Are Endurance Athletes More Susceptible To Diabetes?

Are Endurance Athletes More Susceptible to Diabetes?

The counterintuitive theory has pervaded books, studies, and Reddit threads and is something of a rally cry for LCHF converts. But while there may be some benefit to monitoring insulin levels, there's no need to cut out all carbs quite yet.
It was a hard bonk during a 16-mile race up New Zealand’s 6,000-foot Avalanche Peak in 2013 that made Felicity Thomas, an undergraduate engineering student at the nearby University of Canterbury, begin thinking about her blood sugar levels. She’d tried to follow the usual sports nutrition advice, sucking down sugary gels to replenish the carbohydrates that her muscles were burning and to keep her blood sugar levels stable, but she struggled to get the balance right and ended up crawling to the finish before throwing up in an ice-cream bucket. Surely, thought Thomas, there must be a better way of managing in-race fuel.
As it happened, Thomas was an intern that summer at the university’s Center for Bioengineering, which was researching the clinical potential of continuous glucose monitors, or tiny sensors inserted under the skin of the abdomen that track blood sugar levels in real time. She took one of the expired monitors lying around the lab. If I could spot impending blood sugar lows before they happened, she wondered, would I be able to ward them off with a well-timed gel? Could I make myself bonk-proof?
A week of self-experimentation convinced Thomas that the technique might be useful, and she soon embarked on a PhD studying the potential uses of glucose monitoring in athletes. But the outcome of her initial pilot study on ten r Continue reading

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Ketogenic Diet and Type 1 Diabetes

What is Type 1 Diabetes?
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. The immune system is a defence that guards the body against bacteria, fungi or parasites.
A combination of genetics and an environmental (viral infection, vaccines, low levels of vitamin D, cow’s milk or increased insulin demand) trigger engages the immune system to attack and destroy the beta cells in the pancreas. After these beta cells are destroyed, the body is unable to produce insulin.
Type 1 diabetes is the result of the inability of the pancreas to produce insulin. With type 2 diabetes, the pancreas produces insulin.
Who Gets Type 1 Diabetes?
Type 1 diabetes can affect all age groups. Although the thought has been that type 1 diabetes appears during childhood, current research has found that adults are just as likely to be diagnosed with type 1 diabetes; half of type 1 diabetics are diagnosed after age 30. (1)
Yet, the rate of Type 1 diabetes in children, in the US, has increased by almost 60% in 11 years (2) and approximately 1 in 300 children in the US will be affected by type 1 diabetes by 18 years of age. (3) There are too many children who are effected globally.
The highest rates are in northern Europe and in individuals of European decent. Men are more commonly affected in early adult life. (2) Data suggests the incidence of T1D has been increasing by 2–5% worldwide. (5)
What Happens When Your Body Does Not Make Enough Insulin?
Beta cells in the pancreas are destroyed by your own immune system resulting in too little or no insulin (a hormone released by the pancreas) produced.
Without insul Continue reading

Is there really an epidemic of ice, obesity, diabetes and bomb threats?

Every day when you check the news, you read of a new epidemic. An epidemic of ice, diabetes, obesity, antimicicrobial resistance or some other pressing problem. I searched the news today and came across the following new "epidemics": tooth decay, prescription pain pills, carer abuse, bomb threats and distracted driving. Journalistic misuse of the term is understandable, but even health professionals, researchers and public health experts regularly misuse the term "epidemic". The term conveys an immediacy, emergency and the need for urgent action, hence the desire of every party with a vested interest to use the term to describe their particular issue.
So what exactly is an epidemic? It is an outbreak of disease that attacks many people at about the same time and may spread through one or several communities. It is defined by rate of growth of the epidemic curve (see the red curve in my illustration, which is a typical epidemic curve), and usually has immediate impact on health systems and requires immediate surge capacity. An outbreak refers to a smaller scale event, and epidemic to a larger scale and a pandemic to the global spread of an infection meeting this definition. The transition from outbreak to epidemic is arbitrary and has no precise numeric cut off point.
The two common epidemic origins are point source and propagated. A point source outbreak is a single source of contamination affecting many people around the same time – food borne outbreaks are an example, where many people may consume a contaminated food item and become ill at around the same time. A propag Continue reading

People with Diabetes Are Suing the Top 3 Insulin Makers

The law firm Hagens Berman is representing people living with diabetes in a class action suit against the ‘Big Three’ insulin makers Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi with the potential to affect any of the 29,000,000 people living with diabetes who take analog insulin.
Those three pharmaceutical giants have been accused of unfairly raising their prices and thus monopolizing the insulin market by the plaintiffs in the case: people with type 1 diabetes. Hagen Berman is a very successful consumer rights firm who has won more than $260 billion in settlements against heavy hitters like pharmaceutical companies and banks.
We recently reported that Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Elijah Cummings had asked the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to look into the same three companies for possible price collusion or what they called, “anticompetitive behavior”. Now the people are taking matters into their own hands.
What is the Case Against the Big Three?
T1International, a UK registered charity which is the equivalent of a non-profit organization in the US, supports people around the world getting access to affordable insulin. They shared in a post that Hagens Berman has investigated the matter and that their data show that “the publicly reported, list prices of Lantus, Levemir, Novolog and Humalog have increased by more than 160% in the last five years, while the prices offered to pharmacy benefit managers stayed constant or even decreased.”
T1International explains that the way it normally works, drug makers typically lower their prices Continue reading

How to use basal insulin: Benefits, types, and dosage

Insulin is a hormone made in the pancreas that is responsible for regulating blood sugar levels. Diabetes is a condition where the body doesn't make enough insulin or can't use it properly.
People diagnosed with diabetes benefit from increasing their body's natural insulin levels by injecting insulin.
Different types of insulin are available. They can be classed by:
how quickly they work (onset time)
how long their effects last (duration)
when they peak (peak time)
Basal insulin is one type of insulin that is available, and it plays a vital role in managing diabetes.
Contents of this article:
What is basal insulin?
Basal insulin is also known as background insulin. It helps to keep blood sugar levels stable during periods of fasting, such as between meals or during sleep.
During these times, the body keeps releasing sugar (also known as glucose) into the bloodstream. This gives energy to the body's cells.
Basal insulin helps to keep levels of this glucose in check. The insulin reaches the bloodstream several hours after injection.
It keeps glucose levels constant throughout the day and night. In general, basal insulin remains in the system for 18-24 hours.
Types of basal insulin
There are two main types of basal insulin:
Long-acting insulin
This type of insulin may be recommended for several types of diabetes. It generally acts in the body for up to 24 hours, although some types can last longer than this.
Depending on the type of insulin used and patient needs, long-acting basal insulin should be injected either once or twice daily.
Long-acting insulin tends to have no peak Continue reading