Service Dog A Lifesaver For Child With Diabetes, Autism | The Wichita Eagle

Service dog a lifesaver for child with diabetes, autism | The Wichita Eagle

Brianna Bertrand huffs and puffs, blowing into her dog Cyrus’ face.
The scene playing out is not that of an 8-year-old playfully tormenting her pup.
It’s of life and death.
Cyrus is a medic-alert service dog trained to detect when Brianna’s blood sugar levels are dangerously low or high. He does so by smelling her breath and skin.
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Doctors diagnosed Brianna with Type 1 diabetes last year.
Juvenile diabetes is difficult for any child, with the constant finger pricks and insulin shots and the counting of every carbohydrate, but it is particularly so for Brianna.
Brianna is autistic and can’t communicate when she doesn’t feel well. She has never told her parents, Dana and Joe Bertrand, when her tummy hurt or her ear ached.
But on March 2, 2011, Dana Bertrand could tell from Brianna’s behavior that she wasn’t feeling well. The doctor thought the girl had a virus. While at the appointment, Dana Bertrand also mentioned to the pediatrician, Elaine Harrington at Via Christi Clinic, that Brianna had been drinking a lot of water, waking her parents up at night for more.
Harrington ordered a urine test, and Brianna and her mother left afterward. They were down the road a ways when the doctor’s office called and asked them to come back to do a blood test. It revealed Brianna’s blood sugar levels were too high, and Brianna went straight to the hospital, where she spent the next four days.
That day just happened to be Dana Bertrand’s birthday.
Brianna now tak Continue reading

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Scientists Create a Pill That Can Stop Type 2 Diabetes in Its Tracks

Here’s a scary thought about one of America’s leading causes of death: in addition to the 29.1 million people who have diabetes, there are 86 million over the age of twenty who are prediabetic. This reality seems pretty daunting, but new research suggests a cure for type 2 diabetes which accounts for 90 percent of cases nationwide. With type 2 diabetes rising at an alarming rate because of obesity in America, this potential cure is not only timely but necessary.[1,2,3]
A Very Brief History of Type 2 Diabetes
The earliest record of diabetes that we know of is from the year 1552 BC. Physician Hesy-Ra recorded on 3rd Dynasty Egyptian papyrus that frequent urination is a symptom of the disease. Approximately one century later in the year 500 BC, people recorded descriptions of sugar in the urine and noted its occurrence in obese individuals. Because people believed that diabetic urine had a sweet taste, the Latin word for honey – Mellitus – was added to the term ‘diabetes’.
In 1776, English physician Matthew Dobson observed diabetic urine. When he evaporated the urine, he found a brown sugar-like substance which both tasted and looked like brown sugar. Dobson noticed this flavor in diabetic blood as well. Upon further study, he observed that diabetes is fatal five weeks or less for some people while, for others, it’s a chronic condition. Dobson’s observations highlight the first time anyone ever made a distinction between type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
American physician Frederick Allen believed that diabetics’ bodies couldn’t use food normally. So, in 1916, he Continue reading

Study reveals how a very low calorie diet can reverse type 2 diabetes

In a new study, a Yale-led research team uncovers how a very low calorie diet can rapidly reverse type 2 diabetes in animal models. If confirmed in people, the insight provides potential new drug targets for treating this common chronic disease, said the researchers.
The study is published in Cell Metabolism.
One in three Americans will develop type 2 diabetes by 2050, according to recent projections by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Reports indicate that the disease goes into remission in many patients who undergo bariatric weight-loss surgery, which significantly restricts caloric intake prior to clinically significant weight loss. The Yale-led team's study focused on understanding the mechanisms by which caloric restriction rapidly reverses type 2 diabetes.
The research team investigated the effects of a very low calorie diet (VLCD), consisting of one-quarter the normal intake, on a rodent model of type 2 diabetes. Using a novel stable (naturally occurring) isotope approach, which they developed, the researchers tracked and calculated a number of metabolic processes that contribute to the increased glucose production by the liver. The method, known as PINTA, allowed the investigators to perform a comprehensive set of analyses of key metabolic fluxes within the liver that might contribute to insulin resistance and increased rates of glucose production by the liver—two key processes that cause increased blood-sugar concentrations in diabetes.
Using this approach the researchers pinpointed three major mechanisms responsible for the VLCD's dramatic effect o Continue reading

How Weight Loss May Reverse Type 2 Diabetes

The benefits of weight loss in treating diabetes have always been at the forefront of diabetes care, particularly for those people with type 2 diabetes who are overweight or obese. Excess weight can increase inflammation and make blood sugars harder to control by causing insulin resistance.
The American Diabetes Association states that, "There is strong and consistent evidence that modest persistent weight loss can delay the progression from prediabetes to type 2 diabetes and is beneficial to the management of type 2 diabetes." But, what if losing weight could actually help to reverse type 2 diabetes altogether?
Researchers of the Diabetes Remission Clinical Trial (DiRECT) discovered that after 12 months of intervention, 46 percent of participants were able to achieve remission of type 2 diabetes through weight loss versus only 4 percent in the control. They also found that the more weight lost increased remission (defined as achieving an A1c of less than 6.5 percent without diabetes medication) of type 2 diabetes.
Medical Director of the Diabetes Alliance and Telediabetes Lead at The Mount Sinai Hospital and endocrinologist, Dr. Noga Minsky says, "The takeaway point, which offers so many people out there hope, is that diabetes is reversible with weight loss. These results contrast previous studies comparing bariatric surgery to lifestyle changes or medical management, where non-surgical treatment did not lead to remission of diabetes in any patients treated non-surgically after two to three years." Additionally, Minsky says, "It was promising that diabetes was reversed suc Continue reading

Doctor Discovers Little Known Way to Reverse Type 2 Diabetes – By Ignoring Official Guidelines (And Trying This Diet Instead)

Diabetes is one of the most common chronic health conditions, and one of the most preventable ones. A healthy diet, plenty of exercise, and safely losing body weight can help to prevent and possibly even help reverse type 2 diabetes.
And yet, 30.3 million American people have diabetes and the current food guidelines are not helping to lower the numbers.
Could it be because we placing too much trust in the official guidelines as the only way to heal from diabetes and manage its symptoms?
Dr. Sarah Hallberg, the Medical Director of the Medically Supervised Weight Loss Program at Indiana University Health Arnett, argues that to reverse type 2 diabetes, we should forget the official guidelines and take a different approach to help defeat insulin resistance. And research, including her own clinical experience, shows that her method may have incredible potential to help do just that.
Type 2 diabetes is caused by insulin resistance or not being able to make enough insulin, a hormone that controls blood sugar. And more than 1 in 10 adults in the U.S. suffer from this condition. Research also shows that 1 in 3 adults have prediabetes, and many do not even know it.
Diabetes affects a massive amount of people worldwide and kills 1.5 million every year. And it does not have to be this way, because it is preventable and it is reversible, Dr. Hallberg says.
Type 2 diabetes is triggered by carbohydrate intake in most cases, she notes:
“Diabetes is a state of carbohydrate toxicity. Insulin resistance is a state of carbohydrate intolerance. Carbohydrate intake is the single biggest factor Continue reading