Monthly Archives: February 2017

By Marlene Cimons By Marlene Cimons February 19

Women typically dont develop heart disease or high blood pressure, one of its major risk factors until after menopause. But if you have diabetes, that rule no longer applies, says Christine Maric-Bilkan, a program officer in the vascular biology and hypertension branch of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Diabetes dramatically increases the risk of heart disease at any age overall, people with diabetes are twice as likely to have heart disease or a stroke as are other people and its impact tends to be greater in women than in men, she says. Diabetes, a disease in which the body either doesnt produce enough insulin (Type 1) or cannot use it properly (Type 2), can cause spikes in blood sugar. Over time, these spikes can damage nerves and blood vessels, putting diabetics at elevated risk of heart disease and stroke.

Uncontrolled diabetes also contributes to vision loss, kidney failure and amputations, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

[What you need to know about those new, deadly heart-surgery infections]

People with diabetes are up to four times as likely to develop cardiovascular disease as are people who do not have diabetes, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Women with diabetes are twice as likely to suffer a second heart attack and four times as likely to suffer heart failure as are women who do not have the disease, according to the American Diabetes Association.

The risk of developing hypertension doubles in men and quadruples in women if you have diabetes, Maric-Bilkan says. (Hypertension is a major contributor to heart disease.)

There is something about diabetes that takes away the protective factor against heart disease that premenopausal women seem to have, something probably related to estrogen, she says. Women are not impacted by heart disease as much as men at younger ages, but once they have diabetes, that protection is lost and diabetes has an overall greater impact on women, compared with men, at all ages.

In 2011, Maric-Bilkan tested a small group of premenopausal Finnish women with Type 1 diabetes and found that they all had lower-than-normal estrogen levels.

[Diabetes was once a problem of the rich. Now it belongs to the poor.]

I dont know if they got diabetes because their estrogen levels were reduced, or the reverse, she says. One thought is that its the estrogen that gives protection, but men with diabetes, who also have a greater risk of heart disease, have high estrogen and low testosterone, the opposite of women. So the high estrogen doesnt protect men. Diabetic women have more testosterone than non-diabetic women, so it may have to do with the balance of hormones.

She stresses that the risk of death from heart disease is exceptionally high in women with early-onset [Type 1] diabetes compared with women in the general population, according to a study she authored.

Women with diabetes need to understand that the risk of getting heart disease is significant, and they need to be aware of it, she says.

Read the original post:
Women with diabetes are especially prone to developing heart ... - Washington Post

In the poor, remote island nations of the South Pacific, the Type-II diabetes rate ranges from 19% to 34%, a devastating health statistic that is challenging the countries' economies and wellbeing.

Some of these countries have tried taxing sugar or sweetened beverages, but Vanuatu is set to go further, banning imported food from government and tourist institutions altogether. It's the first step to a comprehensive ban on all junk food importation -- something that has been unsuccessfully tried in the region, as when Samoa passed a ban on high-fat "turkey tails," only to have it reversed by the World Trade Organization.

Public health experts who study the island nations of the Pacific welcomed the ban, saying that bold measures were necessary for an impoverished and isolated region of 10 million people one where the cost of sending legions of patients abroad for dialysis treatment or kidney transplants is untenable.

Imagine if 75 million Americans had diabetes thats the scale of the epidemic were talking about in Vanuatu, Roger Magnusson, a professor of health law and governance at Sydney Law School in Australia, said in an email.

Can anyone seriously say that Vanuatu doesnt have the right to exercise its health sovereignty in every way possible to protect its population from an epidemic of that scale? he added.

Experts say the regions health crisis is primarily driven by a decades-long shift from traditional diets based on root crops toward ones that are high in sugar, refined starch and processed foods.

As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food [Mike Ives/New York Times]

report this ad

Edinburghs Nahid Akram installed a CCTV system that let him record his downstairs neighbours Debbie and Tony Woolley in their back garden, capturing both images and audio of their private conversations, with a system that had the capacity to record continuously for five days.

Internet traffic nowadays is mostly encrypted (HTTPS). Thus, for a few years now, Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA) have been facing far more challenges at gathering data through the interception of connections than they used to.

Civil asset forfeiture is the bizarre American practice of seizing peoples property without charging its owner: instead the property is charged with being the ill-gotten gains of a crime, and if the owner doesnt pay their propertys legal bills, the police get to keep or sell the property.

Python is immensely popular in the data science world for the same reason it is in most other areas of computingit has highly readable syntax and is suitable for anything from short scripts to massive web services. One of its most exciting, newest applications, however, is in machine learning. You can dive into this booming []

Learning new skills is a great way to improve your resume and stand out from other candidates. Especially in a workforce in which many job-seekers have a wide variety of qualifications. With lifetime access toVirtual Training Company, you wont have to choose a specific focus. You can pick up new expertise whenever you deem it []

Instead of throwing out all the empties after your next party, why not transform them into some new DIY glassware? Cut back on waste and add some home ambiance with the Kinkajou Bottle Cutter and Candle Making Kit.The Kinkajou is designed as a clamp-on scoring blade to make precise cuts. Just slide abottle in, tighten []

report this ad

Read the original post:
Tiny, poor, diabetes-wracked Pacific island nations want to ban junk food, despite risk of WTO retaliation - Boing Boing

Live Well, Be Well diabetes program set in Union County Annanews A free, six-week diabetes self-management course is scheduled to begin on Feb. 28 at the Union County Courthouse in Jonesboro. The Live Well, Be Well with Diabetes course is scheduled from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. each Tuesday in the community room at the ...

