Oral Treatment for Diabetes Discovered?

University of Haifa researchers in the Biology Department of Faculty of Science and Science Education uncovered a matter that may treat diabetes and its accompanying complications orally. This substance is a derivative of a yeast called GTF, an acronym for Glucose Tolerance Factor.

They tested this substance on rats that had diabetes which subsequently have been found to have lowered the lipids and sugar levels in their blood. The one conducting the research is Dr. Nitsa Mirsky who said that the next step is to assess if GTF will work successfully as well on people.

Acknowledged as a world-wide health crisis, diabetes has an effect on 5-10% of people in developed countries and has been declared an epidemic in developing countries. A lasting illness with no cure, it has many complications like blindness, heart disease, kidney failure and others.

About half of people with diabetes are injected with insulin while the others take oral medications that are not easy to control and frequently with side effects. Treatment with insulin may not be effective because resistance to it can slowly develop.

There is another problem with insulin in the sense that it has to fit the diabetic's activities and sometimes it doesn't to the point that taking a large dose before meals could trigger hypoglycemia which could lead to coma and even death.

Dr. Mirsky's research involved two levels, first on rats that were diabetic and on the molecular cells. The findings showed that GTF reduced the glucose level and the bad cholesterol and raised the good cholesterol. This glucose tolerance factor kept back the process of oxidation that could lead to atherosclerosis that in turn could result in heart attacks and strokes.

And here's even better news. If GTF is given early, it could stop or at least slow down renal problems. It has also shown to stop damage to the retina and could help prevent cataracts. It also helps improve the efficacy of insulin. There is a need though for more research to combine both insulin and GTF treatment for diabetics.

I tried to get updated information on this discovery and found that glucose tolerance factor is an agent for diabetic treatment and healing development. Chromium which is considered the central part of Glucose Tolerance Factor improves the effect of insulin in the body.

Chromium is known as a trace element that is necessary for human nutrition because it improves insulin efficacy as well the glucose tolerance. It can be obtained from the diet but inadequate amount is said to lead to symptoms that are found in cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.

The over processing of foods makes for less dietary consumption of chromium. Many diets have less than 60% of the recommended consumption. The estimated and safe everyday consumption of chromium is 50 to 200 micrograms. There is more info on this at Treatments for Diabetes.

Those with diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance when given supplemental chromium have shown improvement in blood sugar, insulin and lipids. Reaction depends on the amount and form of supplement. Over the past thirty years there has not been any report of chromium toxicity in studies on the supplements.

USA's Top Diabetes Magazine on its 62nd Year

Diabetes Forecast starts the 60th year by releasing its annual supplement, the 2008 Resource Guide on diabetes. To help the diabetics, the supplement offers the readers with a summary of new and established products. This overview will provide the information needed for diabetes care. I wonder if they will release the 2009 Resource Guide.

The 2008 Resource Guide has different sections. There are news on new products such as new medications, blood glucose monitors that continuously keep track of blood sugar levels. It provides ways to control type 2 diabetes with drugs especially now that there are six classes of pills and a number of combinations of pills.

For insulin users, the supplement provides an overview of the chief characteristics of insulin and the ones used in the US and helpful guidelines on labeling, shipping and storage. In addition, it gives data on pumps, pens, jet injectors, syringes and infusers. It helps users decide which tools match their needs.

The diabetics will also learn to determine which blood glucose monitor is the best tool. There are tips on how to handle hypoglycemic episodes and how to prevent them from happening. It gives information on how to test for ketones as well. Meanwhile, to get alerts and tips, sign up at the top of this page on diabetes like hypoglycemia symptoms.

There is an alphabetical list of distributors and manufacturers of diabetes goods. And this is not all. There will be eight steps on how to make good on the resolutions to lose weight. The hints help anyone to stick to this resolution.

I will try to report on all of these in more detail as I believe this is an important resource for people who have diabetes. It is good to have such information handy within one's reach at all times. Self-care will be more manageable with such resource on hand.

Black Community Urged to Make Lifestyle Change

Diabetes among African Americans is on an all-time high. It is one of the most serious health problems facing the community. More than 30 million of them suffer from this condition. Approximately 1.6 African Americans get diabetes for every white American diagnosed with it.

