How Does Diabetes Affect My Feet?

Diabetes, one of the most prevalent, uncontrolled and life threatening diseases, affects millions of Americans daily. It is important to know that diabetes, while it affects the entire body in different ways, has many signs and symptoms that appear in the legs and feet first. Good control of diabetes is the key to avoiding many of these risk factors associated with the disease.
One of the biggest and scariest risks of uncontrolled diabetes is amputation. There are many ways to control and overcome diabetes so that something as major as an amputation can be avoided.
Below are the three most important aspects of a diabetic foot examination. A thorough examination of these factors by your foot doctor can help prevent many minor and major foot problems.
Blood Flow
Uncontrolled diabetes affects blood flow in the legs and feet. It can cause blockages of small and large vessels leading to many different problems including pain, swelling and wounds that do not heal properly.
A very quick and simple test, where your physician simply feels the pulses of your foot and ankle, can provide a lot of important information. This test can tell whether a major artery is pumping, if it’s weak or not pumping at all- just by a simple touch. Other simple tests, if necessary, are also preformed with ultrasound and other diagnostic tools to look deeper into blood flow of the legs and feet.
Nerve Function
Peripheral neuropathy, or the abnormal function of nerves in the legs and feet, is also very common among diabetic patients. Due to the excess sugar in the body, the nerves start to act up. You c Continue reading

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GPs need to tell people they can get rid of type 2 diabetes through weight loss – nutrition expert

GPs need to tell people they can get rid of type 2 diabetes through weight loss – nutrition expert
September 14, 2017 8.54am EDT
Every working day, GPs in the UK diagnose almost 1,000 people with type 2 diabetes. It is one of the commonest and most expensive diseases. What most people don’t know is that with a bit of hard work, it is possible to become non-diabetic again.
Formerly limited to older people, type 2 diabetes is now common in younger, fatter, people in their 40s and 50s, and even younger ones who are severely obese. Some people are spared, but the epidemic of diabetes has closely followed the epidemic of overweight and obesity. The key is where the excess fat is stored: if it can no longer be stored under the skin, and starts to accumulate in the liver and pancreas, these organs malfunction to cause diabetes.
The conventional conversation with a GP used to go: “Your blood test confirms that you have diabetes.” And then, “Don’t worry, it’s mild diabetes and we can treat it with tablets.” That advice is horribly wrong.
Patients deserve a fuller, more honest explanation: “You are right to be concerned. Type 2 diabetes is a ghastly, progressively destructive disease. It leads to disabling painful complications, as the main cause of amputations, blindness and kidney failure, and contributes importantly to heart disease and dementia. Oh, and the tablets reduce your blood glucose but allow the disease to progress, so you will still die five to eight years younger.”
We now hope to add: “But if we can help you with an evidence-based programme to los Continue reading

America is Number 1 - in Diabetes Costs

Everyone likes being #1, and Americans are no exception. However, few Americans will be celebrating that they have the world’s highest out of pocket costs for insulin and other life-saving diabetes supplies.
T1International Survey: Out-Of-Pocket Costs
Without accounting for average monthly income, the USA ‘won’ first place in our cost survey by a wide margin. It even ‘beat’ war-torn Syria, a place where access to diabetes supplies is disrupted by bombings and blockades.
Our US respondents told us they paid, on average, $571.69 per month on diabetes costs. This included an average:
$90.84 per vial on rapid-acting insulin
$120.55 per vial on long-acting insulin
$31.95 on one pod of 50 test strips
$30.47 on one pot of ketone strips
$81.67 on a glucagon emergency shot
Insurance Doesn’t Cut It
Even with insurance, many Americans are spending around half their after tax income on insulin and other supplies they need to stay alive: “Insurance helps but it is 9k a year for a 30k year salary.”
That is, when your insurance company allows you to get what you need. For many respondents, insurance companies actively stop them from getting more diabetes supplies. All of this has consequences.
“Insurance companies do not care if I use all of my insulin or strips before they can refill it for me. It puts me in a struggle of blood sugars versus insurance.”
The situation is so out of control many Americans with type 1 diabetes would save thousands by moving to a comparatively less wealthy country with lower costs, such as Argentina or Chile. Even in countries with no out Continue reading

History of diabetes: Past treatments and new discoveries

Diabetes is a condition characterized by high blood sugar levels. It affects millions of people around the world. Research into diabetes is ongoing but diabetes is simple to manage for most people.
Since diabetes was first discovered, there have been huge improvements in the way it is treated. This article looks at the history of diabetes and how these treatments developed.
Contents of this article:
Diabetes affects blood sugar levels
The body gets energy from sugar (glucose), which is broken down from the food people eat. Diabetes affects insulin. Insulin is a hormone produced in the pancreas that helps in the process of using this sugar efficiently.
People with type 1 diabetes do not produce insulin. People who have type 2 diabetes do produce insulin, but their body is unable to use it efficiently.
When a person has diabetes, the lack of insulin or the body's inability to use it properly, causes sugar to stay in the blood rather than entering the cells to be used for energy. This excess sugar in the blood results in higher than normal blood sugar levels.
Having high blood sugar levels for an extended period can cause serious and even life-threatening problems. However, there are many ways the condition can be managed so that these problems are avoided.
Early science around diabetes
Understanding the history of diabetes and how it was first treated can help us to appreciate how well it is understood and managed today.
Discovery of diabetes
The full name for diabetes is diabetes mellitus. This term comes from the Greek word "diabetes" (to siphon or pass through) and the Lat Continue reading

Intermittent Fasting: Not So Fast

I’m sure that at least a few of you have heard or read about the latest trend in weight loss called “intermittent fasting.” The very word “fasting” is probably less than appealing, as it pretty much means you don’t eat or drink anything (except perhaps water) for a specified amount of time. Starvation is not exactly recommended among health professionals. But intermittent fasting is different. Is it something you should try?
What is intermittent fasting, anyway?
Intermittent fasting has been the talk of the town, so to speak, thanks to two recent books to hit the market: The Fast Diet by Dr. Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer, and The Overnight Diet by Caroline Apovian, MD. Intermittent fasting essentially means that you skip a meal or severely restrict calories on certain days of the week with the intention of losing weight, controlling blood glucose, and/or decreasing heart disease risk. But on the other days of the week, you can pretty much eat what you want (within reason, of course). For many people, this concept sounds appealing. Limiting calories for a couple days a week doesn’t sound that bad if you can eat what you want the rest of the time.
The Fast Diet, also called the The 5:2 Diet has you eat between 500 and 600 calories (women get 500 calories, men get 600 calories) for two days out of the week, spread over two meals of about 250 to 300 calories. These fast days should not be right in a row, and your food choices ideally should be more plant-based and emphasize protein. The premise is that after several hours of fasting, the body burns up its carboh Continue reading