Category Archives: Diabetes

COLUMBUS, Ga Columbus is one of eight sites in the world participating in a groundbreaking study in the war against Type 1 Diabetes.

If you look at it from the perspective our community, I dont believe theres ever been a study of this magnitude at this stage of development that is this profound awarded to Columbus, Georgia, says Dr. Steven Leichter, Senior Physician at Endocrine Consultants.

The study focuses on restorative therapy to keep insulin levels maintained or restored using a certain drug that would trick the body into a permanent honeymoon period. During the honeymoon period, the amount of insulin needed to treat diabetes sufferers is low.

If the results of the study prove successful, it could lead to a revolution in the treatment for Type 1 Diabetes.

If we get kids early enough in Type I Diabetes, while they still have some beta cells left, and we give them this drug. It will block the anti-bodies from killing the remaining beta cells, and theyll remain in honeymoon ongoing which will make them very easy to treat, says Dr. Leichter.

Columbus was selected in large part due to the research and growth of Endocrine Consultants. Over the past 21 years, the practice has grown to be one of largest endocrine diabetes centers in Georgia, and the largest in western Georgia.

However, Endocrine Consultants is quick to credit the collaborative nature of the medical community in Columbus for making groundbreaking research such as this possible in our area.

This initial study should take about two years. Two of the participants are local patients.

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Columbus among 8 world sites chosen for groundbreaking pediatric diabetes research - WRBL

By Kendra Penningroth | Cronkite News Wednesday, March 29, 2017

WASHINGTON Alton Villegas offered an unusual call to action Wednesday for an 11-year-old boy: Destroy the ice cream man.

Alton is a member of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community where nearly 10 percent of tribal members have Type 2 diabetes, including members of his family.

My mom and my grandma have diabetes, a lot of people in Salt River have diabetes, sadly, said Alton, who has been diagnosed as pre-diabetic. I think a lot of people have diabetes because they dont eat healthy and they dont exercise.

Thats what brought Alton to Washington Wednesday, where he was the youngest of six witnesses urging the Senate Indian Affairs Committee to reauthorize the Special Diabetes Program for Indians.

The program grants $150 million a year to about 300 programs that push diabetes prevention to tribes in 35 states, said Rear Adm. Chris Buchanan, acting director of the Indian Health Service. The program will end after September if it is not reauthorized.

Since the program began in 1997, tribal obesity rates have remained stubbornly high, said Sen. John Hoeven, R-North Dakota. He said Native Americans still have a greater chance of being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes than any other group in America, and that diabetes is their fifth-leading cause of death.

But Hoeven, the committee chairman, also acknowledged at the hearing that the grants have helped lower diabetes and its complications, such as limb amputations, heart disease and kidney failure. But theres still more work to be done.

The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, like other grantees, uses its grant to educate families on the benefits of exercise and balanced diets, offering free family-oriented exercise classes and programs that promote healthy lifestyles.

After a 6-year-old on the reservation was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes about three years ago, the tribal council began more screening at schools and found 52 percent of students were above the 95th percentile for weight.

When a screening showed that Alton was at risk for Type 2 diabetes, his family learned that he qualified for the Youth Wellness Camp in Prescott. Grant money from the federal program lets the tribe send at-risk youth to the camp.

I wanted to be healthier, so I went to camp, Alton said. I wanted to be able to help my mom and my grandma be healthier.

The healthy eating and daily exercise at camp helped Alton lose almost 16 pounds. His mother, Felicia Jimerson, said that Altons new outlook on eating healthy and exercising is rubbing off on her three other kids.

Alton said that he tries to help his family and friends make healthier decisions, but they do not always listen.

I tell them all the time but not a lot of people care, cause that means they have to give up Hot Cheetos, said Alton, who has seen his friends buy at least four bags of the snack a day from the ice cream man.

We must destroy the ice cream man! Alton told the committee, to laughter.