More:
Live Well, Be Well diabetes program set in Union County - Annanews

There are a lot of barriers standing between the average youth soccer player and a career as a professional. Theres competition, fitness, skills, bad coaching. Jordan Morris had one more barrier to deal with. He was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was nine.

You dont see a ton of professional soccer players with diabetes, Morris tells Sounder at Heart. My dad recently told me he didnt even think Id be able to play soccer in college.

Having Type 1 diabetes means that Morris pancreas doesnt produce insulin. After eating, sugar and other nutrients enter the blood stream, and insulin helps the body absorb that sugar and turn it into energy. Morris wears an insulin pump, a cell phone-sized device that gives him a steady stream of insulin throughout the day, and more whenever he eats.

Zach Galifianakis surrounded by math in the Hangover

A lot of being a diabetic is trying to keep the amount of sugar in the blood within a specific range. That requires constantly paying attention to insulin, exercise, and food intake. It can feel a bit like living in that gif of Zach Galifianakis enshrouded in a swirling cloud of calculations. Insulin lowers blood sugars. With some exceptions, exercise also lowers them and food has the opposite effect.

Even for diabetics with the best control, the disease is a major health issue. Low blood sugars can make a diabetic feel lightheaded or blur their vision. Serious low blood sugars, although rare, can cause loss of consciousness. On the other hand, high blood sugars can mean headaches or nausea and, if left untreated, can lead to comas.

When I was newly diagnosed, it was scary, Morris says. It was tough. There were a lot of questions going through my mind.

Morris profusely credits his parents (his dad is the Sounders team doctor, and his mom was a nurse) for helping him early on. He had to learn to check his blood sugar multiple times a day: when he eats, exercises, wakes up, goes to bed, or just feels off. Before meals he has to count how many carbs hes going to have, so that he knows how much insulin to give himself, because the body converts most carbs into sugar. He carries a backpack around with diabetes supplies he might need in an emergency.

In his journey from high school to college to Major League Soccer, he has gotten better at dealing with the disease, largely because of how well he has gotten to know his body. Things like how sensitive a diabetic is to insulin (in other words, how much insulin they give themselves for how many carbs they eat, or how much their blood sugar is off), can change based on things as simple as the time of day. So knowing your body helps. Morris has a specific food that he knows works well when he has low blood sugar: fruit snacks. Nowadays, most of his diabetes management is up to him.

Its pretty much all me doing it, Morris says. [The Sounders] obviously do normal dietary stuff with athletes, but in terms of my diabetes, its me kind of having to deal with it, because I know my body best.

Even with all the knowledge that he has stored up, with all he knows about how his body reacts to different stimuli, dealing with the diabetes is still difficult. He has to deal with the fact that no matter how much calculation he does, things can still go wrong.

I think the toughest part about diabetes is its so unpredictable, he says. You can eat the same things, do the same work out a couple days in a row and your blood sugar will turn out differently at the end. Its just different days lead to different blood sugars.

And being a professional adds new difficulties too. Adrenaline raises blood sugars, meaning that on gameday, when hes looking up from the turf at a sea of screaming fans, the same thing that energizes him to play his best is also going to cause a spike in his blood sugars if he doesnt counter it with the exact right amount of insulin.

He fine-tuned how he deals with the adrenaline over the 2016 season. During a game against Portland, his blood sugar went low and he had to scramble over to the sidelines to eat some gummies. He said that during the MLS Cup final in Toronto he came into the locker room feeling sick, checked his blood sugar, and found out it was high. That was annoying.

If things arent right with your blood sugar, youre not going to be as efficient on the field, he said. Obviously as a professional athlete everything should be focused on the game, and not on your diabetes.

Dave Tenney, the Sounders High Performance Director, is impressed with Morris diabetes management. Whatever Jordan says, I trust him, because I know what hes been through and that hes learned to listen to his body better than the average (21)-year-old, Tenney told the Seattle Times last October.

Morris says hes proud of how he has dealt with his diabetes, and of course for making it to MLS, too. Now that hes a Sounder, he says hes trying to be a role model for younger kids. Diabetic athletes Jay Cutler and Adam Morrison gave him hope growing up, and he likes giving that same hope to a new generation of young diabetics.

When I was a kid, I told myself I wasnt going to let it hold me back, and now that my dreams become a reality, its pretty special to see that thats happened. I think it taught me how to be responsible at such a young age. I had to deal with this disease that you have to be constantly aware of. I definitely dont think Id be the person I am today without it.

Go here to read the rest:
Type 1 diabetes didn't stop Jordan Morris - Sounder At Heart