The Dogs That Smell Breath To Monitor Diabetes

The dogs that smell breath to monitor diabetes

Guide dogs stop you bumping into things, assistance dogs can pull your clothes out of the washing machine. But medical detection dogs can keep you alive.
These dogs have been specially trained to smell several cancer types. Others can gauge the blood sugar levels in diabetics, warn allergic owners away from peanuts, or detect when people with narcolepsy are about to fall asleep.
Their sense of smell is so strong that they can smell their owner's breath from another room of the house, and can even be on guard from the side of a football pitch or dance floor.
"I used to stay awake, or wake up every hour overnight, testing my blood sugars 20 times a day," says Claire Moon, who has type 1 diabetes. She used to fear not waking up in the morning because her body has stopped giving warning signs - such as dizziness or blurred vision - when her blood sugar dips dangerously low.
It's a condition referred to as "brittle", and it means that she does not know when she needs to eat something sugary to correct the situation - known as a "hypo". It means she's been constantly under threat of a loss of reasoning and maybe experiencing a seizure or a rapid fall into a diabetic coma. Her quality of life was very poor as a result, she says.
But then seven months ago, Moon, a paediatrician from Buckinghamshire, received a medical detection dog. When Magic smells his owner's breath, he knows when her glucose levels go below 4.5 on the scale, and he alerts his new owner by nudging, licking or bringing her diabetes testing kit.
Moon then tests her blood and, if he's right, has to reward the dog b Continue reading

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Artificial sweeteners may increase risk of type two diabetes, finds study

INDYPULSE
Artificial sweeteners may increase risk of type two diabetes, finds study
Consuming artificial sweeteners might raise the risk of developing type two diabetes, new research suggests.
The study was conducted by professors at the University of Adelaide in Australia and looked at whether ingesting significant amounts of artificial sweeteners would affect the body’s ability to control glucose levels in the blood.
They recruited 27 healthy participants and gave some of them capsules containing artificial sweeteners, an amount equivalent to five cans of diet drinks.
The capsules contained sucralose and acesulfame K and had to be taken three times a day for two weeks.
The others took placebo capsules.
Once the study was over, tests were taken which showed that those who were consuming artificial sweeteners had damaged their body’s ability to manage glucose, which could subsequently lead to developing type two diabetes in the long run.
Participants’ blood sugar levels were obviously higher after consuming the sweeteners, whereas their gut peptides, which prevent the surge of blood glucose levels after eating and drinking, were impaired.
“This study supports the concept that artificial sweeteners could reduce the body’s control of blood sugar levels and highlights the potential for exaggerated post-meal glucose levels in high habitual NAS [non-caloric artificial sweeteners] users, which could predispose them to develop type 2 diabetes,” the study’s authors said, whose findings were presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Lisbon, Por Continue reading

Diabetes: New pathway to treatment suggested by protein culprit

What is the link between anxiety and diabetes? New research shows that a protein related to the development of anxiety and depression may also play a role in triggering diabetes. Scientists from the Max Planck Institutes hypothesize that an antagonist compound could be used to block its effect.
The main known causes for type 2 diabetes so far include obesity and lack of physical exercise — both of which can lead to insulin resistance — as well as a family history of the condition.
Insulin resistance occurs when muscles, liver, and fat cells become unable to use insulin appropriately, which ultimately leads to a dangerous rise in blood glucose levels.
Now, researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany, have found that a protein called FKBP51 may also play a role in triggering type 2 diabetes.
The protein has so far been associated with anxiety and depression; it contributes to the regulation of the stress system. When the gene that controls the production of FKBP51 suffers a mutation, this can lead to dysregulation of the stress system, which, in turn, can cause mental health disorders.
Mathias Schmidt — lead researcher of the current study — and colleagues have recently noted that the FKBP51 protein also contributes to forming a molecular link between the stress system and the regulation of various metabolic functions. This may make FKBP51 responsible for the onset of metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes.
The team's findings have now been published in the journal Nature Communications.
Protein reacts to metabolic stress
Schmid Continue reading

Are You Staying Informed With New Diabetes Treatments?

Poll finds less than half of health care professionals aware of newest drug up for FDA approval.
By Steve Freed, R.Ph., Diabetes Educator, Publisher
In the past two years, more than 30 medications have come to the market, and more than 475 additional diabetes drugs are in the works to get approved.
To test the knowledge of endocrinologists, 149 endocrinologists responded to a survey about a new drug that the FDA is looking to approve shortly. The drug, ertugliflozin, met the primary outcomes in two year-long phase 3 trials, VERTIS SU and VERTIS SITA2 and only 45% of the physicians said they had heard of the drug. Of those, 20% knew it only by name and only 5% were “very familiar” with it.
Ertugliflozin is an investigational oral sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT-2) inhibitor aimed at improving glycemic control in adults. It is expected to be approved before the end of the year, which would make it the fourth drug in its class to market.
Respondents were asked, after reading the clinical trial data provided about the drug and assuming ertugliflozin is approved and performs as described, how long they thought it would take for them to start prescribing. Only 7% answered that they would start prescribing within the first week, another 18% said they would prescribe it in the first month, and nearly half (46%) said they would prescribe it within 2 to 6 months. Just more than 1 in 5 (21%) said they would likely wait at least 9 months before prescribing.
Among the 113 endocrinologists who anticipated prescribing ertugliflozin, the main reason given was efficacy (58% answer Continue reading

How Fresno Man Started Biking and Reversed Type 2 Diabetes

FRESNO — Jaime Rangel holds a bike tire and begins checking with his hands for thorns and other sharp objects that might be puncturing the tire’s rubber tread. His fingers, stained with black patches of oil, move quickly and seamlessly. He’s done this type of work dozens of times before.
All around him, a steady stream of kids line up to get their bikes’ flat tires and faulty brakes fixed at this free event at a park in southeast Fresno.
The free bike repairs are a preamble to the Cumbia Ride, a group bike ride with Latin American dance music started last year by Fresno’s Cultiva la Salud to promote biking and a healthier lifestyle among Latino families.
Rangel, 26, says he’s here fixing bikes because he relates to many of the young riders at the event — kids who can’t afford to have their bikes repaired.
“When I was a kid, no one showed me how to fix a bike,” he says. “My mom never took me to a bike shop because we grew up low income, so everything I had to learn from scratch.”
Rangel makes a point of showing those skills to the kids and parents lingering by their bikes. He wants young people and adults, especially in working-class neighborhoods like southeast Fresno, to be able to bike more to fend off chronic illnesses such as diabetes.
Rangel speaks from personal experience.
Facing Type 2 Diabetes as a Teen
Rangel was just 14 and living with his family in Los Angeles when he was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Obesity and a sedentary lifestyle are risk factors for the illness. While he was tall — 6-foot-1 — he weighed 260 pounds.
It’s been Continue reading