Here’s How Much It Costs To Treat Diabetes

Diabetes is a major health problem among Malaysians. According to Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam, a total of 3.6 million Malaysians have it, with 1.8 million may be unaware that they are diabetic as they never went for health screening.
This number has been continuously rising for years, and if you are related to someone who has diabetes, you’re at higher risk of having it yourself. It’s a pandemic that seems to have no end in sight.
The biggest issue with diabetes is that not only will it take a slow but sure toll on your health, it does the same for your finances too.
Here are some of the costs you need to consider should you be diagnosed with diabetes.
Outpatient diabetes treatment cost
Whether you have Type 1 or 2, you will have to deal with ongoing treatments to help you manage and keep your condition stable for the long run. The Hemoglobin A1c test (HbA1c, A1c, or Hb1c), which is used to determine the average concentration of glucose in the blood plasma, is a common test for diabetics that need to be taken about two to seven times a year. There are also blood test devices and medications that need to be considered as well.
Here’s how much the cost will look like.
Diabetic treatment in the hospital
Even though your condition can be controlled on your own with medication, there’s always the chance of you having to be hospitalised due to issues such as hyperglycemia, where your blood sugar level increases to dangerous levels that require further monitoring and increases in insulin dosages. Hyperglycemia would require not only medical personnel to wa Continue reading

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Moringa oleifera can help treat diabetes, study finds

(NaturalNews) The leaves of the Moringa oleifera tree are one of Asia's most nutrient-dense foods. In fact, just one serving of these leaves in powdered form contains almost 50 types of antioxidants and almost 90 different nutrients. Unsurprisingly, numerous studies have linked long-term consumption of Moringa leaves to the treatment of countless health conditions such as osteoporosis, macular degeneration, high blood pressure, obesity and even cancer.
A recent study published in the March 2014 issue of Acta Histochemica, however, suggests that we add another condition to that list: diabetes mellitus, the increasingly common metabolic disease that affects an estimated 8.3 percent of the United States population.
Significant results
For the study, the Egyptian researchers fed aqueous extracts of Moringa oleifera leaves to albino rats that were suffering from streptozotocin-induced diabetes. During the trial period, they monitored the fasting plasma glucose levels of the rats, as well as their levels of glutathione (an antioxidant found in Moringa that contains antidiabetic properties) and malondialdehyde (a toxic byproduct of lipid oxidation that is often found in high levels in people suffering from diabetes).
At the end of the trial, the rats that were fed Moringa extracts fared far better than the control group. Specifically, the extracts reduced their fasting plasma glucose levels from 380 percent to 145 percent (i.e. their blood sugar levels were reduced by more than 2.5 times). The extract also reduced the rats' levels of harmful malondialdehyde from 385 percent to 186 Continue reading

Statins DOUBLES risk of diabetes, concludes 10-year study into controversial drug

The research, published in a leading journal examined 25,970 patients over ten years and discovered statin users had a higher incidence of diabetes and also weight gain.
Patients using the drugs also had more than double the risk of diabetic complications including eye, nerve and kidney damage.
Scientists say the new research published in the leading Journal of General Internal Medicine, confirms a long suspected link between statin use and diabetes.
Professor Ishak Mansi a heart specialist at the University of Texas who led the study said: “Our findings are alarming.”
The research, will add to the debate surrounding the drugs, which are routinely given to up to 12 million patients in the UK, or around one in four adults.
Supporters say they save lives by lowering cholesterol and UK health regulators say they are safe. However increasing research has suggested the risks such as severe muscle pain, depression, fatigue, impaired memory, and stroke, may outweigh the benefits in many patients.
Many leading doctors and academics believe drug regulators over depend on studies funded by the pharmaceutical industry, details of which are kept “hidden” due to commercial confidentiality agreements.
Professor Ishak added: “There is not enough funding to carry out studies to assess these long term effects that are not funded by drug companies and therefore clouded by conflicts of interest.”
And he said drugs may be doing more harm than good for people at low risk of heart disease: “I am sceptical about the prescribing guidelines for people at lower risk (of heart disease). Continue reading

Merck's Diabetes Franchise And The Perils In Proving A Drug's Medical Value

Merck’s Januvia (sitagliptin) and its metformin combination, Janumet, are important drugs for type 2 diabetes patients as well as for Merck’s bottom line. These drugs, which are DPP-4 inhibitors, account for more than $6 billion in sales for this drug giant. Given the growing incidence of obesity and type 2 diabetes in the world, this franchise is poised for continued growth.
However, Merck has competition in this field with a number of other drug companies, a notable one being Eli Lilly. Lilly has a variety of products for diabetics, including Jardiance (empagliflozin), a drug that acts by blocking SGLT2. (Lilly co-developed Jardiance with Boehringer Ingelheim.) Both Januvia and Jardiance lower high blood sugar, the cause of the downstream consequences of diabetes such as heart disease, kidney failure, blindness and amputations. However, just because a drug lowers blood sugar doesn’t ensure that it will reduce the ultimate complications of diabetes. Nevertheless, over the years diabetes drugs have been approved on the basis of blood sugar lowering alone.
However, last December, Lilly raised the bar for oral diabetes drugs with the acceptance by the FDA of its data showing that Jardiance not only lowered blood sugar but, in doing so, also reduced cardiovascular events in diabetic patients with heart disease. These data were generated in a trial known as the EMPA-REG OUTCOME trial. Last December, the FDA effectively blessed this work and allowed Lilly to add the cardiovascular outcome benefit to the Jardiance label. This was a big advantage to Lilly because its sales r Continue reading

The Uniquely Dangerous Eating Disorder Symptom in Type 1 Diabetes

Eating disorders in type 1 diabetes (T1DM) are rarely understood or recognized outside the T1DM patient and medical community. In fact, there is still a lack of awareness even inside of the world of T1DM. Despite this reality, girls and women with T1DM are close to 2.5 times more likely to develop eating disorders than those who do not have diabetes. This is a serious women’s health problem in diabetes, and it is associated with severe medical consequences.
Eating disorders in T1DM often involve a uniquely dangerous symptom – namely insulin restriction as a means of calorie purging. It is important to note that not all people with T1DM and eating disorders restrict insulin; however, the large majority of research in this area has focused on this particular eating disorder symptom. The media and lay public use the term “Diabulimia,” when referring to an eating disorder involving insulin restriction. When insulin doses are skipped or under-dosed, blood glucose levels rise, and the body attempts to excrete that glucose in the urine and thereby loses or purges calories.
Insulin restriction can lead to rapid and dramatic weight loss but also increases the risk of both acute and long-term T1DM complications and even an increased risk of death. We do not yet definitively know if there are identifiable factors that increase eating disorder risk at diabetes diagnosis or throughout the duration of T1DM. Most importantly, even less is understood about effective treatments for eating disorders in the context of T1DM.
Treatment guidelines have been created based on expert clinic Continue reading