Wellness

[cherry]

London Marathon: Sandeep Chauhan aims to control his diabetes through exercise

Sandeep Chauhan took up running after being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in May 2015

As we build up to the London Marathon on Sunday, 22 April, Get Inspired will bring you five inspiring stories - one each day until race day - about runners who will be taking on the 26.2-mile course. Here's the second...

On Sunday 22 April, Sandeep Chauhan's fiancee, parents and brother will be cheering on from the sidelines as the 38-year-old runs his first London Marathon (and first ever marathon).

In May 2015, Sandeep was diagnosed with type-2 diabetes, a condition that also runs in his family.

Diabetes is a lifelong illness affecting your blood sugar levels, but fortunately for Sandeep he can control his condition through a healthy diet and exercise and without the need of medication.

After being diagnosed, Sandeep decided he was going to do everything he could to get fit and not let diabetes get the better of him, joining Kimberley and District Striders running club.

Sandeep out with the Kimberley and District Striders running club

"I want to lose weight, improve my health and general fitness and see how long I can stay off medication," he says.

"The London Marathon is the first step in a lifelong battle to control my diabetes."

Sandeep will be raising money for Diabetes UK, saying he hopes it will "help others whose diabetes affects them more" than it does him.

"I want to help the research into diabetes so that one day we may be able to fully understand it and how best to combat it."

After completing his training with his last long run 17 days ago, Sandeep was aiming to get plenty of rest before race day.

And as for the reasons for choosing London?

"I'm probably only going to ever run one marathon," adds the man from Nottingham. "So it may as well be the best one in the world."

[wishmoon]

There is help now for ppl who are Diabetics with neuropathy, it's based on certain vitamins. Many ppl who have been on very hard drugs have been able to give them up and have regained their lives by going back to work, etc.

You'll think this is crazy but it was developed by a man who was on opiates for his pain. His life is normal now, he travels a lot and has few limitations. There are lots of ppl experiencing the same.

I have peripheral neuropathy but this protocol (the vitamins) doesn't help me. I have neuropathy because I was in an auto accident years ago, I was a passenger in a car and was involved in a long line of 18-wheelers crashing in on all four sides of us and broke my back. 

It has helped Diabetics, ppl who have neuropathy from medications and chemo and just idiopathic sources.

A Keto or low carb diet is essential as is drinking lots of water.

[cherry]

High cholesterol means a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of death in the United States.

Eggs have lots of cholesterol -- between 141 to 234 milligrams per egg. It's likely why many people who want to maintain a healthy diet try to avoid eggs -- to lower their risk of high cholesterol.

Researchers from the University of Sydney decided to take a crack at this notion to see the real impact eggs have on a person's health.

The researchers put 128 people with pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes -- a major risk factor for heart disease -- onto a couple of different diets to see if it would affect their cholesterol. One group ate 12 or more eggs per week, while the other ate fewer than two eggs per week. It was all part of a three-month weight loss attempt, as weight loss is one of the first treatments for pre-diabetics or those with type 2 diabetes.

After the weight loss period, which worked as well in each group -- people lost about 9 pounds -- they were encouraged to maintain their high egg or low egg diet for a year. Patients came back for a medical assessment at three, six and 12 months.

But here's the part that may be most surprising: Patients in both groups had no significant difference in their cholesterol, sugar or blood pressure from the beginning of the study to the end of the study -- no matter how many eggs they ate.

Does it matter how I cook my eggs?

Yes. In general, eggs have a lot going for them nutritionally. Eggs contain 6 grams of protein, 72 calories, contain nutrients that are good for your eyes, brain, and nerves, and they have 270 international units of vitamin A and 41 IU of vitamin D. But in this study, the researchers recommended eggs be boiled or poached. If fried, a polyunsaturated cooking oil, such as olive oil, was recommended.

Does this mean I can eat as many eggs as I want?

Push "replay" on the old adage: Everything in moderation.

It matters a lot what you eat with your eggs. Butter, bacon, sausage, cheese and muffins all contain saturated fats, and those can raise your blood cholesterol.

Research over the past 25 years has shown that most of the cholesterol in our body is made inside us by our liver. It gets the signal to make cholesterol when we each too much trans and saturated fats -- not dietary cholesterol. One large egg has a low saturated fat content -- 1.6 grams -- with 5 grams of fat in all, and additionally, it still has protein vitamins, iron, minerals and carotenoids.

What if I already have high cholesterol?

There's no "number of eggs you can eat" from an authority like the American Heart Association. However, the AHA does have recommendations for prevention and treatment of high cholesterol.

