Cold Weather And Type 1 Diabetes

Cold Weather and Type 1 Diabetes

Note: This article is part of our Daily Life library of resources. To learn more about the many things that affect your health and daily management of Type 1, visit here.
Were you diagnosed during winter? Have you noticed that your CGM seems to resemble a rollercoaster when the weather gets cold? It turns out that you may not be just imagining things: climate and temperature are suspected to affect diabetes at nearly every stage, from a Type 1 diagnosis to a typical day in the life of someone who’s had the condition for years.
Diagnosis of Type 1
Remember that notorious “environmental trigger” component we’ve all heard about? Factors like viruses along with genetic predisposition are important to consider in a Type 1 diagnosis. According to the NCBI, viruses may be triggering Type 1 “[…] via a direct cytolytic effect, or by triggering an autoimmune process leading gradually to β-cell destruction.” And viruses are more rampant in cold weather because they have a better chance of surviving when our immune system is slower to respond to their presence (Smithsonian).
Type 1 diagnoses occur more frequently in colder places, too. According to the International Diabetes Federation, Finland and Norway lead the world in the highest rates of incidence of Type 1 in children (aged 0-14). It appears that cold weather may be putting us at a higher risk of contracting Type 1.
Managing Type 1
Cold weather continues to affect after a Type 1 diagnosis and can interfere with management of the chronic illness. If you love winter activities like skiing, skating and snow-angel-mak Continue reading

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How to Reverse Type 2 Diabetes with ZERO Weight Loss

Since the 1970’s when the Atkins diet first gained popularity, carbohydrates have been thrown under the bus and blamed for a host of metabolic disorders including diabetes, obesity, heart disease, cancer and insulin resistance.
This anti-carbohydrate literature will lead you to believe that carbohydrates cause total-body inflammation, setting the stage for a host of complex metabolic disorders that can only be solved by eliminating carbohydrates from your diet.
In this article you will learn exactly how to reverse type 2 diabetes in a matter of weeks following a highly "unconventional" approach.
It’s easy to believe these claims, because they are always backed up by scientific research and communicated using fancy words that are very convincing.
Because of this, low carbohydrate diets have taken the world by storm, resulting in millions of people who actively avoid eating any form of carbohydrate, whether from refined sources like bread, cereal, pasta, rice and artificial sweeteners, or from whole sources like fruits and starchy vegetables.
As a society, we have come to fear carbohydrates.
The words “low carb” and “no carb” are printed on labels, boxes and packages, feeding the anti-carbohydrate frenzy and strengthening the stance against this alleged dietary criminal.
Visit your nearby bookstore and you’ll find entire books written on the subject of carbohydrates, with authors making wild claims that “there is no biological need for carbohydrates in your diet,” arguing that our Paleolithic ancestors subsisted for thousands of years on diets low in carbohy Continue reading

Type 2 Diabetes: Is It an Autoimmune Disease?

For decades, doctors and researchers have believed type 2 diabetes is a metabolic disorder. This type of disorder occurs when your body’s natural chemical processes don’t work properly.
New research suggests type 2 diabetes may actually be an autoimmune disease. If that’s the case, new treatments and preventive measures may be developed to treat this condition.
Currently, there isn’t enough evidence to fully support this idea. For now, doctors will continue to prevent and treat type 2 diabetes with diet, lifestyle changes, medications, and injected insulin.
Read on to learn more about the research that’s being done and the implications it may have on the treatment and prevention of type 2 diabetes.
Type 2 diabetes has historically been viewed as a different type of disease from type 1 diabetes, despite their similar name. Type 2 diabetes occurs when your body becomes resistant to insulin or can’t produce enough insulin. Insulin is a hormone that moves glucose from your blood to your cells. Your cells convert glucose to energy.
Without insulin, your cells can’t use glucose, and symptoms of diabetes can occur. These symptoms may include fatigue, increased hunger, increased thirst, and blurred vision.
Type 1 diabetes, sometimes called juvenile diabetes because it’s often diagnosed in children and teens, is an autoimmune disease.
In people with type 1 diabetes, the immune system mistakenly attacks the healthy tissues of the body and destroys the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. The damage from these attacks prevents the pancreas from supplying insulin to Continue reading

Why does obesity cause diabetes? You asked Google – here’s the answer

‘Cause” is a strong word. It means that A results in B happening. Causality is also surprisingly difficult to prove. Most medical studies only show association between A and B, while causality often remains speculative and frustratingly elusive. Obesity and diabetes are no exception.
There are many types of diabetes. All are unified by elevated levels of blood sugar. Type 1 diabetes accounts for less than 10% of cases and results from autoimmune destruction of the beta cells in the pancreas, which produce and release insulin. (In an autoimmune process, antibodies that normally target and fight infection instead target one’s own cells). Type 3c (secondary) diabetes can occur when there has been destruction of the pancreatic beta cells through some other process, such as excessive alcohol, inflammation or surgical resection.
There are also many genetic forms of diabetes, each usually resulting from a single gene mutation that affects pancreatic function in some way. Finally, there is type 2 diabetes (T2D), which accounts for more than 90% of cases globally. Media reports of diabetes, particularly in the context of obesity, usually relate to T2D, the two terms often being used interchangeably.
Only T2D appears to be associated with obesity. Epidemiological studies across the world have shown that the greater one’s body mass index (BMI), the greater the chance of developing T2D. However, this is not the same as saying that obesity causes T2D. The majority of people who are obese will never develop T2D – a fact that exposes the statement “obesity causes diabetes” a Continue reading

Obesity, Diabetes, and Epigenetic Inheritance

Disease risk can be transmitted epigenetically via egg and sperm cells, a mouse study shows.
While scientists have identified several genetic risk factors for diabetes and obesity, some have proposed epigenetic alterations in gametes as another potential mechanism of disease risk inheritance. Now, a mouse study by researchers in Germany provides new evidence in support of this epigenetic inheritance theory, showing that different diets in otherwise identical mice can determine glucose intolerance and obesity risk in offspring via egg and sperm cells. The team’s findings were published today (March 14) in Nature Genetics.
“The view so far was that [risk] is all determined by genes—it’s fate,” said study coauthor Johannes Beckers of the Helmholtz Zentrum München. “But our findings give back a certain responsibility to the parents. They really have the possibility to affect what offspring inherit in their epigenome.”
Approximately 90 percent of nearly 350 million cases of diabetes worldwide are classified as type 2. In addition to environmental factors often cited to explain the high prevalence of the disease—including poor diets and sedentary lifestyles—several epidemiological and mouse studies have hinted that diet-induced susceptibility to obesity and diabetes, acquired during parents’ lifetimes, can be inherited.
However, previous analyses of the phenomenon have relied on in vivo fertilization to produce offspring, explained Beckers, making it difficult to distinguish heritable, epigenetic determinants in the gametes from other factors that can influen Continue reading