Rachel Seepie, another member of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community who testified Wednesday, credits some of her success against her Type 2 diabetes to educational programs funded by the grant program.

After initially managing her condition with medication, she decided to turn instead to exercise and eating well. That has helped her lose weight, lower her blood sugar, decrease her average heart rate and complete two Iron Man triathlons, Seepie said.

Now, she is a senior fitness specialist with the Diabetes Service Program and teaches group exercise classes on the reservation.

My vision is that the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and our members will learn how to become healthier, and they will have long full lives without Type 2 diabetes, Seepie told the committee.

Jimerson said after the hearing that can only happen if the gran program is reauthorized.

I think if they can continue that funding, its definitely going to make a change, she said. If that funding goes away, were in huge trouble.

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Arizona youth joins tribal officials to push for diabetes program funds - Cronkite News

As a former NFL player, ESPNS Mike Golic is used to talking sports news and game drama on his radio show Mike and Mike in the Morning. Now, he's discussing a more serious topic, type 2 diabetes. Since being diagnosed with the disease 12 years ago, Golic has been on a mission to raise awareness and help people learn how to manage their blood sugar.

My advice to people with type 2 diabetes is get everybody involved in your life. Its not something to run from, hide from, [and] keep it a secret from everybody else. Youve been diagnosed with it, you have to deal with it, Mike Golic, now 54, told Fox News.

Golic admitted that during his time as a defensive lineman he never thought anything could be physically wrong with him other than a few bruises or tears. But in the back of his mind, he knew his father had type 2 diabetes, which raised his risk.

While it was a, Oh man there was like a Yeah, OK, my dad was right about this age when he was diagnosed, so while it was surprising it wasnt shocking, he said.

According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), having a parent or sibling with the disease can increase your risk. Other risk factors include being overweight, having an unhealthy diet and high blood pressure.

Growing up, Golic said his father kept his condition to himself and didnt talk about it with his family.

It was just kind of his thing to deal with, he said. But I wanted to be very proactive and involve my wife, involve my family, I have three kids [and] two boys are large football players whose grandfather had type 2 diabetes and I have type 2 diabetes, so I wanted to keep them in the loop on this and what needed to be done."

After teaming up with Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Golic and his doctors came up with a game plan to keep his blood sugar levels in check. Type 2 diabetes can be treated with a variety of different medications. He turned to INVOKANA (canagliflozin), a prescription medicine his doctor recommended.

In addition to medicine, eating healthy and regularly exercising can also help manage the disease.

If left untreated, type 2 diabetes can cause serious and even deadly complications.

You can have retinopathy or eye disease, you can have kidney disease and ultimately it can lead to kidney failure and you can have neuropathy which is a disease of the nerve ending which ultimately can cause amputations, Dr. John Anderson, a board-certified Internist at Frist Clinic in Nashville, Tenn., told Fox News. Youre also a 2- to 3-fold increase risk of heart attack and stroke.

Early diagnosis should be accessible during routine exams or physicals when physicians check a patients blood sugar level. But other signs and symptoms may include thirst, frequent urination, blurred vision, fatigue and weight loss, Anderson said.

We have about 89 million people in the country with prediabetes, that means their numbers are not quite in the range that youd diagnose diabetes but theyre on their way, Anderson who is a long-time volunteer for the American Diabetes Association (ADA), and has served as Chair of National Advocacy said. Thats why you need to be seeing your health care professional, getting your screenings, getting your glucoses checked, being proactive.

Today, Golic gets his A1C1 test, a blood test that measures the average level of glucose in the blood,every three-to-four months and has kept his diabetes under control.

This is a situation that can have some complications in your life if you dont treat it the right way, so why not get people involved, why not start with your doctor OK this is the game plan, and then you go to the people in your family this is the game plan my doctor gave me, this is what I need to do and I need all your help to do it, Golic said.

For more information visit ICanImagine.com.

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How ESPN's radio host Mike Golic controls his type 2 diabetes - Fox News

Tools of diabetes treatment almost always include improved diet and regular exercise.