The AHA recommends the following: Limit saturated fat to 5 to 6 percent of your daily calories and minimizing the amount of trans fat you eat. This includes limiting your intake of red meat and dairy products with whole milks (since they have more of the unhealthy fats), choosing skim milk, low-fat or fat-free dairy products, limiting fried foods and cooking with healthy oils such as vegetable oil.

So, does eating eggs really increase your risk of a heart attack?

No. From over 25 years of research, the bottom line is that for most people, including eggs in your diet does not increase your risk of a heart attack, stroke, or any other type of cardiovascular disease.

Sunny Intwala, MD, is a third-year Cardiology fellow at Boston University School of Medicine and Certified Exercise Physiologist working with the ABC medical unit.

[cherry]

Blood glucose ranges for adults and children differ slightly

Understanding blood glucose level ranges can be a key part of diabetes self-management.

This page states 'normal' blood sugar ranges and blood sugar ranges for adults and children with type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes and blood sugar ranges to determine people with diabetes.

If a person with diabetes has a meter, test strips and is testing, it's important to know what the blood glucose level means.

Recommended blood glucose levels have a degree of interpretation for every individual and you should discuss this with your healthcare team.

In addition, women may be set target blood sugar levels during pregnancy.

The following ranges are guidelines provided by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) but each individual’s target range should be agreed by their doctor or diabetic consultant.

Recommended target blood glucose level ranges

The NICE recommended target blood glucose levels are stated below for adults with type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes and children with type 1 diabetes.

In addition, the International Diabetes Federation's target ranges for people without diabetes is stated. [19] [89] [90]

The table provides general guidance. An individual target set by your healthcare team is the one you should aim for.

NICE recommended target blood glucose level ranges

Target Levels

by Type Upon waking Before meals

(pre prandial) At least 90 minutes after meals

(post prandial)

Non-diabetic*   4.0 to 5.9 mmol/L under 7.8 mmol/L

Type 2 diabetes   4 to 7 mmol/L under 8.5 mmol/L

Type 1 diabetes 5 to 7 mmol/L 4 to 7 mmol/L 5 to 9 mmol/L

Children w/ type 1 diabetes 4 to 7 mmol/L 4 to 7 mmol/L 5 to 9 mmol/L

*The non-diabetic figures are provided for information but are not part of NICE guidelines.

Normal and diabetic blood sugar ranges

For the majority of healthy individuals, normal blood sugar levels are as follows:

Between 4.0 to 5.4 mmol/L (72 to 99 mg/dL) when fasting [361]

Up to 7.8 mmol/L (140 mg/dL) 2 hours after eating

For people with diabetes, blood sugar level targets are as follows:

Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/L for people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes

After meals: under 9 mmol/L for people with type 1 diabetes and under 8.5mmol/L for people with type 2 diabetes

Blood sugar levels in diagnosing diabetes

The following table lays out criteria for diagnoses of diabetes and prediabetes.

Blood sugar levels in diagnosing diabetes

Plasma glucose test Normal Prediabetes Diabetes

Random Below 11.1 mmol/l

Below 200 mg/dl N/A 11.1 mmol/l or more

200 mg/dl or more

Fasting Below 5.5 mmol/l

Below 100 mg/dl 5.5 to 6.9 mmol/l

100 to 125 mg/dl 7.0 mmol/l or more

126 mg/dl or more

2 hour post-prandial Below 7.8 mmol/l

Below 140 mg/dl 7.8 to 11.0 mmol/l

140 to 199 mg/dl 11.1 mmol/l or more

200 mg/dl or more

Random plasma glucose test

A blood sample for a random plasma glucose test can be taken at any time. This doesn’t require as much planning and is therefore used in the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes when time is of the essence.

Fasting plasma glucose test

A fasting plasma glucose test is taken after at least eight hours of fasting and is therefore usually taken in the morning.

The NICE guidelines regard a fasting plasma glucose result of 5.5 to 6.9 mmol/l as putting someone at higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, particularly when accompanied by other risk factors for type 2 diabetes.

Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT)

An oral glucose tolerance test involves taking a first taking a fasting sample of blood and then taking a very sweet drink containing 75g of glucose.

After having this drink you need to stay at rest until a further blood sample is taken after 2 hours.

HbA1c test for diabetes diagnosis

An HbA1c test does not directly measure the level of blood glucose, however, the result of the test is influenced by how high or low your blood glucose levels have tended to be over a period of 2 to 3 months.

Indications of diabetes or prediabetes are given under the following conditions:

Normal: Below 42 mmol/mol (6.0%)

Prediabetes: 42 to 47 mmol/mol (6.0 to 6.4%)

Diabetes: 48 mmol/mol (6.5% or over)

Transcript

There are two types of blood sugar levels that may be measured. The first is the blood glucose level we get from doing finger ****** blood glucose tests. These give us a reading of how high our levels are at that very point in time.

