Messing With Our Body Clocks Causes Weight Gain And Diabetes : Shots - Health News : NPR

Research that helped discover the clocks running in every cell in our bodies earned three scientists a Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday.
"With exquisite precision, our inner clock adapts our physiology to the dramatically different phases of the day," the Nobel Prize committee wrote of the work of Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young. "The clock regulates critical functions such as behavior, hormone levels, sleep, body temperature and metabolism."
We humans are time-keeping machines. And it seems we need regular sleeping and eating schedules to keep all of our clocks in sync.
Studies show that if we mess with the body's natural sleep-wake cycle say, by working an overnight shift, taking a trans-Atlantic flight or staying up all night with a new baby or puppy we pay the price.
Our blood pressure goes up, hunger hormones get thrown off and blood sugar control goes south.
We can all recover from an occasional all-nighter, an episode of jet lag or short-term disruptions.
But over time, if living against the clock becomes a way of life, this may set the stage for weight gain and metabolic diseases such as Type 2 diabetes.
"What happens is that you get a total de-synchronization of the clocks within us," explains Fred Turek , a circadian scientist at Northwestern University. "Which may be underlying the chronic diseases we face in our society today."
So consider what happens, for instance, if we eat late or in the middle of the night. The master clock which is set by the light-dark cycle is cuing all other clocks in the body that it's night. Time t Continue reading

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Diabetes & Your Feet: 5 Things You Need to Do Right Now to Prevent Ulcers, Infection, Amputation

If you have type 1 or type 2 diabetes, your doctor has undoubtedly told you to pay special attention to your feet, since they are prone to infections, ulcers and worse. While it probably seems like enough work to track your blood sugar levels, keeping your feet healthy is crucial, too.
If you're not convinced, consider these scary statistics:
• Foot ulcers, common in those with diabetes, may heal but are very likely to reoccur.
• The risk of an uninfected diabetic foot ulcer becoming infected is about 40%.
• The Charcot foot, a condition of severe deformity linked with diabetes, can lead to amputation—and three months or more of difficult movement. Other diabetes-related foot problems can also lead to amputation.1
• Every 30 seconds, a lower limb is lost as a consequence of diabetes. 1,2
As somber as those facts are, patients can be proactive about foot health with a number of simple steps, according to podiatric specialists talking at a seminar on the Diabetic Foot at the American Diabetes Association 77th Scientific Sessions in San Diego. Here are five suggestions.
#1. Understand Neuropathy
Diabetic peripheral neuropathy is, unfortunately, common in those with diabetes. It's defined as damage to nerves in your feet, lower legs, hands and elsewhere.
However, patients often don't truly understand what neuropathy is, says Andrew J.M. Boulton, FRCP, professor of medicine at the University of Manchester. "They have a strong vascular connotation, so they think it must have to do with circulation," Dr. Boulton tells Endocrine Web. They think, ''My foot is warm, it does Continue reading

Eight Life-Changing Diabetes Breakthroughs

The year 2016 was eventful in diabetes care and treatment. Breakthroughs in medications and methods of glucose monitoring made headlines.
The American Diabetes Association (ADA) noted that, “An individual diabetes care plan is a core tenet of our Standards of Care and woven throughout the Association’s guidelines. With each health-care device and medication, people with diabetes get access to new options that help them manage their diabetes more effectively, providing opportunities to improve quality of life and health outcomes. 2016 offered a number of key advancements in the tools available to people with diabetes.”
Insulin pump makes dosing decisions
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the first time approved a continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) device that could make medication-dosing decisions automatically using the CGM data. Before, the monitor’s results required confirmation using a fingerstick glucometer before the patient made any insulin decisions.
The Medtronic MiniMed 670G automated insulin delivery pump (AIDP) combines an insulin pump with a sensor measuring a person’s blood glucose level. The device then automatically adjusts basal insulin coverage as needed.
“Some call it a ‘bionic pancreas’; while it isn’t that, the 670G does represent a big leap forward from a regulatory perspective,” said John Buse, MD, PhD, director of the Diabetes Center at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine at Chapel Hill. “This is the first time the FDA has allowed a device to actually administer insulin without human intervention.”
Usu Continue reading

Kefir and Diabetes - Cultured Food Life

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I remember that day quite vividly. It was over fifteen years ago. It was February and bitter cold outside. I made myself a breakfast that I thought was healthy high-fiber cereal and skim milk. Thirty minutes later a terrible feeling came over me, one that I recognized from having gestational diabetes with the pregnancy of my daughter. I had a blood sugar meter that I could test my blood sugar with, Continue reading

The lifestyle changes that can cut type 2 diabetes risk

The lifestyle changes that can cut type 2 diabetes risk
By Dr Rangan Chatterjee Doctor in the House
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Type 2 diabetes affects approximately 3.5 million people in this country and is thought to cost the UK around 20bn per year in both direct and indirect costs.
This is a staggering amount of money spent on a condition largely caused by our lifestyle choices and environment.
On Doctor in the House, I try to help 39-year-old La-Vern. Her mother, Doreen, already has type 2 diabetes and is worried that La-Vern is going down the same route.
La-Vern is a busy, single mother who does two jobs and, as a result, is exhausted and stressed.
She has not yet crossed our diagnostic threshold where we would say she has type 2 diabetes, but her blood sugar and fasting insulin levels are not "normal" either. Her results suggested that she was on the road towards type 2 diabetes.
This is an ideal opportunity to practise true preventive medicine. Type 2 diabetes is a late event. By the time you get a diagnosis, things will have been going wrong in your body for many years.
La-Vern's symptoms of fatigue have already affected her quality of life. However, her lifestyle is not only causing her to feel unwell, but is driving her towards a type 2 diabetes diagnosis further down the line.
This is one of the big problems in medicine today - things are often said to be black or white, normal or abnormal - but what about optimal?
I am an advocate for trying to recognise problems before they happen. Why should we wait for people to get a Continue reading