Why Isn't Postprandial Insulin Assay Being Used To Predict Diabetes Onset?

Why Isn't Postprandial Insulin Assay Being Used to Predict Diabetes Onset?

While promising, there is no way to know whether introducing lifestyle changes to patients who are diagnosed earlier will positively effect their outcomes.
With James DiNicolantonio, PharmD; Elena Christofides, MD, FACE, and Robert Lustig, MD
The current strategy for screening patients for prediabetes and diabetes—using fasting glucose, oral glucose tolerance testing (OGTT), and hemoglobin A1C—still may be missing millions of individuals with these conditions,1 according findings published in BMJ Open Heart.
Focusing only on glucose levels is too little, too late, said study author, James DiNicolantonio, PharmD, a cardiovascular research scientist at St. Luke's MidAmerica Heart Institute in Kansas City. He and three colleagues made a case for employing the postprandial insulin assay as a more efficient tool to diagnose prediabetes and diabetes sooner than the current standards.1
By the time people are diagnosed using standard glucose testing, ''these individuals likely will have lost up to 50% of their beta cells,'' Dr. DiNicolantonio told EndocrineWeb, ''When a person is diagnosed with prediabetes [using standard glucose testing], the patient will have likely lost 25% of their beta cells."
He added, ''the reason for this outcome is that we have been relying on the wrong surrogate marker: glucose. A patient can be severely ill and still have glucose levels in the normal range; by the time the patient becomes hyperglycemic, the disease had progressed significantly."
Building a Case for the Insulin Assay
Using the postprandial insulin assay, Dr. DiNicolantonio believes th Continue reading

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Online Peer Health for Managing Diabetes

Peer-based support groups have been successful for a multitude of conditions and afflictions. These communities provide support, advice, and experience to help with everything from addiction to chronic pain to managing diabetes. But could the same benefits be seen on the web? Michelle Litchman , a diabetes researcher, looks into the potential health benefits of social media-based peer health groups. She shares their initial findings and what this research could mean for health care.
Health tips, medical news, research, and more for a happier, healthier life. From University of Utah Health Sciences, this is The Scope.
Diabetes is one of the biggest health epidemics facing us today and managing the disease is important not only for the well-being of those that have it, but also as a way to control healthcare spending since people that don't manage the disease tend to develop more serious chronic complications.
Michelle Litchman is a researcher and diabetes nurse practitioner who is going to study improving Type I diabetes outcomes with an online peer health intervention. And we're going to break this down a little bit and talk about what exactly that means and what it could mean for managing diabetes. So, first of all, tell me about peer health. What does that mean?
Peer health is the interaction, education, and support offered by peers who have the same medical condition to promote health-enhancing change. So, essentially, what that means is when you are trying to find someone else who maybe understands the same things that you are going through, so in Type I diabetes Continue reading

Stem cells from our own bodies could cure MS and diabetes | Daily Mail Online

Zoe Derrick was 'cured' of MS after getting stem cell treatment in Mexico
But when Gregg Burgess-Salisbury, from Berkshire, had stem cell treatment two years ago it didn't work, and he is still confined to a wheelchair
Steve Storey, from Sheffield, was paralysed with MS but had successful therapy
Experts warn the risky and invasive treatment is a lottery for patients
Stem cells could cure diabetes and repair cartilage, liver, brain and soft tissue
Zoe Derrick was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2012 and had to travel to Mexico for stem cell therapy. To do this, she had to go back to part-time work and they have now had to sell their house to pay off the 15,000 loan they had to take out
Zoe Derrick was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis after the birth of her second son, Freddie, in January 2012.
'At first, I thought breastfeeding was the reason I was so, so tired all the time,' she says. 'It was so bad that Paul, my husband, was having to help me up the stairs.
'I kept tripping on the pavement when I was pushing the pram, then I trapped my hand in the car door. It was very bruised and swollen, but I couldn't feel a thing. I should have been in agony.'
An MRI scan that night revealed patches of damage all over her brain. Zoe, with her medical training as an NHS midwife, knew what it meant.
'I wondered how I could be alive, let alone speak.'
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurological condition in which the immune system destroys the vital protective sheaths around nerves, causing damage that can have a devastating and paralysing effect on functions including m Continue reading

Join the Fit With Diabetes Challenge

In this free 4-week challenge, a team of top diabetes experts and Iwill take you through some of the most important things you need to know about diabetes and exercise, healthy nutrition, and weight management with diabetes.
How the Fit With Diabetes Challenge works
The Fit With Diabetes Challenge consists of five things:
Daily activities or challenges that take you through everything you need to do in a step-by-step fashion
Articles covering the most important topics on diabetes and weight management
Workout programs that you can do during the challenge (home and gym workouts)
A Facebook support group for challenge participants in which you can ask questions, share your experiencesand connect with other people who want to be Fit With Diabetes
Each week, there will also be a giveaway where you can win awesome diabetes products from challenge sponsors like mySugr , One Drop and Myabetic .
Oh, and did I mention that its totally FREE to take the challenge?
The challenge is for all fitness levels and is based on my own experiences regarding diabetes and exercise, as well as the knowledge and insights of other diabetes and exercise experts. Im excited to announce that there will be posts by:
Ginger Vieira (Diabetes Author, Freelance Writer andthe author of Dealing with Diabetes Burnout & Emotional Eating with Diabetes & Your Diabetes Science Experiment )
Dr. Mark Heyman (Diabetes Psychologist and a Certified Diabetes Educator. Founder and Director of the Center for Diabetes and Mental Health)
Ben Tzeel (DiabetesStrong.com fitness editor, Certified Strength and Cond Continue reading

A Way to Prevent and Reverse Type 2 Diabetes

A Way to Prevent and Reverse Type 2 Diabetes
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This article is part of a series on whole food, plant-based (WFPB) nutrition. For related topics, see Discovering the Word of Wisdom Topics A-Z .
Being diagnosed with diabetes can feel like a life-long sentence to discomfort, inconvenience, and stress. This disease affects almost all of us. For those personally afflicted, it can be a daily, grinding challenge. The physical, emotional, and financial toll can be tremendous. For those who believe that the best they can do is to manage this difficult and potentially life-threatening disease, a future full of medications and insulin shots can seem bleak.
Fortunately, there is another way. In fact, seen from one perspective, type 2 diabetes is one of the best diagnoses to receive because it so readily responds to the cheapest, safest, and most effective treatment of all: diet.
Diabetes is a classic example of a Western-diet induced chronic disease. Although there is a genetic component to diabetes, the foods we eat determine whether those genes are expressed or not. It is good to know we are not completely controlled by our genetic endowment. In fact, with a whole food, plant-based diet one can not only prevent type 2 diabetes but often reverse it as well. This is well documented by medical experts who have assisted thousands of diabetics over the course of the last few decades. Beyond their own patients, thousands more who have read of their work and followed their guidelines have experienced the same outcomes. Here are t Continue reading