The second is the HbA1c reading, which gives a good idea of our average control over a period of 2 to 3 months. The target blood glucose levels vary a little bit depending on your type of diabetes and between adults and children.

Where possible, try to achieve levels of between 4 and 7 mmol/L before meals and under 8.5 mmol/L after meals. The target level for HbA1c is under 48 mmol/mol (or 6.5% in the old units).

Research has shown that high blood glucose levels over time can lead to organ and circulation damage.

By monitoring blood glucose levels, we can spot when sugar levels are running high and can then take appropriate action to reduce them.

Keeping blood glucose above 4 mmol/l for people on insulin or certain medications for type 2 diabetes is important to prevent hypos occurring, which can be dangerous.

Your doctor may give you different targets. Children, older people and those at particular risk of hypoglycemia may be given wider targets.

Why are good blood sugar levels important?

It is important that you control your blood glucose levels as well as you can as too high sugar levels for long periods of time increases the risk of diabetes complications developing.

Diabetes complications are health problems which include:

Kidney disease

Nerve damage

Retinal disease

Heart disease

Stroke

This list of problems may look scary but the main point to note is that the risk of these problems can be minimised through good blood glucose level control. Small improvements can make a big difference if you stay dedicated and maintain those improvements over most days.

[cherry]

Blindness Caused by Diabetes

Researchers are working on a “glowing” contact lens that people would wear at night to lessen the progression of a common type of blindness.

If you’re living with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, you undergo an eye exam every year to detect signs of retina damage due to high and fluctuating blood sugar levels.

For many, even reasonably good diabetes management can’t prevent ongoing damage to the blood vessels in the eye. In the most advanced (yet quite common) cases, blindness is a devastating reality.

The future of diabetes technology looks brighter, though, with a “glowing” contact lens specifically designed to prevent further damage to the blood vessels of your retina.

The lenses are worn only at night and researchers say they could offer a long-term solution to a long-term problem.

The lenses were developed by Colin Cook, a graduate of the California Institute of Technology, and a research team led by Yu-Chong Tai, the Anna L. Rosen professor of electrical and medical engineering at Caltech.

Avoiding treatments

The contact lenses would be easier for patients compared to today’s invasive and often painful treatment methods.

“Existing treatments, though effective, are painful and invasive, involving lasers and injections into the eyes,” researchers said in a recent press release.

Because of the painful aspects of these treatments, patients often avoid seeking treatment, don’t schedule annual eye exams, and endure the progression of their disease until it’s too late to intervene and save their vision.

Stacey Divone, a patient with type 1 diabetes, had been seeing her ophthalmologist for more than 20 years as part of routine diabetes eye care.

“I started seeing him every six months because he had been seeing some slight changes in my eye vessels and wanted to stay on top of it,” Divone told Healthline.

Images of her eyes showed swelling near the macula (the back) of her eye, which meant Divone needed to see a retina specialist quickly.

After further testing, it was discovered that blood vessels in her left eye were leaking and immediate treatment was necessary.

“I had an intravitreal injection of Lucentis a couple of weeks later. They inject this medication directly into your eyeball,” said Divone. “While they do put a lot of numbing drops into your eye beforehand, the moment you see that needle come up to your eye and the liquid is actually flowing into your eyeball, it’s a very unpleasant feeling.”

Even during the two days following the procedure, Divone said the pain in her eyes felt like “razors.”

Potential groundbreaking treatment

Creating a gentler and far less invasive method of treating one of the leading causes of blindness in the United States would be groundbreaking for the nearly 30 million people living with diabetes.

Since the retinopathy is largely the result of too little oxygen getting to the nerve cells of the retina, the key to Cook’s design is that it reduces the oxygen needs of the retina while a patient sleeps by providing a small amount of light through the glow of the lens.

“Your rod cells, as it turns out, consume about twice as much oxygen in the dark as they do in the light,” explained Cook.

This understanding explains a longstanding hypothesis that the damage of retinopathy progresses the most quickly at night, when oxygen demands are high.

“If we turn metabolism in the retina down, we should be able to prevent some of the damage that occurs,” added Cook.

The source of light in the lens is similar to the glow used on watch faces. It contains a radioactive form of hydrogen gas that can provide light for approximately 10 years.

The lenses themselves, Cook told Healthline, would last approximately one year before a patient needed to replace them, similar to the lifespan of extended-wear contacts currently on the market.

“I feel incredibly blessed that my eyes have been stable since that one treatment,” said Divone.

Despite knowing how critical her eye exams are for her long-term vision, Divone said she now experiences a great deal of anxiety before and during her exams with the ophthalmologist and retina specialist.

