Newer Forms Of Insulin Make For Easier Diabetes Management

Newer Forms of Insulin Make for Easier Diabetes Management

According to the latest report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, six million American adults with diabetes currently use insulin to help keep their blood sugar levels under control. A naturally occurring hormone produced by the pancreas, insulin helps to transport the sugar in food from the bloodstream into the cells, which then convert the sugar into energy.
Without insulin, sugar (also known as glucose) remains in the blood and builds up. Over time, high blood glucose levels can lead to the serious complications associated with diabetes, such as heart disease, kidney disease, poor circulation to the limbs, and amputations.
Insulin therapy can help manage blood sugar when the body can’t do it on its own. Insulin is a must for everyone with type 1 diabetes, because their bodies are not capable of even producing insulin. People who have type 2 diabetes do produce insulin, but their bodies may not produce enough or may not use the insulin properly. Consequently, they may need insulin therapy depending on their blood glucose levels, related medical conditions, and other medications they are taking.
While conventional insulin products have been very effective in helping to keep blood glucose levels under control, they do have some limitations. For example, blood sugar rises very quickly following a high-carbohydrate meal, and the insulin products we've had available can’t act fast enough to keep up.
It also can be challenging to know how much insulin to take, and when, to effectively manage blood sugar. Just as too little insulin leads to high blood gluco Continue reading

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India shows the way to better diabetes care at no added cost

Low-cost software used by a non-physician worker doubles blood glucose control and lowers blood pressure and ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol in diabetes patients at no added cost
Low-cost software used by a non-physician worker optimises treatment and lowers complications in diabetes patients by doubling blood glucose-control and lowering blood pressure and ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol at no added cost, reports a study from India and Pakistan.
In India, close to 70 million people have diabetes and another 40 million are insulin-resistant, which is a precursor to diabetes. More than four in five diabetics on medication in India do not have their blood glucose under control .
The new study, of more than 1,100 patients across 10 centres – nine in India and one in Karachi, Pakistan – over five years and published in Annals of Internal Medicine, is the first global trial of diabetes management in low- and middle-income countries, home to 75% of the world’s 415 million diabetics.
The study found that non-physician coordinators with technology that welded electronic health records with decision-support software sizeably improved blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol profiles of patients and lowered risk of complications such as heart disease, eye disease (retinopathy), kidney failure and amputations.
“What makes this model workable is the low dependence on physicians, who are often few and far between, especially in rural areas. Any graduate or social worker with six or more months of experience in healthcare, social work or allied sciences and basic computing and good commun Continue reading

These developments in diabetes care will shape the industry next year

How Medtronic's MiniMed 670G grows
Production delays hobbled the June launch of Medtronic's hybrid closed-loop system.
The technology has been hailed as a milestone because it's the first insulin pump that delivers insulin somewhat automatically. The system combines a continuous glucose monitor, an algorithm and a pump. They work together to measure and analyze glucose levels to adjust the amount of insulin delivered accordingly.
Medtronic's system is considered a hybrid closed-loop because although the Guardian Sensor 3 and MiniMed 670G pump work together, they still require some patient input. For example, patients need to enter information about what they're eating and calibrate their pumps using fingerstick testing.
The Food and Drug Administration approved the system in September 2016, months earlier than expected. Medtronic had recently introduced the MiniMed 630G system, meaning a number of patients had just purchased a new device. The number of people wanting the new system caused a spike in demand that slowed production, creating a backlog of people waiting to buy it.
The slowdown weighed on Medtronic's total diabetes segment, which accounts for about 7 percent of its total revenue. The category declined 2 percent in constant currency last quarter. It rose 4 percent last fiscal year, which ended in April.
The company does not break out the total diabetes segment revenue by category, but intensive insulin management represents the bulk of its sales. That group declined low single digits last quarter. Last fiscal year, it grew high single digits.
Medtronic expects to Continue reading

For the love of exogenous ketones!

You read that correctly. I love ketones and I am actively pursuing ways to increase my bodies ability to produce them through the use of exogenous ketone supplements. Ketones are a dirty word in the world of diabetes because of the confusion surrounding their appearance as the harbinger of doom through DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis). Unfortunately many healthcare providers actively discourage their diabetic patients from attempting to achieve nutritional ketosis because they don’t fully understand the difference between nutritional ketosis and DKA. That difference is NOT the focus of this post, other than to establish the fact that there IS a difference.
It’s important to note that the means of detecting DKA is typically the presence of ketones in the blood. Adding them through exogenous supplementation or nutritional ketosis is useful (I would even argue beneficial), but not without some risk. In case of insulin deficiency (bad pump site, occlusion, skipped dose etc) while in ketosis one would be without the means to clearly identify DKA. You’d only be able to guess based on blood glucose level to infer how insulin deficient you are. The risk can be mitigated through vigilance and attention to insulin dosing but shouldn’t be taken lightly.
I’ve recently started using exogenous ketones to help put me into nutritional ketosis more readily and I wanted to report the initial findings since I’ve been asked about them so many times. Up till this point I didn’t feel compelled to spend the time and money on exogenous ketone supplements–which are not cheap! I took the Continue reading

Does Cannabis Help With Diabetes Treatment?

Does cannabis help with diabetes treatment? Type 1 and type 2 diabetes have two completely different causes. Yet, the same herb may be helpful for both of the conditions. Though research is in its early stages, there have even been some small human trials of cannabinoid therapies as a diabetes treatment. While evidence that that the herb may improve insulin sensitivity and help autoimmunity is still under review, cannabis may help patients cope with difficult diabetes symptoms.
Type 1 diabetes
Cannabis has a lot of potential in the treatment of autoimmune diseases, type 1 diabetes included. In type 1 diabetes, an overactive immune system decides to attack the pancreas. The pancreas is responsible for producing insulin, a hormone which moves sugar out of the blood and into cells.
When the immune system attacks these cells, they can no longer produce the insulin needed to regulate blood sugar. Unfortunately, type 1 diabetics are usually on life-long insulin. When the pancreas becomes too damaged, there is not much you can do other than replace the hormone that the organ makes.
While cannabis therapy cannot create more insulin, the herb may be helpful for another reason. Active compounds in the plant called cannabinoids may help calm the immune system in type 1 diabetes. Calming the immune system stops your body from attacking itself, decreasing harm to the pancreas. Here’s how the herb seems to work:
Cannabis and autoimmune diabetes
Back in 2001, researchers put psychoactive THC to the test in mice with autoimmune diabetes. The mice were treated with 150mg/kg of THC. The sc Continue reading