Kid On Cutting Edge In Diabetes Trial

Kid on cutting edge in diabetes trial

Jackson 6-year-old tests new insulin pump for Type 1 youngsters.
Cashs mom, Mills Halpin, encourages him to eat more chicken at dinner with his brother in late June. Getting the right amount of carbs can be a guessing game because sometimes he doesnt eat everything, she said.
Cash Halpin shovels the last bite of rice into his mouth and asks for another serving.
I ate all the carbs, he proudly announces, mouth still full.
Yeah, says his mother, Mills Halpin, who rolls her eyes at her 6-year-old son. Eat some protein.
His father, Mike Halpin, is beside him on an opened laptop, checking the latest data available from Cashs insulin pump. The boy is part of a clinical trial testing the Medtronic MiniMed670G, a system capable of continuously monitoring his glucose levels and making microadjustments to keep them consistent throughout the day.
Cash is in the youngest group of participants to be tested, ages 2 to 6. The same Medtronic model was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last fall for ages 14 and up.
Mike Halpin administers about a unit of insulin, a tiny bubble of hormone to handle the approximately 35 grams of carbs Cash is consuming for dinner. Manual adjustments are still required at mealtimes, but the new system offers his parents a little reprieve, something they havent experienced since hewas diagnosed three years ago.
Halpin has to wear an insulin pump at all times, which monitors his levels and injects insulin when needed through an infusion port under his skin.
With this new system, if they are off a little you just cant be exact all the Continue reading

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Newly published research provides new insight into how diabetes leads to retinopathy

Newly published research provides new insight into how diabetes leads to retinopathy
December 7, 2017 by Kathy Keatley Garvey, UC Davis
Diabetic retinopathy is the most common diabetic eye disease and a leading cause of adult blindness. Chronically high blood sugar from diabetes damages the tiny blood vessels in the retina, leading to diabetic retinopathy, according to the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Credit: Kathy Keatley Garvey
An international team of scientists led by Professor Ingrid Fleming of Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany, and including Professor Bruce Hammock of the University of California, Davis, provides new insight into the mechanism by which diabetes leads to retinopathy and often to blindness.
An inhibitor to the enzyme, soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH), discovered in the Hammock lab, prevented the eye disease in diabetic mice, Fleming said.
The paper, "Inhibition of Soluble Epoxide Hydrolase Prevents Diabetic Retinopathy," involving six years of research and 22 scientists, is published today (Dec. 6) in the journal Nature.
"This has been a long but exciting project where Dr. Fleming's team used tools developed to study the biology of fatty acid epoxides to probe the fundamental mechanism of diabetic retinopathy," said co-author Hammock, a distinguished professor of entomology who holds a joint appointment with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center "This work has targeted many possible sites for intervention that could preserve vision, and one such target Continue reading

Now Monitor Diabetes With a Pain-Free Skin Patch: 5 Foods Which May Help Too

Now Monitor Diabetes With a Pain-Free Skin Patch: 5 Foods Which May Help Too
Researchers have developed a pain-free skin patch containing dissolvable compounds that responds to blood chemistry to manage glucose automatically.
Food | NDTV Food Desk | Updated: December 27, 2017 13:35 IST
Here's a news that will make all diabetics take a leap of joy. Researchers have developed a pain-free skin patch containing dissolvable compounds that responds to blood chemistry to manage glucose automatically.
Diabetes is a disorder in which which the body's ability to produce or respond to the hormone insulin is impaired, resulting in abnormal metabolism of carbohydrates and spike in blood sugar(glucose) levels. Diabetes is one of the leading global health concerns of the current times. Global incidence of all types of diabetes is about 285 million people, of which 90 per cent have Type-2 diabetes.
A finger prick before mealtimes and maybe an insulin injection is an uncomfortable but necessary routine for people with type 2 diabetes for their ongoing vigilance over the amount of sugar. Bit according to a latest study published online in the journal Nature Communication, researchers have found a biochemical formula of mineralised compounds in the patch that responds to sugar levels for days at a time.
The study conducted over a group of mice, the researchers identified that the biochemically formulated patch of dissolvable microneedles can make the management of Type-2 diabetes much easier.
"This experimental approach could be a way to take advantage of the fact that persons with T Continue reading

Second Thought – The Often-Forgotten Challenges of Diabetes

By Jane Yardley
November is Diabetes Awareness month, a time of year where we recognize the staggering number of individuals affected by diabetes in Canada and worldwide. In Canada alone, there were over 3 million people with diagnosed diabetes in 2015. Approximately 90 to 95% of these people will have type 2 diabetes, a condition that is managed initially with diet and exercise, and ultimately with medication. The remaining 5 to 10% will have type 1 diabetes, for which there is no prevention, there is no cure, and survival requires a careful balance of food intake and insulin dosage.
Canada has one of the highest rates of type 1 diabetes in the world, yet the public is not as aware of the disease as they are with cancer or cardiovascular disease. Type 1 diabetes develops when the immune system attacks and destroys the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. Insulin acts as the key that unlocks cells in the muscles, fatty tissues and liver to allow glucose (the most common form of sugar in the body) to be taken in for storage, or burned for energy. Without insulin, glucose builds up in the blood, and the body’s tissues slowly starve. Upon diagnosis, people with type 1 diabetes are relegated to a life of counting carbohydrates (and considering carbohydrate quality) at every meal, and taking insulin (either with a needle or with an insulin pump where a small tube sits under the skin) multiple times per day when blood glucose levels creep up.
They also live with the constant fear that their glucose levels will drop too low. This phenomenon, termed hypoglycemia, can have imm Continue reading

Cooking With Herbs and Spices

Herbs and spices are a healthy cooks best friend. They are excellent for enhancing the flavor of food without the addition of extra fat, sugar, or salt. But herbs and spices have other benefits, as well: They exhibit antimicrobial (germ-killing) properties, act as antioxidants , and may help prevent or decrease the spread of cancer. For centuries, they have been used for medicinal purposes in addition to food flavoring and preservation. The use of herbs, which typically come from the leaves of plants, has been traced back to the BC era. Spices, which come from the bark, fruit, stems, roots, buds, berries, or seeds of plants, started to be used widely around the second century AD. Centuries ago, people thought that herbs and spices had certain properties that benefited health. Today, scientists have uncovered just how healthful many herbs and spices are.
In one study, researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture examined the antioxidant activity (the ability to protect cells against the effects of free radicals, unstable molecules that result from the breakdown of food, exposure to pollutants, or UV light) of fresh herbs grown in a garden at the Agricultural Research Service. They found that each of the herbs tested had greater antioxidant activity by weight than berries, fruits, or vegetables. According to this study, just one tablespoon of fresh oregano has the same antioxidant power as a medium-size apple. How do other herbs stack up? Three tablespoons of dill, 4 1/2 tablespoons of thyme, 7 tablespoons of sage, and 8 tablespoons of parsley all have the antioxidant Continue reading