Diabetes At Work: The Patient’s Rights And Benefits

Diabetes At Work: The Patient’s Rights and Benefits

A person cannot be denied health care coverage and benefits because they have diabetes prior to employment.
In the U.S., most people who are employed have health insurance coverage provided by their employer directly from their own job or through family members such as a spouse or parent. However, not all employers offer health insurance to their employees. Small companies are not required to provide insurance to their employees but medium size and large companies that have 50 or more full-time employees must provide their employees with affordable health care coverage, failure of which will attract heavy fines. Health insurance plans offered by the employer involve both employer and employee premium contributions with the employee’s contribution being paid on a pre-tax basis.
Understanding insurance is challenging but also very crucial especially for people living with diabetes. Companies offer different options of healthcare coverage plans and are required to provide a summary of benefits and coverage (SBC). This summary lists information on coverage and costs such as deductibles, out-of-pocket limits, co-pays, and co-insurance. Health insurance providers are required to give their employees an SBC during their first enrollment and at the beginning of each plan year, but employees can request an SBC from their provider at any time from which they have seven days to provide it.
Although an SBC is useful, it does not show if specific products are covered. However, one can always call the health insurance helpline to determine which medications and devices are covered by s Continue reading

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Improving my Sleep with a Glucose Monitor

Do bad glucose levels lead to bad sleep?
Does a bad night sleep impact blood glucose levels the next day?
At the recent Quantified Self Amsterdam conference, we had a workshop on metabolism and sleep. During the workshop, we got a chance to meet and talk with type 1 diabetic patients who have been using continuous glucose monitors for years — and know deeply how sleep and glucose levels are related.
It turns out there’s so much more to glucose than just what we eat — sleep is a fundamental part of the equation.
Measuring Sleep
I’ve measured my sleep with the Fitbit and the emFit for the last year. Both are great — giving insights into sleep, and giving a history of times slept/how well we slept over time.
While the Fitbit is great for starting out looking into sleep, the emFit is a prosumer device, giving more detail with minute-by-minute heart rate, Heart Rate Variability (how well rested the body is — see below section for more) and breathing patterns. The emFit is even used for medical research and for managing chronic diseases like epilepsy.
Does Blood Glucose Impact Sleep
Some of the worst nights sleep I’ve had is when my glucose levels have gone too low during the night (hypoglycaemia), cause by very low carb evening meals.
I’m restless. I’m cold. I wake up with a headache and feeling groggy the next morning.
When blood sugar goes too low, the liver will release new glucose, but it looks like this only happens when I’m awake. In above, the levels only went back up when I woke up.
This looks like what’s called ‘rebound hyperglycemia’.
We talke Continue reading

Influence of uncontrolled diabetes mellitus on periodontal tissues during orthodontic tooth movement: a systematic review of animal studies

Abstract
Diabetes mellitus (DM) may adversely affect periodontal tissues during orthodontic tooth movement (OTM). The aim of this review is to systematically analyze and review animal studies investigating the effect of DM on periodontal tissues during OTM. An electronic search was conducted via PubMed/Medline, Google Scholar, Embase, ISI Web of Knowledge, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CONTROL) using the keywords “diabetes,” “orthodontics,” and “tooth movement” for studies published between January 2000 and August 2016. After elimination of duplicate items, the primary search resulted in 89 articles. After exclusion of irrelevant articles on the basis of abstract and title, full texts of 25 articles were read to exclude additional irrelevant studies. Seven animal studies were included in this review for qualitative analysis. When compared to healthy animals, more bone resorption and diminished bone remodeling were observed in diabetic animals in all studies. Furthermore, DM decreased the rate of OTM in one study, but in another study, DM accelerated OTM. DM may adversely affect bone remodeling and tooth movement during application of orthodontic forces. However, a number of potential sources of bias and deficiencies in methodology are present in studies investigating the association between OTM and DM. Hence, more long-term and well-designed studies are required before the exact mechanism and impact of DM on outcomes of orthodontic treatment is understood.
Review
Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a chronic disease which is characterized by an impai Continue reading

A cure for type 1 diabetes! Prof Eli Lewis on a medical holy grail

Dr Eli Lewis, professor of clinical biochemistry and pharmacology at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, a public research university in Beersheba, Israel, may have stumbled across one of modern medicine’s most enduring holy grails: a safe, effective way to reverse type 1 diabetes. Lewis’s research focuses on the tissue damage that plays a role in type 1 diabetes, and which he says is often overlooked and under-studied. Back in 2003, Lewis began researching the role of inflammation in injured islets – tiny clusters of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas – and the effects of transfusions of an anti-inflammatory drug based on a protein the body produces naturally all the time, known as Alpha 1 Antitrypsin (AAT, or alpha1). AAT has so far been used mostly only to treat emphysema, but Lewis’s breakthrough research shows the protein’s promise via transfusion in reducing insulin dependence in type 1 diabetics, and in some cases actually reversing the condition completely, if caught early enough. He believes it may help type 2 diabetes, again if the disease is caught early enough, and supported with lifestyle change, including keeping carbohydrates low, which he says is essential for diabetics.
Lewis describes AAT as a form of ‘immuno-modulation’, and says its application goes beyond diabetes: US researchers are currently studying inflammatory bowel disease in patients; bone-marrow transplant prognosis is ‘phenomenal’ with AAT according to a Seattle trial; researchers are testing it in ischemic heart disease for diminished cardiac scar size; and it shows pr Continue reading

Non-Diabetic’s Guide to Helping Loved Ones with Diabetes

Whether you’re a brother, mother, aunt, boyfriend, wife or best friend, knowing how to support the people in your life who live with diabetes isn’t all that easy. In fact, it can be very tricky. Mostly, because:
We all have different needs when it comes to the kind of support we want in diabetes.
You, as the person who loves us, really want to make sure we’re safe and healthy, and sometimes that might come off as overbearing or controlling or nosey…but really, you just really love us.
We don’t always behave the most wonderfully when we’re having a high blood sugar or a low blood sugar. And while we can’t always control that behavior, it does make communication a lot harder for you, the person who loves us.
To help you be the best support system you can possibly be for the person in your life with diabetes, here are a few tips (and in video form here):
Ask us what we need. Personally, I don’t need someone to remind me to check my blood sugar or help me count my carbohydrates. That would irritate me. On the other hand, it is incredibly helpful when my boyfriend reminds me to take my Lantus before bed, and I sincerely appreciate when he asks me what my blood sugar is after I check. To me, that’s great support. I want him to know what my blood sugar is so he can be aware of how my mental state is. For others, those things might drive them nuts. Giving us support we don’t want isn’t going to help; in fact, it might lead us to blocking you out of our diabetes management altogether. Let us tell you, in our own words, how you can support us.
Please don’t lec Continue reading