Diabetes Incontinence: What You Should Know

Oftentimes, having one condition can increase your risk for other issues. This is true for diabetes and incontinence, or the accidental release of urine or fecal matter. Incontinence can also be a symptom of an overactive bladder (OAB), which is the sudden urge to urinate.
One Norwegian study found that incontinence affected 39 percent of women with diabetes and 26 percent of women without diabetes. Another review suggested that type 2 diabetes may affect incontinence, but more research is needed. In general, lots of people deal with various types of incontinence and levels of severity. The common types include:
stress, leakage is due to pressure on the bladder
urge, uncontrolled leakage due to a need to void
overflow, leakage due to full bladder
functional, nerve, or muscle damage causes leakage
transient incontinence, a temporary side effect from a condition or medication
Read on to learn how diabetes contributes to incontinence and what you can to do manage the condition.
The exact link between diabetes and incontinence is unknown. The four possible ways that diabetes can contribute to incontinence are:
obesity puts pressure on your bladder
nerve damage affects the nerves that control the bowel and the bladder
a compromised immune system increases the risk for urinary tract infections (UTIs), which can cause incontinence
diabetes medication may cause diarrhea
Also, high blood sugar levels seen with diabetes can cause you to become thirstier and urinate more. The excess sugar in your blood triggers thirst, which then leads to more frequent urination.
Other factors that ma Continue reading

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Reversing Diabetes 101: The Truth About Carbs, Blood Sugar and Reversing Type 2 Diabetes

You may have heard a lot about type 2 diabetes – but do you know what it actually does to your body?
In this video series, we’ll explore the causes of type 2 diabetes and how to reverse it.
How does food affect the blood sugar?
1: How does food affect blood sugar?
What happens when we eat carbohydrates, protein and fat?
Your blood sugar responds very differently to different macronutrients. Fat does not impact blood sugar levels. Carbs have a high impact, protein impacts them moderately, but fat? No impact!
Carbs and fats provide energy for the body. When carbs are limited in the diet, fat becomes the preferred and efficient fuel source. When you reduce your intake of one macronutrient, you have to increase your intake of at least one other macronutrient—otherwise you’ll feel hungry and not have enough energy. The low-fat craze started with flawed science that incorrectly stated that fat was dangerous. In a low carb, high-fat diet, fat provides you with the energy your body needs, and also helps knock out hunger and cravings.
2: Carbohydrate intolerance and insulin resistance
Type 2 diabetes is a disease of high blood sugar. It can also be thought of as carbohydrate intolerance or insulin resistance. That means when someone with type 2 diabetes eats carbohydrates, it causes their blood sugar to rise above what is healthy.
Everyone has a different carbohydrate tolerance. One person may be able to eat a carb-heavy diet with no problem, and another may get blood sugar spikes and gain weight from eating very few carbohydrates. Both people can be healthy, as long as they Continue reading

The Diabetes Diet and Blood Sugar

Your diet has a direct effect on your blood sugar, and understanding the connection is crucial when you have type 2 diabetes. Master the basics of the diabetes diet and blood sugar control.
Anyone can start to feel a bit low on energy if they haven't eaten in a while, or if they've chosen food that leaves them sluggish and hungry for more. But when you're living with type 2 diabetes, understanding the relationship between the food you eat and how you function — especially regarding your blood sugar — is crucial to staying healthy.
"Diet does indeed directly impact blood sugars," says Kelly O'Connor, RD, LDN, CDE, director of diabetes education of the Diabetes Center at Mercy Medical in Baltimore. "Of the three main groupings of food — fat, protein, and carbohydrates — it is the carbs group that turns directly to blood sugar. Consuming more carbs than your body can process in a given amount of time can result in high blood sugar levels."
Blood Sugar and Carbohydrate Basics
The best place to start revamping your diet is, therefore, carbohydrates. Carbs include both healthy complex carbs — fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy products, and beans — and the not-so-healthy simple carbs, such as candy and soda. "The best types of carbohydrates are complex carbs, which contain more fiber, are less processed, and typically do not result in blood sugar spikes," explains O'Connor.
Learning how to count your carbs will help you keep your blood sugar under control, and a certified diabetes educator can help you get started. "The first thing you and your educator need to do is c Continue reading

Pump May Beat Shots for Type 1 Diabetes

TUESDAY, Oct. 10, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- In young people with type 1 diabetes, insulin pump therapy may offer better blood sugar control and fewer complications than daily injections of the vital hormone, new German research suggests.
"Insulin pumps work, and they work even somewhat better than multiple daily injections overall," said Dr. Robert Rapaport, chief of the division of pediatric endocrinology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Siham Accacha, a pediatric endocrinologist at NYU Winthrop Hospital in Mineola, N.Y., explained why that might be so.
"If the pump is really taken care of, you can micromanage your diabetes," she said. "You can stop the pump if your blood glucose is coming down, or you can give a bit more insulin if it's going up."
Both Rapaport and Accacha prefer pump use, but if patients would rather do multiple daily injections, the doctors said that excellent control can also be maintained with shots. It's really a matter of patient preference, they noted.
One issue with the pump is price. The start-up cost for a pump can be as much as $5,000, according to Accacha. And there are monthly costs for supplies as well. Insurers, especially Medicaid, sometimes hesitate to pay, both experts said. But studies like this latest one help provide more evidence about the importance of pump therapy.
"Pumps are more expensive, but I don't think expense should guide quality of therapy," Rapaport said. "Even though pumps are more expensive, they lead to better results and less complications, so health care costs will even out."
Plus, Continue reading

Why Insulin Costs So Much

Everyone who has type 1 diabetes has to use insulin, and about 25 percent of the people who have type 2 diabetes rely on it to control their blood sugar. But its costs are skyrocketing and no end is in sight.
At the annual convention of the American Diabetes Association in Boston this June I listened with perhaps 1,000 other diabetes professionals to one of the world’s top experts on diabetes talk about insulin costs. Irl Hirsch, MD, is the professor of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine, also treats patients with diabetes, and has type 1 diabetes himself.
For several years, readers of my articles have written me to complain about the rising cost of insulin. Because I know how expensive that insulin has become, I made sure to hear Dr. Hirsch’s presentation. But I was surprised to see that he cited one of my articles in a slide that he presented.
The Patent Problem
Dr. Hirsch reviewed the cost of insulin from 1921 when Drs. Frederick Banting and Charles Best discovered it. “In a generous gesture that unfortunately didn’t start a trend, they sold the patent for $1 so that cheap insulin would quickly become available. It worked like a charm: within two years Eli Lilly had sold 60 million units of its purified extract of pig and cow insulin.”
But after 1977 Genentech began to produce the first genetically-engineered, synthetic human insulin. This led to the first “dramatic increase” in the price of insulin. Since 1982 Eli Lilly has marketing it as Humulin.
In 1996 the development of the first insulin analog, lispro, led to another increase Continue reading