How To Reduce Your Risk Of Diabetes: Cut Back On Meat

How to Reduce Your Risk of Diabetes: Cut Back on Meat

You probably know that eating too much sugar and fat increases your risk of getting type 2 diabetes. But research increasingly shows that a food you might not expect — meat — can dramatically raise your chances as well.
Your body needs protein. But if you have diabetes or a risk of diabetes it’s wise to cut back on your meat intake to improve your health.
A growing body of research
A recent study from the Journal of the American Medical Association examined the deaths of nearly 700,000 people in 2012 from heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.
They found that nearly 50 percent of the deaths were related to poor nutritional choices. For people who already had diabetes, their risk of death increased if they consumed more processed meats.
Another study released this spring from researchers in Finland analyzed the diets of more than 2,300 middle-aged men, ages 42 to 60. At the outset, none of the participants had type 2 diabetes. In the follow-up, after 19 years 432 participants did.
Researchers found that those who ate more animal protein and less plant protein had a 35 percent greater risk of getting diabetes. This included any kind of meat — processed and unprocessed red meat, white meats and variety meats, which include organ meats such as tongue or liver.
The study concluded that choosing plant and egg proteins may help prevent type 2 diabetes.
And a final study out of Harvard University found that people who ate a single serving of red meat each day had a 19 percent higher risk of getting type 2 diabetes than those who didn’t. An even smaller-sized serving o Continue reading

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Researchers link Alzheimer’s gene to Type 3 diabetes

Researchers have known for several years that being overweight and having Type 2 diabetes can increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. But they’re now beginning to talk about another form of diabetes: Type 3 diabetes. This form of diabetes is associated with Alzheimer's disease.
Type 3 diabetes occurs when neurons in the brain become unable to respond to insulin, which is essential for basic tasks, including memory and learning. Some researchers believe insulin deficiency is central to the cognitive decline of Alzheimer’s disease. Mayo Clinic’s Florida and Rochester campuses recently participated in a multi-institution clinical study, testing whether a new insulin nasal spray can improve Alzheimer’s symptoms. The results of that study are forthcoming.
But how is this tied to the Alzheimer’s gene APOE?
A new study from Guojun Bu, Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic neuroscientist and Mary Lowell Leary Professor of Medicine, found that the culprit is the variant of the Alzheimer’s gene known as APOE4. The team found that APOE4, which is present in approximately 20 percent of the general population and more than half of Alzheimer’s cases, is responsible for interrupting how the brain processes insulin. Mice with the APOE4 gene showed insulin impairment, particularly in old age. Also, a high-fat diet could accelerate the process in middle-aged mice with the gene. “The gene and the peripheral insulin resistance caused by the high-fat diet together induced insulin resistance in the brain,” Dr. Bu says. Their findings are published in Neuron.
Journalists: Broadcas Continue reading

14 Ways to Reduce Joint Pain With Diabetes

Diabetes can damage joints, making life and movement much harder. How does this happen, and what can we do about it? A lot.
“Without properly functioning joints, our bodies would be unable to bend, flex, or even move,” says Sheri Colberg, PhD, author of The Diabetic Athlete, The 7 Step Diabetes Fitness Plan, and other books.
Joint pain is often called “arthritis.” “A joint is wherever two bones come together,” Colberg writes. The bones are held in place by ligaments, which attach bones to each other, and by tendons, which attach bones to the muscles that move them.
The ends of the bones are padded with cartilage, a whitish gel made from collagen, proteins, fiber, and water. Cartilage allows bones to move on each other without being damaged.
Joint cartilage can be damaged by injuries or by wear and tear with hard use. “Aging alone can lead to some loss of [the] cartilage layer in knee, hip, and other joints,” says Colberg “but having diabetes potentially speeds up damage to joint surfaces.”
Sometimes extra glucose sticks to the surfaces of joints, gumming up their movement. This stickiness interferes with movement and leads to wear-and-tear injury.
High glucose levels also thicken and degrade the collagen itself. This is bad because tendons and ligaments are also largely made from collagen.
Reduced flexibility of joints leads to stiffness, greater risk of physical injury, and falls. People with joint damage may reduce their physical activity due to discomfort and fear of falling. Reduced activity promotes heart disease and insulin resistance.
Here are 14 Continue reading

Is Alzheimer’s Type 3 Diabetes?

Just in case you need another reason to cut back on junk food, it now turns out that Alzheimer’s could well be a form of diet-induced diabetes. That’s the bad news. The good news is that laying off soda, doughnuts, processed meats and fries could allow you to keep your mind intact until your body fails you.
We used to think there were two types of diabetes: the type you’re born with (Type 1) and the type you “get.” That’s called Type 2, and was called “adult onset” until it started ravaging kids. Type 2 is brought about by a combination of factors, including overeating, American-style.
The idea that Alzheimer’s might be Type 3 diabetes has been around since 2005, but the connection between poor diet and Alzheimer’s is becoming more convincing, as summarized in a cover story in New Scientist entitled “Food for Thought: What You Eat May Be Killing Your Brain.” (The graphic — a chocolate brain with a huge piece missing — is creepy. But for the record: chocolate is not the enemy.)
The studies [1] are increasingly persuasive, and unsurprising when you understand the role of insulin in the body. So, a brief lesson.
We all need insulin: in non-diabetics, it’s released to help cells take in the blood sugar (glucose) they need for energy. But the cells can hold only so much; excess sugar is first stored as glycogen, and — when there’s enough of that — as fat. (Blood sugar doesn’t come only from sugar, but from carbohydrates of all kinds; easily digested carbohydrates flood the bloodstream with sugar.) Insulin not only keeps the blood vessels tha Continue reading

Coding Diabetes: Time to Look at the Coding Guidelines Again

November is National Diabetes Awareness Month, prompting coders to review the coding guidelines for this disease suffered by more than 10.9 million U.S. residents.
During November, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is raising awareness about diabetes, diabetic eye disease, the importance of early disease detection, and related preventive health services covered by Medicare. According to the CMS website, diabetes can lead to severe complications such as heart disease, stroke, vision loss, kidney disease, nerve damage, and amputation, among others, and it’s a significant risk factor for developing glaucoma. People with diabetes are more susceptible to many other illnesses such as pneumonia and influenza and are more likely to die from these than people who do not have diabetes. Among U.S. residents 65 years and older, 10.9 million (26.9 percent) had diabetes in 2010. Currently, 3.6 million Americans 40 and older suffer from diabetic eye disease. Education and early detection are major components to combating this disease.
Let’s take a look at the coding guidelines for diabetes to ensure that we accurately select and capture the ICD-10-CM code(s) for this disease. As all health information management (HIM) coding professionals know (or should know), the ICD-10-CM Official Coding and Reporting Guidelines have been approved by the four organizations that make up the Cooperating Parties for ICD-10: the American Hospital Association (AHA), the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and Na Continue reading