We Finally Know How Dogs Sniff Out Diabetes

For years, assistance dogs have been used to detect low blood sugar levels in their diabetic owners and warn of an impending hypoglycemia attack. Scientists have finally figured out how dogs are able to accomplish this feat—an insight that could lead to new medical sensors.
Dogs don’t so much see the world as they do smell it. Our canine companions can detect the tiniest odor concentrations—around one part per trillion. For us, that would be like detecting a teaspoon of sugar in two Olympic sized swimming pools. This allows them to work as medical detection dogs, where they sniff out various forms of cancer and diabetes.
In the case of diabetes, specially trained dogs can tell when their owner’s blood sugar level is low—a sign of a possible hypoglycemia attack. For people with type 1 diabetes, low blood sugar can cause problems like shakiness, disorientation, and fatigue. Failure to receive a sugar boost can lead to a seizure and even unconsciousness. For some, these episodes occur suddenly and with little warning. When a diabetes detection dog senses that their owner is in trouble, they notify them by performing a predetermined task, such as barking, laying down, or putting their paw on their shoulder.
But how do these dogs know? What is it, exactly, that they’re sensing or smelling? This question has mystified scientists for years, but a new study by researchers from the Wellcome Trust-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science and the University of Cambridge has finally provided the answer.
It’s isoprene. That’s what these dogs are smelling—a common natural che Continue reading

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Glass of red wine a day can keep diabetes under control

A glass of red wine a day can keep diabetes under control, say scientists.
A study of patients who did not normally drink found those having the regular tipple with their evening meal had healthier hearts and cholesterol levels than those who drank mineral water or white wine instead. And they slept better than those drinking water.
Researchers followed 224 participants with type 2 diabetes - the form linked to obesity - for two years and put their findings down to the healthy antioxidants in dark grapes called phenols - the most well-known of which is resveratrol.
"Red wine was found to be superior in improving overall metabolic profiles."
Prof Iris Shai, Ben-Gurion University
Prof Iris Shai, of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, said: "The differences found between red and white wine were opposed to our original hypothesis that the beneficial effects of wine are mediated predominantly by the alcohol."
However both red and white wine improve sugar control among those carrying genes that helped them to metabolise alcohol slowly.
It is though that diabetes affects nearly four million people in Britain although around 850,000 are currently undiagnosed.
Diabetics could help keep their condition under control with a glass of wine Photo: Alamy
The first long-term alcohol study of its kind - published in Annals of Internal Medicine - aimed to assess the effects and safety of initiating moderate alcohol consumption in diabetics and sought to determine whether the type of wine matters.
People with diabetes are more susceptible to developing cardiovascular diseases th Continue reading

More proof a low-calorie diet can effectively reverse type 2 diabetes

In early November, we reported how a team at Yale University had uncovered the key metabolic mechanisms responsible for lowering blood glucose concentrations in those on a very low calorie diet. Now a new study published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet is offering more evidence to support the theory that type 2 diabetes can be effectively cured through intensive dieting and weight management.
The latest study, conducted by a team led by researchers at the University of Glasgow, has successfully demonstrated that type 2 diabetes can indeed be reversed through a weight management program alone. The study found nearly half of all participants had reverted to, and maintained, a non-diabetic state without using antidiabetic medications, one year after undergoing the program.
"Our findings suggest that even if you have had type 2 diabetes for six years, putting the disease into remission is feasible," says Michael Lean, who co-led the study. "In contrast to other approaches, we focus on the need for long-term maintenance of weight loss through diet and exercise and encourage flexibility to optimize individual results."
The trial followed 298 adults over two years. Half the participants underwent the new weight management program, while the other half served as a control group following general best-practice diabetic treatments. The weight management program comprised of the subjects withdrawing from all anti-diabetic drugs and undergoing a total diet replacement. For three to five months each participant consumed a formula diet adding up to around 800 calories per d Continue reading

Diabetes rises with daily soda -- including diet soda -- consumption

A comprehensive study of European adults has found that compared with people who drink a single sugar-sweetened drink daily, those who drink water, coffee or tea instead are at 14% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
The research found that drinking sugar-sweetened milk products was an even more powerful driver of diabetes; compared with those who drank one such beverage daily, people who drank water, coffee or tea instead were on average 20% to 25% less likely to develop diabetes.
The British study, which tracked the consumption habits of more than 25,000 Britons (ages 40 to 79) over about 11 years, offered little comfort to drinkers of artificially sweetened beverages. While consumers of coffee, tea and water had a diminished risk of diabetes, the study found consumers of diet sodas to have type 2 diabetes risks on par with drinkers of sugar-sweetened beverages.
But when the authors took body mass index and waist circumference into account, they found that consumption of diet beverages was not linked to higher rates of diabetes. This suggests that diet soda drinkers are already more likely to be overweight or obese, and that this - rather than their diet soda consumption - might account for their elevated diabetes risk.
While offering some insights into different beverages' contribution to diabetes rates, the study does not test the likely effects of changing established consumption patterns and substituting one kind of drink for another. Instead, it tracked the consumption patterns of a large population over a lengthy period of time to see who was more or less like Continue reading

The cure for type II diabetes

If you are already on insulin, absolutely do not stop taking insulin, and do not stop measuring your glucose levels, without your doctor's permission.
Surprisingly, medical researchers, such as from Medical News Today, consider Type 2 diabetes to be an immune problem whereby the immune system attacks the body's own cells.
Type 2 diabetes is in the process of being redefined as an autoimmune disease rather than just a metabolic disorder, said an author of a new study published in Nature Medicine this week, the findings of which may lead to new diabetes treatments that target the immune system instead of trying to control blood sugar.
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The researchers believe that insulin resistance, the hallmark of type 2 diabetes (unlike type 1 diabetes where it is the insulin-producing cells that are destroyed), is the result of B cells and other immune cells attacking the body's own tissues.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/222766.php
This discovery is nothing new to some natural medicine researchers. Treatments that do the things necessary to build the immune system have been curing type 2 diabetes for years.
Some of these treatments are “electromedicine” treatments which use gentle electrical waves to do the things necessary to rebuild the immune system.
But these gentle electrical waves do not directly build the immune system, rather they remove the “root cause” of why the immune system is dysfunctional in the first place.
Think of the school bully. Instead of fixing the students he beats up every week, the school might just kick the bully out of school. By doing thi Continue reading