When people ask me why I, an applied mathematician, study diabetes, I tell them that I am motivated for both scientific and human reasons.

Type 2 diabetes runs in my family. My grandfather died of complications related to the condition. My mother was diagnosed with the disease when I was 10 years old, and my Aunt Zacharoula suffered from it. I myself am pre-diabetic.

As a teen, I remember being struck by the fact that my mother and her sister received different treatments from their respective doctors. My mother never took insulin, a hormone that regulates blood sugar levels; instead, she ate a limited diet and took other oral drugs. Aunt Zacharoula, on the other hand, took several injections of insulin each day.

Though they had the same heritage, the same parental DNA and the same disease, their medical trajectories diverged. My mother died in 2009 at the age of 75 and my aunt died the same year at the age of 78, but over the course of her life dealt with many more serious side effects.

When they were diagnosed back in the 1970s, there were no data to show which medicine was most effective for a specific patient population.

Today,29 million Americansare living with diabetes. And now, in an emerging era of precision medicine, things are different.

Increased access to troves of genomic information and the rising use of electronic medical records, combined with new methods of machine learning, allow researchers to process large amounts data. This is accelerating efforts to understand genetic differences within diseases including diabetes and to develop treatments for them. The scientist in me feels a powerful desire to take part.

My students and I have developed adata-driven algorithm for personalized diabetes management that we believe has the potential to improve the health of the millions of Americans living with the illness.

It works like this: The algorithm mines patient and drug data, finds what is most relevant to a particular patient based on his or her medical history and then makes a recommendation on whether another treatment or medicine would be more effective. Human expertise provides a critical third piece of the puzzle.

After all, it is the doctors who have the education, skills and relationships with patients who make informed judgments about potential courses of treatment.

We conducted our research through a partnership with Boston Medical Center, the largest safety net hospital in New England that provides care for people of lower income and uninsured people. And we used a data set that involved the electronic medical records from 1999 to 2014 of about 11,000 patients who were anonymous to us.

These patients had three or more glucose level tests on record, a prescription for at least one blood glucose regulation drug, and no recorded diagnosis of type 1 diabetes, whichusually begins in childhood. We also had access to each patients demographic data, as well their height, weight, body mass index, and prescription drug history.

Next, we developed an algorithm to mark precisely when each line of therapy ended and the next one began, according to when the combination of drugs prescribed to the patients changed in the electronic medical record data. All told, the algorithm considered 13 possible drug regimens.

For each patient, the algorithm processed the menu of available treatment options. This included the patients current treatment, as well as the treatment of his or her 30 nearest neighbors in terms of the similarity of their demographic and medical history to predict potential effects of each drug regimen. The algorithm assumed the patient would inherit the average outcome of his or her nearest neighbors.

If the algorithm spotted substantial potential for improvement, it offered a change in treatment; if not, the algorithm suggested the patient remain on his or her existing regimen. In two-thirds of the patient sample, the algorithm did not propose a change.

The patients who did receive new treatments as a result of the algorithm sawdramatic results. When the systems suggestion was different from the standard of care, anaverage beneficial changein the hemoglobin of 0.44 percent at each doctors visit was observed, compared to historical data. This is a meaningful, medically material improvement.

Based on the success of our study, we are organizing a clinical trial with Massachusetts General Hospital. We believe our algorithm could be applicable to other diseases, including cancer, Alzheimers, and cardiovascular disease.

It is professionally satisfying and personally gratifying to work on a breakthrough project like this one. By reading a persons medical history, we are able to tailor specific treatments to specific patients and provide them with more effective therapeutic and preventive strategies. Our goal is to give everyone the greatest possible opportunity for a healthier life.

Best of all, I know my mom would be proud.

Dimitris Bertsimas, Professor of Applied Mathematics, MIT Sloan School of Management

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MIT Mathematician Develops an Algorithm to Help Treat Diabetes - Smithsonian

This is Diabetes Alert Day and Iowans are being urged to take a simple, on-line survey to determine if they might be headed down a hazardous path.

