. Both of these conditions can be fatal if not treated promptly. Large sores or ulcers on the feet or legs: If the patient has diabetes, a non-healing sore larger than 1 inch in diameter can be a sign of a potentially limb-threatening infection.
Other signs and symptoms that merit immediate care	Other signs and symptoms that merit immediate care are: exposed bone or deep tissue in the wound, large areas of surrounding redness and warmth, swelling, and severe pain in the foot or leg. If left untreated, such a sore may ultimately require amputation of the limb. Cuts or lacerations: Any cut penetrating all the layers of skin, especially on the legs, is a potential danger to a person with diabetes. Proper wound care, although important to anyone's recovery, is especially important in diabetics to assure good wound healing. Chest pain: If the patient is diabetic, take very seriously any pain in the chest, particularly in the middle or on the left side, and seek medical attention immediately. People with diabetes are more likely than non-diabetic people to have a heart attack, with or without experiencing chest pain. Irregular heartbeats and unexplained shortness of breath may also be signs of heart attack. Severe abdominal pain: Depending on the location, this can be a sign of heart attack, abdominal aortic aneurysm (widening of the large artery in the abdomen), diabetic ketoacidosis, or interrupted blood flow to the bowels. All of these are more common in people with diabetes than in the general population and are potentially life-threatening. Those with diabetes also get other common causes of severe abdominal pain such as appendicitis, perforated ulcer, inflammation and infection of the gallbladder, kidney stones, and bowel obstruction. Severe pain anywhere in the body is a signal for timely medical attention.
Exams and Tests	Finger stick blood glucose: This is a rapid screening test that may be performed anywhere, including community-based screening programs. A fingerstick blood glucose test is not as accurate as testing the patient's blood in the laboratory but is easy to perform, and the result is available right away. The test involves sticking the patient's finger for a blood sample, which is then placed on a strip. The strip goes into a machine that reads the blood sugar level. These machines are only accurate to within about 10% of true actual laboratory values. Fingerstick blood glucose values may be inaccurate at very high or very low levels, so this test is only a preliminary screening study. This is the way most people with diabetes monitor their blood sugar levels at home. Fasting plasma glucose: The patient will be asked to eat or drink nothing for 8 hours before having blood drawn (usually first thing in the morning). If the blood glucose level is greater than or equal to 126 mg/dL without eating anything, they probably have diabetes. If the result is abnormal, the fasting plasma glucose test may be repeated on a different day to confirm the result, or the patient may undergo an oral glucose tolerance test or a glycosylated hemoglobin test (often called "hemoglobin A1c") as a confirmatory test. If fasting plasma glucose level is greater than 100 but less than 126 mg/dL, then the patient has what is called impaired fasting glucose, or IFG. This is considered to be pre-diabetes. The patient does not have diabetes, but they are at high risk of developing diabetes in the near future. Oral glucose tolerance test: This test involves drawing blood for a fasting plasma glucose test, then drawing blood for a second test at two hours after drinking a very sweet drink containing 75 grams of sugar. If the blood sugar level after the sugar drink is greater than or equal to 200 mg/dL, the patient has diabetes. If the blood glucose level is between 140 and 199, then the patient has impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), which is also a pre-diabetic condition. Glycosylated hemoglobin or hemoglobin A1c: This test is a measurement of how high blood sugar levels have been over about the last 120 days (the average life-span of the red blood cells on which the test is based). Excess blood glucose hooks on to the hemoglobin in red blood cells and stays there for the life of the red blood cell. The percentage of hemoglobin that has had excess blood sugar attached to it can be measured in the blood. The test involves having a small amount of blood drawn. A hemoglobin A1c test is the best measurement of blood sugar control in people known to have diabetes. A hemoglobin A1c result of 7% or less indicates good glucose control. A result of 8% or greater indicates that blood sugar levels are too high for too much of the time. The hemoglobin A1c test is less reliable to diagnose diabetes than for follow-up care. Still, a hemoglobin A1c result greater than 6.1% is highly suggestive of diabetes. Generally, a confirmatory test would be needed before diagnosing diabetes. The hemoglobin A1c test is generally measured about every three to six months for people with known diabetes, although it may be done more frequently for people who are having difficulty achieving and maintaining good blood sugar control. This test is not used for people who do not have diabetes or are not at increased risk of diabetes. Normal values may vary from laboratory to laboratory, although an effort is under way to standardize how measurements are performed.
