47% In China Likely Have Prediabetes Or Diabetes

47% in China Likely Have Prediabetes Or Diabetes

Over 10% of China's population has diabetes -- one of the high prevalence rates in the world -- and more than a third are likely to be prediabetic, according to a new nationally representative study.
Led by Limin Wang, MPH, of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing, and colleagues, the analysis reported the estimated standardized prevalence for diabetes among China's population for 2013 was pegged at 10.9% (95% CI 10.4%-11.5), which included diagnosed (4%, 95% CI 3.6%-4.3%) and undiagnosed cases of diabetes.
Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the prevalence of China's prediabetes population was estimated at 35.7% (95% CI 34.1%-37.4%).
Compared to the U.S., which had a combined diabetes and prediabetes estimate of 49%-52% between 2011-2012, China was only slightly lower with a combined 47% prevalence rate in 2013.
Following a nationwide survey conducted in 2010, China's prediabetes prevalence was estimated at 50.1%, while their diabetes prevalence was estimated at 11.6%. However, Wang's group suspected these numbers overestimated the true prevalence, and therefore aimed to do better in their current study.
The research group drew on data from 170,287 adults who participated in the China Chronic Disease and Risk Factors Surveillance study, conducted every three years. The survey included an in-depth questionnaire to gather information on lifestyle risk factors, medical history, and demographics, as well as physical and lab evaluations (similar to NHANES in the U.S.).
All participants not previously diagnosed with diabetes u Continue reading

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6 Tips on How to Prevent Feline Diabetes

As the owner of a diabetic cat who, fortunately, has been in remission for a few years now, I get asked about feline diabetes quite a bit. One question a lot of people have is how they can keep their cats from getting the disease. The good news is that for the vast majority of cats, there are six simple steps you can take to prevent your furry friend from getting feline diabetes.
1. The first step in preventing feline diabetes: watch your cat’s weight
As with Type 2 diabetes in humans, the most common risk factor for development of the diabetes in cats is obesity. A recent study revealed that 58 percent of cats are overweight or obese, and that’s a lot of ticking diabetes time bombs. Fat cats may be cute, but the health risks certainly are not. Make sure you feed your cat according to the instructions on his food, and if you are going to feed treats and snacks, make sure you compensate by feeding less at mealtime.
2. Feed your cat a species-appropriate diet
Cats are obligate carnivores. Their bodies evolved to eat a high-protein, low-carbohydrate and grain-free diet. Most vets these days agree that cats do best on a diet of canned food because the protein-carbohydrate balance is more in alignment with what their systems are designed to handle. Talk to your vet to determine the right diet for your cat.
3. Provide exercise and enrichment
Not only will exercise keep your cat’s weight down, it will reduce his stress level as well, so be sure to play with him every day. A bonus of daily play is that it will strengthen the bond between you and your furry friend. Environment Continue reading

Sugar and Your Brain: Is Alzheimer’s Disease Actually Type 3 Diabetes?

It starves your brain, tangles and twists vital cells, and for decades it has been misrepresented as an untreatable, genetically determined disease. Alzheimer's disease is the 6th leading cause of death in North America1. The truth, however, is that this devastating illness shares a strong link with another sickness that wreaks havoc on millions of individuals in North America — Diabetes.
We all know that individuals affected by Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes have a notable resistance to insulin. Type 1 is caused by the body's inability to produce insulin, and Type 2 is caused by the deterioration of the body's insulin receptors and associated with the consumption of too much refined carbohydrate like processed grains and sugar. But when studies began to appear in 2005 that revealed a shocking correlation between insulin and brain cell deterioration, major breaks were made around Alzheimer's prevention[i]. Health practitioners became curious about a critical question — could Alzheimer's disease simply be Type 3 Diabetes?
Alzheimer's disease has long been perceived as mysterious and inevitable. 5.3 million individuals suffer every year from the disease that appears to be untreatable[ii]. But, if this illness is associated with insulin resistance, this simply isn't the case.
We already know that diabetics are at least twice as likely to experience dementia[iii]. The cells of your brain can become insulin-resistant just like other cells in the body. What was once considered a mysterious accumulation of beta amyloid plaques characteristic in the Alzheimer brain is now associate Continue reading

What It’s Like To Live With Type 1 Diabetes

What It’s Like To Live With Type 1 Diabetes
By: Valeria Guerrero
What’s it like?
It’s pricking your finger endlessly throughout the day.
It’s not being afraid of blood because you get used to seeing so much of it.
It’s no longer feeling tremor to a needle because you’ve had no choice than to be poked by them every day.
It’s being woken up countless times throughout the night to fix blood sugars that just won’t become stable.
It’s waking up feeling hung over because your sugars were high all night no matter the amount of corrections you gave yourself.
It’s not being able to eat whatever you want before carb counting and analyzing how it will affect your sugars later.
It’s having to put on a fake smile every time you have to explain to someone that type 1 and type 2 diabetes are NOT the same thing.
It’s not being able to go a single work out without stressing if you’re going to go too low, drop too fast or go high.
It’s seeing all the scars all over our tummy, arms and legs from all the site changes and pokes and just cry.
It’s people staring at you while you poke yourself and watching you like something is wrong with you.
It’s people telling you “you can’ t have that” or “should you be eating that?”
It’s people assuming you have type 2 when you say you have diabetes.
It’s watching people look at you like you’re breaking the law by having a candy.
It’s asking yourself what you did wrong because you got this disease even when they say it isn’t your fault.
It’s remembering what it was like before being diagnosed and feeling Continue reading

‘Type 3 diabetes’: New links emerge between poor glucose metabolism and Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease is often broadly referred to as “Type 3 diabetes,” because it’s thought that glucose processing goes haywire in the neurodegenerative disease, just as it does in diabetes.
A new National Institutes of Health study adds some credence to that theory, finding that glitches in the way the brain breaks down glucose — a process called glycolysis — seem to correspond with more severe symptoms in patients with Alzheimer’s. Continue reading