Katie Jones, program manager at the Iowa Department of Public Health, says it only takes a minute to complete the test. Jones says, This is really to see if youre at risk for a condition called prediabetes which is basically where blood glucose levels or blood sugar levels are higher than normal but not high enough yet to be considered diabetes.

The website is: DoIHavePrediabetes.org. Jones says about one in every three Iowans is prediabetic and most of them dont know it.

The test asks things like your age, because age is a big risk factor, Jones says. Simply getting older increases your risk. It also asks things like family history of diabetes, things like that. About one in 12 Iowans has diabetes and one in four has it and doesnt know it. By knowing your risk level, Jones says Iowans can make a few key lifestyle changes to stave off type 2 diabetes.

The good news is, if you do have prediabetes, you can take steps to help prevent developing type 2 diabetes and even getting rid of prediabetes, Jones says. The National Diabetes Prevention Program can help you actually curb that progression.

People with type 2 diabetes are at higher risk for heart disease, stroke and other serious complications. Prediabetes can often be reversed through modest weight loss 5 to 7 percent of body weight and making small changes to increase healthy eating and moderate physical activity.

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Have you checked yourself for diabetes? - Radio Iowa

Jeff Mitchell, Community Health Reporting Project Published 4:27 p.m. PT March 28, 2017 | Updated 6 hours ago

community health reporting project logo(Photo: Provided)

Realizing that the Salinas Valley, like much of America, is about to get hit with a tsunami of pre-diabetes and diabetes cases, a handful of local healthcare organizations joined Tuesday to fight the chronic disease that shortens lives and regularly robs people of limbs through amputation and dims or extinguishes their eyesight.

The countywide initiative is a partnership among Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System, Community Health Innovations, Montage Health, Monterey Independent Physicians Association and Central Coast YMCA.

The announcement was made at the Salinas Valley Medical Clinic Diabetes & Endocrine Center currently under construction at the Primecare Medical offices on Abbott Street.

The Diabetes Initiative was started in 2015 by Community Hospital, SVMH, Community Health Innovations (CHI) and the Monterey Bay Independent Physician Association to move the dial on diabetes.

The driver behind todays event is the bold effort by the partners to work together to move the dial on diabetes in Monterey County," said Dr. Anthony Chavis, chief medical officer of Montage Health, parent company of Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula.

The effort comes not a minute too soon. According to the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research Chronic Disease Program, diabetes and pre-diabetes in Monterey County affect:

57% of the population has diabetes and pre-diabetes

28,000, or 12% of the population, have diabetes

105,000, or 45% of the population, have pre-diabetes.

In 2015, about 13.8% of Monterey County Hispanics/Latinos reported having been diagnosed with diabetes, compared to 4.8% of Whites and 4.4% Asians (CHIS).

The partners supporting the initiative have increased the number of endocrinologists serving the community. The YMCA introduced a yearlong Pre-Diabetes Program for people considered pre-diabetes or are on the verge of becoming pre-diabetic.

This year, SVMHS is opening an expanded Diabetes & Endocrine Center in Salinas with a state-of-the-art kitchen and education room. Also this year, Montage Health is opening a new medical office building at Ryan Ranch ideally suited for diabetes care.

Construction of the expanded Salinas Valley Medical Clinic Diabetes & Endocrine Center will be completed this summer. The new Diabetes & Endocrine Center will be located on the second floor of the PrimeCare office building at 355 Abbott St.in Salinas.

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Groups gather to fight diabetes - The Salinas Californian

Crestwood Medical Center is owned by CHS.

Crestwood Medical Center is owned by CHS.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. March 28represents Diabetes Alert Day, sponsored by the American Diabetes Association. Its a disease that affects millions of people in the United States.

In an effort to remind Americans about the seriousness and prevalence of this disease, Crestwood Medical Center is taking action against it.