“I absolutely fear needing another injection. The idea of a contact lens instead,” she said, “would make such a difference for me and for others with diabetes.”

Written by Ginger Vieira on May 8, 2018

[cherry]

I hope this isn't a violation of standrds. The American Diabetes Ass has a petition for  afforardable insulin on their website. People can barely afford to buy it now

here is the link

https://makeinsulinaffordable.org/petition/

[cherry]

Carbohydrate is a food group which has been infamous among health freaks and several weight loss diets eliminate or lessen intake of carbohydrates. Moreover, low-carb diets have always been recommended by nutritionists and doctors to patients of diabetes. A recent study has reinforced the effectiveness of a diet low in carbohydrates in controlling type-1 diabetes by saying that eating a low-carb diet may lead to better control of blood sugar levels. The study, which was published in the journal Pediatrics, indicated that kids who were put on a low-carb and high-protein diet had bodies with "exceptional" control over their blood sugar levels.

The study, which was essentially an "online survey of an international social media group for people" with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM), looked at 316 cases of kids with the condition. The average age of diagnosis among these kids was about 14 to 16 years of age and these kids had been following a Very Low Carb Diet (VLCD) since the past two to four years. All these kids had a diet where the mean carbohydrate intake had been restricted to between 15 gms and 366 gms. The results of the analysis were telling.

A report on the study in the journal concluded by saying, "Exceptional glycemic control of T1DM with low rates of adverse events was reported by a community of children and adults who consume a VLCD." However, it added by saying, "The generalizability of these findings requires further studies, including high-quality randomized controlled trials." This study shows a possible solution to control of type-1 diabetes in terms of dietary intervention, as is pointed out by the report on the study.

The report on the study says, "Despite pharmacological and technological advances, optimal glycemic control of type 1 diabetes remains elusive, putting millions of people worldwide at increased risk of micro- and macrovascular complications. One conceptually promising but poorly studied approach is dietary carbohydrate restriction."

These are the best healthy low-carbohydrate foods for management of type-1 diabetes:

1. Chicken: One of the most popular lean meats out there, chicken is a popular food among people who follow a low-carb diet. It has zero carbs and is also wonderfully versatile.

2. Mushrooms: Mushrooms have extremely low carbohydrate content, which makes this superfood a must-have for people who follow the low-carb diet.

3. Broccoli: This cruciferous vegetable is both low on carbohydrates and calories and is extremely high in fibre, making it a wonder food for people who are looking to manage blood sugar levels.

4. Salmon: Another popular choice of lean meat, salmon is rich in heart-healthy omega 3 fatty acids and is also low on carbs.

5. Tomatoes: A 100 gm serving of this lycopene-rich food contains a mere 4gm of carbohydrates, making it great for consumption in a VLCD.

[Trinity11]

@cherry, I attribute the fact that I am still alive after nearly 50 years with diabetes is a low carbohydrate dietary intake. I was in Support Groups over the years and very few Type 1 diabetics that I met are still alive today. The people who ate a high carbohydrate diet and just "covered" it with insulin are no longer on the planet. That's why when I tested out the plant based eating plan, I ended up with triglycerides and cholesterol numbers off the charts. No matter what new information comes out, I believe in reducing carbohydrates for myself. Like yourself, I think it is vital...

Thanks for the info this week. Happy Mother's Day to you.

[cherry]

@Trinity11  you are an inspiration to us all and proof that you can live a full life, if you  watch your diet ,and take your meds

To all of my friends here Happy Mothers Day

BTW, a further update on the ice cream gorging diabetic. It seems he is also drinking 18 diet pops a day...I don't know how he can??? I feel so sorry for his wife, she is really a kindly soul and tried very hard to help him. The old saying is true you can lead a horse to water..He can't afford to buy insulin he says...I think his wife is going to have a terrible time ahead. I hope she can remain strong. I like her

[Trinity11]

---

@cherry wrote:

@Trinity11  you are an inspiration to us all and proof that you can live a full life, if you  watch your diet ,and take your meds

To all of my friends here Happy Mothers Day

BTW, a further update on the ice cream gorging diabetic. It seems he is also drinking 18 diet pops a day...I don't know how he can??? I feel so sorry for his wife, she is really a kindly soul and tried very hard to help him. The old saying is true you can lead a horse to water..He can't afford to buy insulin he says...I think his wife is going to have a terrible time ahead. I hope she can remain strong. I like her

---

Well, hopefully he will see the light @cherry. Prayers move mountains...you just never know.

In regard to my own diabetes...I have really tried over the years but find myself now a whole lot less vigilant. Maybe I am tired of the entire thing but I do try and my husband always says that he thinks being perfect is near impossible as a diabetic. He has always been my rock in this entire thing. He never brings in food that I cannot eat.