Kicking Off Diabetes Awareness Month: What Glucose Meter Is Best For Me?

November is National Diabetes Awareness month!
While you might think that this is just another made-up holiday, similar to National Chocolate Fondue day, you’re wrong! Diabetes Awareness Month has a very important purpose. The National Institute of Health and American Diabetes Association uses November to raise awareness about diabetes risk-factors and life-threatening complications, and promote preventative behaviors.
Why is this important? In 2015, 30.3 million (9.5% of the population) people had diabetes, and about half of all Americans with diabetes went undiagnosed. Diabetes can lead to life-threatening complications, like nerve and kidney damage, Alzheimer’s disease, cardiovascular diseases, or even eye damage. Fortunately, most cases of diabetes can be prevented with a healthy diet and regular exercise, and with proper management, severe complications can be avoided.
This November, our team at GoodRx will be bringing you more information about affording your diabetes medications, tips for treatment, and insulin comparisons. Stay tuned!
Let’s kick off diabetes month with some info about new innovative glucose meters. The importance of having a discrete and easy way to check your blood sugar is vital for many diabetics and pre-diabetics. So what’s available?
Dario
The Dario is an all-in-one smart glucose meter that can monitor and measure your blood glucose with the help of your smartphone. The Dario is simple to use and has a disposable test strip cartridge and a lancing device that easily fits in your pocket.
The Dario does not require batteries as the power Continue reading

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What Is Type 2 Diabetes?

Type 2 diabetes is the presence of high blood sugar due to your body’s resistance to insulin and, in many cases, production of too little insulin. You can think of insulin as the key that opens cells and allows glucose (i.e. sugar) to enter your cells. If your body is insulin resistant, then not all of that sugar can enter your cells and it builds up in the blood causing high blood sugar.
Diabetes is extremely common. In the United States, there are over 25 million people with type 2 diabetes and another 79 million people with pre-diabetes. Globally, there are over 350 million people with type 2 diabetes. Pre-diabetes means that someone is showing signs of insulin resistance but has not met the clinical definition of type 2 diabetes. We believe that this is an important early warning and should be taken very seriously. If you don’t change your lifestyle, pre-diabetes leads directly to type 2 diabetes.
Type 2 diabetes is initially manages by weight loss, exercise and changes to diet (mostly eating fewer carbohydrates). Weight loss and exercise improve your body’s sensitivity to insulin and decrease your blood sugars. Eating fewer carbohydrates in one sitting gives your body the opportunity to process them before they have a chance to build up as glucose in your blood. If this initial treatment approach does not work, you are often prescribed blood-sugar lowering medication.
We do not know the precise cause of type 2 diabetes. If you read through the forums, you will find nearly as many theories as members. However, we do know many things:
Type 2 diabetes has a strong g Continue reading

Milestones in the history of diabetes mellitus: The main contributors

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INTRODUCTION
Diabetes mellitus is a group of metabolic diseases involving carbohydrate, lipid, and protein metabolism. It is characterized by persistent hyperglycemia, as a result of defects in insulin secretion, insulin action or a combination of both, defective secretion and incorrect action. There are two main types of diabetes mellitus: Type 1 (insulin-dependent), and type 2 (non-insulin-dependent). Type 1 diabetes results by the autoimmune destruction of the β-cells of the pancreatic islets and type 2 diabetes is caused from impaired insulin secretion and resistance to the action of insulin[1].Current epidemiological data reveal that 9% of adults, 18 years of age and older, has diabetes mellitus while it was estimated that in 2012, 1.5 million people died due to the disease. According to the World Health Organization, diabetes will be the 7th leading cause of death in 2030[2-4].
The disease has a long history reaching back into antiquity. However, during that period, due to a poor knowledge of anatomy, pathophysiology and lack of diagnostic tools, the disease remained extremely perplexing to physicians.
Nevertheless, physicians in antiquity observed the distinctive features of diabetes and proposed several therapeutic approaches. In Ebers papyrus, dated back to 1500 BC, we may find passages describing patients who suffer from excessive thirst, copious urination and they are treated by plants’ extracts. However, according to the Egyptian endocrinologist, historian of medicine and translator of the Ebers papyrus Paul Ghalioungui (1908-1987), the description of Continue reading

Obesity and diabetes ‘causes up to 800,000 cancers worldwide each year’

Two of the most common lifestyle-related conditions cause almost a million new cancers worldwide each year, a study has found.
Diabetes and excess weight were responsible for nearly 800,000 newly diagnosed cancers, including those affecting the liver, breast, bowel and womb.
It is the first time scientists have estimated the worldwide cancer burden caused by being overweight or obese, as defined by a high body mass index (BMI), and the metabolic disease thought to affect more than four million people in the UK.
The vast majority of diabetes cases are the Type 2 form, which is strongly linked to lifestyle - poor diet, excess weight and inactivity - as well as genetics
Researchers led by a team from Imperial College London found that nearly 6% of new global cancer cases in 2012 resulted from the combined effects of diabetes and being overweight or obese.
On its own, being overweight was responsible for almost twice as many cancers as diabetes - 544,300 versus 280,100 cases.
Cancers linked to the two conditions were also nearly twice as common in women than in men.
Excess weight and diabetes together accounted for a quarter of all liver cancers and a third of endometrial cancers, which affects the lining of the womb.
If current trends continue, the share of cancers attributable to the two risk factors will increase by more than 30% in women and 20% in men by 2035, say the study authors.
Lead researcher Dr Jonathan Pearson-Stuttard, from Imperial's School of Public Health, said: "While obesity has been associated with cancer for some time, the link between diabetes and cancer h Continue reading

Is Oatmeal Good or Bad for Diabetics?

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle and following a well-devised meal plan are some of the best ways of dealing with a chronic illness like diabetes. People who suffer from diabetes are therefore always conscious of what they should and what they should not include in their daily diet. In this article, we shall find out whether including oatmeal in a diabetic diet is good for the health of the diabetic patients and “can a diabetic eat oatmeal“? So, come and join in for the article “Is Oatmeal Good or Bad for Diabetics?”
Some Facts About Oatmeal
Oatmeal is a food item that contains a high amount of nutrients such as zinc, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, as well as phosphorous.The food item is also a rich source of several vitamins such as thiamine and pantothenic acid. Not only is oatmeal low in its total calories counts but has high amounts of soluble fiber too which makes it a healthy breakfast option.
However, the high carbohydrate content in oatmeal often makes patients wonder that whether or not oatmeal is a healthy food choice for the diabetes patients. We shall find the answer to the question “can a diabetic eat oatmeal?” in the following paragraphs.
What are the Advantages of Including Oatmeal in a Diabetic Diet?
Oatmeal can be a healthy breakfast choice for all the diabetes patients. The following are some of the benefits that eating oatmeal offers to a patient who is suffering from diabetes:
Oatmeal is low in calories. It is considered as a great food option if you trying to shed all those extra calories. Losing weight, as we know, hugely contributes to Continue reading