Diabetes Treatment	Self-Care at Home If you or someone you know has diabetes, they would be wise to make healthful lifestyle choices in diet, exercise, and other health habits. These will help to improve glycemic (blood sugar) control and prevent or minimize complications of diabetes. Diet: A healthy diet is key to controlling blood sugar levels and preventing diabetes complications. If the patient is obese and has had difficulty losing weight on their own, talk to a healthcare provider. He or she can recommend a dietitian or a weight modification program to help the patient reach a goal. Eat a consistent, well-balanced diet that is high in fiber, low in saturated fat, and low in concentrated sweets. A consistent diet that includes roughly the same number of calories at about the same times of day helps the healthcare provider prescribe the correct dose of medication or insulin. It will also help to keep blood sugar at a relatively even level and avoid excessively low or high blood sugar levels, which can be dangerous and even life-threatening. Exercise: Regular exercise, in any form, can help reduce the risk of developing diabetes. Activity can also reduce the risk of developing complications of diabetes such as heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, blindness, and leg ulcers. As little as 20 minutes of walking three times a week has a proven beneficial effect. Any exercise is beneficial; no matter how light or how long, some exercise is better than no exercise. If the patient has complications of diabetes (eye, kidney, or nerve problems), they may be limited both in type of exercise and amount of exercise they can safely do without worsening their condition. Consult with your health care provider before starting any exercise program. Alcohol use: Moderate or eliminate consumption of alcohol. Try to have no more than seven alcoholic drinks in a week and never more than two or three in an evening. One drink is considered 1.5 ounces of liquor, 6 ounces of wine, or 12 ounces of beer. Excessive alcohol use is a known risk factor for type 2 diabetes. Alcohol consumption can cause low or high blood sugar levels, nerve pain called neuritis, and increase in triglycerides, which is a type of fat in our blood. Smoking: If the patient has diabetes, and you smoke cigarettes or use any other form of tobacco, they are raising the risks markedly for nearly all of the complications of diabetes. Smoking damages blood vessels and contributes to heart disease, stroke, and poor circulation in the limbs. If someone needs help quitting, talk to a healthcare provider. Self-monitored blood glucose: Check blood sugar levels frequently, at least before meals and at bedtime, and record the results in a logbook. This log should also include insulin or oral medication doses and times, when and what the patient ate, when and for how long they exercised, and any significant events of the day such as high or low blood sugar levels and how they treated the problem. Better equipment now available makes testing blood sugar levels less painful and less complicated than ever. A daily blood sugar diary is invaluable to the healthcare provider in seeing how the patient is responding to medications, diet, and exercise in the treatment of diabetes. Medicare now pays for diabetic testing supplies, as do many private insurers and Medicaid.

Location	Topic	Description	Link
London	Detection and Causes of Diabetes	Type 1 diabetes the cells in the pancreas that make insulin are destroyed, causing a severe lack of insulin. This is thought to be the result of the body attacking and destroying its own cells in the pancreas - known as an autoimmune reaction. It's not clear why this happens, but a number of explanations and possible triggers of this reaction have been proposed. The cause of diabetes are: infection with a specific virus or bacteria; exposure to food-borne chemical toxins; and exposure as a very young infant to cow's milk, where an as yet unidentified component of this triggers the autoimmune reaction in the body. However, these are only hypotheses and are by no means proven causes. diabetes Type 2 is believed to develop when: the receptors on cells in the body that normally respond to the action of insulin fail to be stimulated by it - this is known as insulin resistance. In response to this more insulin may be produced, and this over-production exhausts the insulin-manufacturing cells in the pancreas; there is simply insufficient insulin available; and the insulin that is available may be abnormal and therefore doesn't work properly. The following risk factors increase the chances of someone developing Type 2 diabetes: Increasing age; obesity; and physical inactivity. Rarer causes of diabetes include: Certain medicines; pregnancy (gestational diabetes); and any illness or disease that damages the pancreas and affects its ability to produce insulin e.g. pancreatitis. Our goal is to help with the care and treatment of diabetes including diagnosing the diabetes symptoms. Being able to diagnose quickly is very important. We also aim to give the most useful information we can find, with as much help as possible. Please also visit the supplies page for the best comparison shopping links we have found. While we try to provide the most accurate information possible please always be sure to consult with a doctor if you think you have any of the symptoms or to check the accuracy of the information found on these pages.