Diabetes-Related Amputations Up Significantly In California — And San Diego

Clinicians are amputating more toes, legs, ankles and feet of patients with diabetes in California — and San Diego County in particular — in a “shocking” trend that has mystified diabetes experts here and across the country.
Clinicians are amputating more toes, legs, ankles and feet of patients with diabetes in California — and San Diego County in particular — in a “shocking” trend that has mystified diabetes experts here and across the country.
Statewide, lower-limb amputations increased by more than 31 percent from 2010 to 2016 when adjusted for population change. In San Diego County, the increase was more than twice that: 66.4 percent.
Losing a foot, ankle or especially a leg robs patients of their independence, hampers their ability to walk and makes them more vulnerable to infection. It also can shorten their lives.
This trend, which inewsource documented with state hospital data, is one physicians, surgeons and public health officials are at a loss to explain, though many have theories.
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Edward Gregg of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the California numbers are worrisome.
Public health officials consider amputations to be an important indicator of a region’s diabetes care because diabetes and its complications can be prevented, said Gregg, chief of epidemiology and statistics for the CDC’s Division of Diabetes Translation.
“If we see it going down, then it’s a good sign, because so many aspects of good diabetes care are in theory affected. And when you see it going up, that’s a conce Continue reading

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Diabetes Amputation: Its Causes, Symptoms & Risk Factors

Diabetes, often commonly referred as a condition where the blood sugar or glucose levels are on a spike has been a major culprit for inducing a whole lot of complications over the years. Diabetes if not cared for or prevented along may result in mammoth complications like kidney issues, eye issues, heart disorders and more.
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But the trend just doesn’t stop there. In severe cases, diabetes often results in damaging the body where amputation remains the only viable option. We here would be dealing with diabetes and its relation to amputation as part of our series of diabetes.
We’ll further look into the causes, symptoms and risk factors for amputation and reckon on with the proper advice to help you out. Read along as we present the ‘Diabetes and Amputation: Causes, Symptoms and Risk Factors’.
What’s Amputation?
Amputation is the process of removing a limb from the body via surgical measures so as to battle the trauma or medical illness. In many of cases, these limbs are removed to help control the pain preceding as a result of a disease like malignancy or gangrene.
Amputation has been part of the medical procedure for many centuries and has been a major treatment policy against the limb related problems. As for the minute details, amputation was even practiced as a means of punishment back in the days, but that’s not something we’d be touching on in this segment.
Types of Amputation
There are two general classificat Continue reading

Foot Health | Diabetes and your feet

Diabetes is becoming more and more common, with almost 20 percent of Bahamians currently living with the disease. It is also one of the leading causes of death. With the increasing numbers of obesity and poor lifestyle choices, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the number of people with diabetes worldwide is projected to increase exponentially and that deaths due to diabetes will double by 2030.
Uncontrolled diabetes leads to high blood sugar levels over time, which can have detrimental effects on the feet and many other organs in the body including the heart, eyes, and kidneys. All diabetics are at high risk for foot ulcers that take a long time, or never heal, leading to infections, amputations and possibly death. In five years, more people die from a diabetic foot ulcer or a lower limb amputation than persons with prostate cancer, breast cancer or Hodgkin Lymphoma.
Diabetes can damage blood vessels and nerves causing loss of feeling in both feet. Diabetes can also cause the feet and toes to be deformed and change their shape and the skin can become very dry and cracked. These changes put all diabetics at high risk for foot complications such as ulcers that take a long time or never heal leading to infections and even amputations.
Damage to the blood vessels can lead to Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD) or poor blood flow to the feet. This decreased circulation or blood flow to the leg and foot will cause poor healing if there is a cut or sore on the foot. If there is an infection, it will take a long time to treat because there is not enough blood to tak Continue reading

How being born in January can increase your risk for diabetes

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One of the wonderful aspects of living in the age of Big Data is the way scientists are able to discover new, previously undiscovered patterns in gigantic datasets. A team at Columbia University has studied the health records of over ten million people across three different countries and discovered some compelling links between a person's lifetime disease risk and the month they were born in.
Numerous researchers have tackled the strangely interesting correlations between birth month and disease risk over the years. The true goal of this research is to fundamentally understand what specific seasonal and environmental factors faced by a mother during pregnancy can affect an offspring's lifelong susceptibility to certain disease.
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These links are undeniably tricky to study. A conventional medical study involving groups of subjects would not be especially ethical, after all, we couldn't exactly withhold a certain environmental factor from a child intentionally to see if it increases their risk of diabetes.
Examining health records on the other hand leaves one with the eternal "correlation is not causation" problem. A team at Columbia University has come at this problem by examining giant volumes of data with a greatly targeted precision and 21st century computing power.
Following on from a 2015 study that concentrated on nearly 2 million people in New York City, the new study looked at the health records of 10.5 million people from five different climates in the Unit Continue reading

10 Facts About Diabetes Seniors Need to Know

Diabetes is a chronic disease related to insulin levels in the blood. According to the World Health Organization, this disease is an emerging global epidemic that can be attributed to increased rates of obesity and physical inactivity. It can often go unnoticed in seniors, and it’s important to pay attention to potential symptoms and have frequent checks of your blood glucose levels if you are at risk.
Here are 10 facts about the disease that seniors need to know.
1. Causes of Diabetes
Scientists believe that type 1 diabetes is caused by genes and environmental factors that can trigger the disease, such as viruses. Type 2 diabetes has been linked to excess weight and inactivity as well as genetics and environmental factors.
2. Types of Diabetes
Type 1 diabetes is characterized by a lack of insulin production. It is caused by the body’s immune system attacking the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. The body stops producing insulin, and glucose rises to dangerous levels. Type 2 diabetes, or noninsulin-dependent diabetes, occurs more frequently in seniors and those over the age of 40. In Type 2 diabetes, the pancreas still produces insulin (but often not enough) or the organs in the body don’t use it properly, so sometimes there is too much insulin in the system. Type 2 is much more common than Type 1 and accounts for about 90 percent of all cases worldwide.
3. Treatments for Diabetes
Type 1 diabetes can only be treated with insulin injections — otherwise it can be fatal. There is no cure for it. Type 2 diabetes can be treated with diet and exercise or sometimes Continue reading