'They Never Talked To Me Like A Real Person': Fighting A Diabetes Epidemic With Empathy

'They Never Talked To Me Like A Real Person': Fighting a Diabetes Epidemic With Empathy

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11/15/2017 09:53 am ETUpdatedDec 22, 2017
'They Never Talked To Me Like A Real Person': Fighting a Diabetes Epidemic With Empathy
Houston is tapping into faith communities to tackle soaring diabetes rates.
Marguerite Butler (left)has worked with nutritionist Joy Ashby Cornthwaite (right), who has helped her understand and manage her diabetes.
When Marguerite Butler plunked into a chair in nutritionist Joy Ashby Cornthwaites Houston office in October 2016, she was spoiling for a fight.
Butler, a then-65-year-old law professor at Texas Southern University, had been living with Type 2 diabetes mostly by ignoring it for more than a decade. At just over 5 feet 5 inches tall and more than 200 pounds overweight, she was not interested in being pressed into weighing herself, taking up an exercise program, counting calories, learning to cook at home or measuring her glucose levels. She just wanted Cornthwaite to sign off on her planned weight loss surgery.
Diabetes didnt scare Butler. In Houston, one of the most obese cities in the U.S., she belonged to the 10 percent of adults diagnosed with the condition, in which the pancreas no longer produces enough insulin to break down the bodys blood sugar.
Left untreated, complications from diabetes are one of the leading causes of death in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control, but Butler had been pushed to lose weight for so long, and had failed so often, that it was too painful to talk about.
People always told me what I needed to Continue reading

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Black Seed Oil: This Remedy Can Cure HIV, AIDS, Diabetes, Cancer, Stroke, STDs, Arthritis and More

Home Healthy Food Black Seed Oil: This Remedy Can Cure HIV, AIDS, Diabetes, Cancer, Stroke, STDs, Arthritis and More
Black Seed Oil: This Remedy Can Cure HIV, AIDS, Diabetes, Cancer, Stroke, STDs, Arthritis and More
admin November 18, 2017 Black Seed Oil: This Remedy Can Cure HIV, AIDS, Diabetes, Cancer, Stroke, STDs, Arthritis and More 2017-11-18T09:18:22+00:00 Healthy Food No Comment
Even though we are living in a modern age there are still no cure for many ailments, and as time passes there are more illnesses which we cannot treat. Thankfully, we can still turn to Nature and find the cure which modern pharmacy cannot provide us with.
One of them is black cumin seed oil, or nigella sativa, which has the ability to inhibit further growth of cancer cells thus making it an effective treatment against cancer that is proven on animal subjects. There are still ongoing studies on this issue, especially on human subjects but there is still not an official proof.
Nevertheless, the black seed oil and its extract (thymoquinone) are particularly effective against liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, brain cancer, stomach cancer, bone cancer, lymphoma, cancer malignancy, and cervical cancer.
Animal studies have confirmed positive effects on its use when cancer is concerned, and now it has to be confirmed the same effect on humans as well. However, we are also living in an age when profit means everything to humans and lucrative companies will do everything in their power to keep it running. As you already know the most lucrative busi Continue reading

When Hurricane Harvey Arrived, They Kept the Diabetes Community Afloat

When Hurricane Harvey Arrived, They Kept the Diabetes Community Afloat
Jim Hirschtells the story of how Type 1 Team Texas emerged to meet the diabetes community's needs in the face of the hurricane
The rain began on Saturday. It continued on Sunday, then on Monday, and still more rain fell on Tuesday.
It was like standing in a shower, thats how hard it was raining, said Anne Imber, of Cypress, Texas, about 25 miles northwest of downtown Houston. And it did that for four days.
On Monday night, August 28, with the flood waters rising in her neighborhood, with the bayous spilling over across the city, and with the full blast of Hurricane Harvey beginning to swamp southeast Texas, Imber received a group text shes not even certain who sent it with a simple message: We need to do something.
Imber, 53, has been heavily involved in the diabetes community since her son, Tristan, was diagnosed with type 1 in 2002. She founded two different advocacy organizations that center on non-medical issues for teenagers. She runs the web sites, sponsors programs her expertise is in setting up 504 plans (which spell out the legal rights for any student with a disability) and she speaks at JDRF events, camps for diabetic children, and support groups. She even gives lectures at Texas Childrens Hospital about teens with diabetes.
Her basic point: If you have diabetes, you have to be prepared, whether youre playing sports, traveling, driving, or going to college.
She can now add one more to her list: Surviving 50 inches of rain.
Hurricane Harvey, and the subsequent floods, has killed a Continue reading

Treat Diabetes, Stomach Ulcer, and Heart Health with Sweet Potatoes

Treat Diabetes, Stomach Ulcer, and Heart Health with Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes are both a tasty and a healthy food packed with nutrients. As a result, they can be beneficial for treating many health conditions. Even though most people love eating sweet potatoes, people with diabetes generally try to avoid them.
They believe that this way they wont gain any weight. In addition, they are afraid that the sweet potatoes contain harmful sugars that can affect or cause diabetes. So, they tend not to include this food in their daily meals .
But, even if sweet potato is a starchy food, it contains less sugar than a regular potato. So, only the name sets it aside. Furthermore, the glycemic index of a sweet potato can vary between 40 to 50, and it all depends on where farmers grew it.
However, the regular potato has a glycemic index that varies from 60 to up to 90. Therefore, if you want to lose weight and manage your diabetes, it is best to focus on low glycemic index foods. In fact, sweet potatoes can be perfect for soothing the stomach lining and creating a protective layer.
There are various methods and ways you can use to cook sweet potatoes. Also, you can bake them, boil, cook or even use them in soups. Since these potatoes contain a soothing effect that can be very beneficial for the intestines and the stomach, they can help treat stomach ulcers.
Furthermore, they contain enough potassium, vitamin C, B-complex, calcium, and beta-carotene necessary for keeping the stomach healthy. Moreover, sweet potatoes contain roughage which can help prevent constipation and resu Continue reading

American Diabetes Associations Twitter fiasco: Does it matter to patients?

ADA , American Diabetes Association , Intellectual property rights
Michael Joyce produces multimedia at HealthNewsReview.org and tweets as @mlmjoyce
The American Diabetes Association (ADA) sparked a social media uproar at its annual conference in San Diego earlier this month when it restricted participants from posting photographs of slide presentations on Twitter:
ADA Twitter response to an attendee who posted a photograph from a slide presentation.
The response by conference attendees especially those quite active on social media was brisk, passionate, and hinted at Orwellian censorship. Medscape, who broke the story on the second day of the meeting, mostly focused on the response by physicians.
It would be fair to point out theres some selection bias at play here; after all, the survey was done via social media, and completed by people who use social media. Many like Kevin Campbell MD, a cardiologist in North Carolina with a substantial Twitter following felt the ban was ill-advised for these reasons:
many who cant attend the meeting rely on social media to follow new findings in real time
most other major medical associations actively encourage live tweeting during their meetings
online engagement facilitates dialogue from a variety of perspectives from around the world
Whether these rationale hold water or not will likely be debated frequently in the coming years, as more people attending medical conferences turn to social media.
But these arguments center on health care providers.
What about patients? Could such a ban affect the roughly 1 out of 10 Am Continue reading