Diabetes is a part of life for 30-million people in the United States.

Actually in Alabama, were a little bit higherwere actually one in seven people in Alabama has diabetes, said registered nurse and diabetes educator, Cynthia Roberts. Unfortunately, about one in four people are walking around un-diagnosed.

Roberts saidthere are a few questions you need to ask yourself regarding diabetes.

Do you have a family member that has diabetes? Are you overweight? If youre over the age of 45 that puts you at risk.

Roberts said there are steps you can take to delay the onset of diabetes or prevent it all together.

Being more physically active, said Roberts. The recommendation is 150 minutes of intentional physical activity per week. Thats just like 30 minutes of walking, 5 times a week.

The second thing to keep in mind is your diet. Roberts said dont cut one food group out all together, instead try to make your meals more balanced.

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Crestwood Medical Center stresses the prevalence of diabetes in Alabama - whnt.com

SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) Today, Tuesday, March 28, 2017, is American Diabetes Association Alert Day. The goal is to bring awareness about a disease that affects tens of millions of Americans.

While 29 million Americans are dealing with diabetes, another 86 million have prediabetes yet only a fraction are aware of it. A doctor and a diabetic patient spoke about a part of the body that's often the first to signal you may be at risk of having the disease.

42-year-old DavidWanchisen visited his foot doctor Tuesday morning. The Scranton man didn't expect he'd end up here but it's the result of a diagnosis last year that took him by surprise. "I'm dealing with a diabetic ulcer that it's curing but it takes a lot of time and a little bit of pain."

He's wearing an orthowedge shoe to reduce pressure on that diabetic ulcer. Before he had the wound, the first physical sign he had Type 2 diabetes surfaced after a summer day at the beach. "Neuropathy on my feet caused the burning." That burning pain, weakness and numbness were a result of his diabetic condition. "I might have had it for quite some time."

Commonwealth Health Podiatrist Laura Virtue-Delayo, DPM said, "Oftentimes it's that they're getting tingling in their toes or burning." She added that many patients first learn of their diabetes by having a sore on their foot that's not getting better. "When you have a wound, the longer it's open the better chance of getting an infection in the soft tissue, in the bone, which can lead to amputation of the toes, the forefoot or even the lower leg."

Dave's treatment includes having the doctor debride, or scrape, his wound once a week while he has to apply a specialized ointment to that area every day. He's also eating healthier and lost 50 pounds in less than a year. "You have to make a lifestyle change to somewhat cure it or you know improve your lifestyle." Dr. Virtue-Delayo added, "He definitely is working on keeping his sugars in tact so they don't have to be a problem. You can be a diabetic without having foot problems or other problems that go along with diabetes."

Dr. Virtue-Delayo says a diabetic who notices a foot wound, even a blister, should call the doctor as soon as possible. She says delaying treatment even a few days could lead to amputation.

Link:
Signs of Diabetes: Look to the Feet - PA home page

Testing for diabetes started a long, long time ago. The word diabetes comes from ancient Greek and literally means pass through," intended to mean excessive passing of urine.

This characteristic of too much urine was first described 3500 years ago on an Egyptian papyrus. About 1900 years ago, Roman physician Galen called it diarrhea of the urine. The reason for so much passing of urine with diabetes mellitus is because high levels of sugar in the blood overwhelm the kidneys' ability to keep sugar out of the urine. Like a dam on a river, sugar spills over the dam into the urine when sugar gets too high in the blood. Then, with concentrated sugar in the urine, fluid is pulled out of blood into the urine, resulting in dehydration of the diabetic. Indeed, the name diarrhea of the urine seems appropriate.

About 2500 years ago, someone noted flies were attracted to the urine of diabetics. Tasting urine for sweetness may seem disgusting today, but it was how they diagnosed diabetes all the way through the Middle Ages. It was English physician John Rolle who in the 1700's added mellitus to the term diabetes to reflect the age-old understanding of the sweet taste of the urine in diabetic patients. The word mellitus comes from Latin meaning sweetened with honey.

