World Health Day 2016: Beat Diabetes

World Health Day 2016: Beat diabetes

6 April 2016 -- The number of people living with diabetes has nearly quadrupled since 1980 to 422 million adults, with most living in developing countries. WHO is marking World Health Day, 7 April, by calling for action on diabetes. In its first “Global report on diabetes”, WHO highlights the need to step up prevention and treatment of the disease.
7 April 2016 -- 422 million adults have diabetes. That is 1 person in 11. Diabetes can lead to complications in many parts of the body and increase the risk of dying prematurely. Key actions for everyone include: eat healthily, be physically active, avoid excessive weight gain, check blood glucose, follow medical advice.
22 March 2016 -- The main goals of the World Health Day 2016 campaign are to increase awareness about the rise in diabetes, and its staggering burden and consequences, in particular in low- and middle-income countries; and to trigger a set of specific, effective and affordable actions to tackle diabetes. These will include steps to prevent diabetes and diagnose, treat and care for people with diabetes.
4 April 2016 -- As it is in most countries around the world, diabetes is on the rise in Brazil. Efforts are being rolled out nationwide to help Brazilians with diabetes manage often debilitating health consequences and lead productive lives. WHO supports Brazil with these actions, helping health authorities implement programmes on prevention, diagnosis, early detection, and managing diabetes-related complications. Continue reading

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The Difference Between Hypoglycemia and Diabetes

Both hypoglycemia and diabetes reflect the conditions where the blood glucose levels in the body are not normal. While one condition is known to reduce the level of blood glucose in the body, the other is mainly characterized by the high level of blood glucose. However, due to the very nature of these two, there is a host of other differences too. In this article, we shall explore the differences between hypoglycemia and diabetes. So, come and join in for the article “The Difference Between Hypoglycemia and Diabetes.”
Meaning of Hypoglycemia Versus Meaning of Diabetes:
Let us first look into the meaning of both hypoglycemia and diabetes to understand their differences.
Hypoglycemia is a condition that affects human being’s due to the blood glucose levels becoming too low, whereas diabetes is a disease which affects the body as the body is unable to either produce enough insulin or is not able to utilize the insulin so produced effectively. The body is not able to regulate the level of blood sugar effectively, thereby leading to high glucose levels. Thus, while hypoglycemia is a condition, diabetes is a wider term which is actually a disease.
Fasting Blood Sugar Level
The level of fasting blood sugar is also different in hypoglycemia when compared to that of diabetes.
While the fasting blood glucose in diabetes is more than 126 mg per dl, it is less than 70 mg per dl in case of hypoglycemia.
Warning Signs of the Two Conditions
How do you know whether you have diabetes or hypoglycemia? Well, the signs and symptoms of the two conditions are different from each other.
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Type 2 diabetes, once considered a disease for adults, is increasingly common in tweens and teens

For years, health experts have bemoaned the rise of childhood obesity in the United States. About 17% of kids and teens in the U.S. are now considered obese, a figure that has more than tripled since the 1970s, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A report in this week’s edition of the New England Journal of Medicine lays out one of the consequences of all this excess weight: a corresponding increase in childhood cases of type 2 diabetes.
Type 2 diabetes occurs when extra body fat makes it hard for cells to use insulin, a hormone that turns sugar into energy. Over time, blood sugar levels rise and cause blood vessels to become stiff, increasing the risk of life-threatening conditions like heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure, among others. More than 75,000 Americans die of diabetes each year, the CDC says.
Type 2 diabetes used to be called adult-onset diabetes, because it would take years to develop. (That’s in contrast to type 1 diabetes, formerly known as juvenile diabetes, which occurs when the immune system destroys the cells that make insulin.) But these days, doctors are diagnosing type 2 in school-age kids, and occasionally even in toddlers.
After reviewing data on 10- to 19-year-olds in primarily five states (California, Colorado, Ohio, South Carolina and Washington), researchers determined that 12.5 out of every 100,000 of them had a bona fide case of type 2 diabetes in 2011 and 2012. That compares with nine cases per 100,000 youth in 2002 and 2003.
After accounting for age, gender, race and ethnicity, the study authors fo Continue reading

Periodontitis Linked to Diabetes Mellitus

Dental practices should focus on patients with severe periodontitis for screening of prediabetes
Diabetes has been an ongoing global health issue that has been associated with various other health conditions. Multiple studies have demonstrated the connection between diabetes and one such oral condition, periodontitis. Periodontitis is a severe gum infection that damages the soft tissue and destroys the supporting structures of the teeth. Its prevalence is 2X higher in those over 50 years old and 2-3X higher in patients with diabetes than in a normal healthy person. It is mainly associated with uncontrolled diabetes making them susceptible to infections and impaired wound healing.
Diabetes is a preventable disease, thus early diagnosis of prediabetes is essential for the prevention of diabetes and related complications. Studies suggest that periodontitis is an early complication of diabetes and it may be used as a tool to screen patients for diabetes early on. Although most dental practices lack equipment for blood biochemistry, measurements of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) may assist to screen for diabetes in patients with diabetes. The study aims to analyze HbA1c levels and affirm the presence of prediabetes in participants with or without periodontitis from a university dental clinic using analysis of dry blood spots. In a study, a consecutive series of patients from the Department of Periodontology of the Academic Centre of Dentistry Amsterdam (ACTA) who were diagnosed with periodontitis were to be enrolled for the treatment. A total of 313 participants were included, amon Continue reading

The Diabetes Drug That Could Be an Anti-Aging Miracle

In a slew of recent flashy endeavors, scientists, academics and exceptionally rich people have taken on the aging process. In 2013, Google launched Calico, its billion-dollar anti-aging research and development arm, which the following year formed a partnership with pharmaceutical giant AbbVie. Meanwhile, another major drug company, Novartis, is developing a patentable form of rapamycin—a biological agent discovered in the soil on Easter Island—which has been shown to boost immune function, and the company hopes it could become the first viable anti-aging pill.
But, according to Dr. Nir Barzilai, a scientist based in the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City’s Bronx borough, we might already have the drug we need to slow the aging process—and it’s dirt cheap. Metformin is an old, generic diabetes drug, known for its blood sugar–lowering properties and for being quite safe. It’s common, and it costs about 35 cents per pill. It has also been found to stall the aging process in animal studies.
In June, Barzilai, along with academics from the not-for-profit American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR), approached the Food and Drug Administration with an idea: the Targeting Aging With Metformin (TAME) study, to see if metformin could do for humans what it does for animals. It would be the first clinical trial to test if a drug could slow human aging. The FDA said yes, and since that June meeting the media has exploded with excitement over the purported “fountain of youth” drug, with rumors that it could extend human life span up to 120 years.
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