Starting in the 1950's, patients roughly estimated the level of sugar in their blood by testing their urine with a chemical test they could do at home. By determining how much sugar spilled into the urine, people with diabetes mellitus were better able to adjust their insulin dose. Home URINE glucose testing was an improvement for patients with diabetes, but home BLOOD glucose testing, developed in the '80's, took it to the next level. Patients could finally know when sugars were too low, not just too high.

Another great improvement in monitoring the blood sugar of diabetics was the development of the Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) BLOOD test. The hemoglobin molecule within red blood cells becomes more sugarized (the scientific word is glycosylated) when it has extended exposure to higher levels of sugar. Since red cells normally live for about three-months, we can monitor the percentage of Hemoglobin affected by sugar, watching it change slowly according to diabetic control. The HbA1c levels give a three-month average BLOOD sugar, which gives you and your care provider a good measure about how well you are controlling your diabetes over time.

It's a good thing managing diabetes no longer requires tasting urine.

Continued here:
Diabetes mellitus testing has changed over the years - Rapid City Journal

Type 2 diabetes has been reversed in mice with a new, orally available drug, according to a study led by San Diego scientists. The study suggests a path for developing human therapies based on the drug.

The drug protected mice from high-fat induced diabetes without affecting body weight, according to the study. It also reversed signs of the disease in mice who already had it.

Type 2 diabetes is caused by insulin resistance. While the pancreatic islets still make insulin, the hormone doesnt work as well. Cells sense insulin through receptors, which become less effective in this type of diabetes.

Scientists led by Nunzio Bottini of the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology countered insulin resistance by designing a drug that restored the effectiveness of insulin receptors.

The drug inhibits an enzyme called a low-molecular-weight protein tyrosine phosphatase, or LMPTP. Its part of a family of enzymes that inactivates the insulin receptor. By inhibiting this particular enzyme in the liver, insulin receptor effectiveness was restored.

Our findings suggest that LMPTP activity plays a key role in the development of insulin resistance and that LMPTP inhibitors would be beneficial for treating type 2 diabetes, the study stated.

While the role of protein tyrosine phosphatases in Type 2 diabetes has been known for years, many enzymes in this family perform other functions,and drugs against these enzymes may also affect other targets. The drug arising from the research is exceptionally selective in its activity, the researchers said, reducing the chance of side effects.

The study was published Monday in Nature Chemical Biology. It can be found at j.mp/diabetestyr. Bottini was senior author. Stephanie M. Stanford, also of the La Jolla institute, was first author. Other local authors are from UC San Diego and Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute.

We envision that the information we collected about its mechanism of action and binding mode will pave the way for development of LMPTP inhibitors suitable for therapeutic testing in human diabetes, the study stated.

Since LMPTP has also been proposed to promote heart failure and tumor growth, such inhibitors are predicted to have a wide range of therapeutic applications.

Stroke, Alzheimers disease, cognitive decline and polycystic ovary syndrome are among the other diseases that have been linked to insulin resistance.

A researcher not involved in the study told New Scientist that the research is promising.

The elegant studies here provide proof of concept that targeting LMPTP in the liver improves glucose control and liver insulin signalling in animals, Daniel Drucker, a senior investigator at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute in Toronto, Canada, said in the New Scientist article.

Researchers started their search by screening 364,168 small-molecule compounds from the National Institutes of Health Molecular Libraries Small Molecule Repository. They found three hits, or molecules active against the target. One was selected for further study because of its potency and specificity.

Using medicinal chemistry, the researchers tweaked the molecule to make it more potent. One of the resulting compounds was then tested in live mice.

The La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology and Sanford Burnham Medical Discovery Institute hold a pending patent on the discovery.

The researchers were funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the American Diabetes Association.

bradley.fikes@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1020

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Type 2 diabetes reversed with new drug in mouse study - The San Diego Union-Tribune