In this connection, it is good to know what are the risk factors for developing type 2 diabetes. The same factors that increase the risk for the other populations are the culprits for the African Americans developing this condition. These are genetics, medical risk factors and lifestyle factors.

Genetics include inherited traits. They inherited what they call the thrifty gene from their ancestors which enabled them during famine and feast cycles to adjust when food was scarce. Now that that these cycles are fewer if ever, the thrifty gene makes it harder to control the weight.

Speaking of this, allow me to let you read one doctor's take on this issue. She believes that it is not what we eat nor our lack of exercise that is responsible for us getting overweight but something else. Find out why everyone is so mad at this doctor. She will tell you all about it herself.

The second risk factors are medical and include impaired glucose tolerance, obesity and hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance. Hyperinsulinemia refers to higher than normal fasting insulin levels. This often occurs several years before diabetes comes in for good.

The third risk factors are the ones that have something to do with lifestyle. The scientists think that lack of physical activity contributes to high diabetes rates among older African-American women. They say that adequate physical activity protects one against diabetes so it‘s best to counteract this by getting enough exercise.

Representative Cummings wrote in Louisiana Weekly urging the black community to make lifestyle changes to stop the threat of diabetes from them. It is now the fourth main cause of death among the blacks who have almost twice the rate with this disease than the whites. There is more information on diabetes risk factors here.

He said that a lot of the factors leading to diabetes are preventable. The traditional diet the blacks have contribute to this disease and this should change now in order to save lives later. What we eat, he says, is frequently linked to how we die.

Changing the lifestyle by eating less and moving more will spell the difference. He said there's a national movement for every American child to get healthy foods and they're working on it in the congress. However, passing laws is not enough. The community has to work together to educate every one of the risk linked to the every day diet so we can all prevent diabetes.

Research Reports Camel Milk May Help Diabetics

Diabetes prevention should at least heed the report from Jaipur saying that although India has the most number of diabetics in the world, there are camel breeders in Rajasthan who are immune to diabetes. They say this is due to camel milk which is the main item in their every day meal. Sorry, but I am not going to drink camel milk.

Diabetes Care conducted the research at the SP Medical College Bikaner and found that a liter of camel's milk has around 52 units of insulin. This is different from other forms of insulin that is dispensed orally in the sense that the stomach's acidic juices do not neutralize the camel milk.

By now, we know there are type 1 and type 2 kinds of diabetes. Type 2 could still be treated with changing to a healthy lifestyle while the option for type 1 is to take insulin shots Now they have proven that drinking camel milk every day would add 60 to 70% of insulin to Type 1 diabetics.

This translates to the Type 1 diabetics who require a yearly supply of 20 units of insulin to reduce this need to six to seven units if they take camel milk regularly. This result came after a first survey that indicated low diabetes prevalence among the camel milk drinkers when compared to those who do not like camel milk.

The initial survey was followed by successfully testing albino rats and then 50 type 1 and type 2 diabetics for over two years. The blood glucose levels of these people fell dramatically. This has been published before with the American Diabetes Association even recommending it.

ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) has newly acknowledged this discovery but most are still not aware of this. Other countries like Japan and USA have shown interest in this finding which Dr. Agrawal said that scientists are crediting the camel milk feature as due to phytonutrient from plants that are the staple of the camel's diet every day. Should this then be considered for diabetes prevention?

Kidney Disease Cause at Early Stage Uncovered?

Kidney disease cause of its early stage has been thought of as discovered. This is significant as worldwide, 100 million people are affected by the early stage kidney disease. Massachusetts General Hospital , the largest training hospital for Harvard Medical School, conducted a study where they identified a molecular pathway that seems to be the cause of urinary protein loss. If this is blocked, then the kidney failure can be slowed down.

The senior author of this study who is also the director of the Program in Glomerular Disease at MGH, Jochen Reiser, MD, PhD, said they have information on this in both animal and human models. It appeared in Nature Medicine but is also available online.

Changli Wei, MD, PhD said that targeting the mechanism with molecule compounds or antibodies can stop or lower the urinary protein loss. This may then become a new way to treat kidney disease like diabetic nephropathy.

The filtering activity of the kidney is done in the blood vessels where there are extensions called podocytes that sift extra water out while keeping the larger proteins in. Some kidney diseases show these podocytes as having shrunk thus unable to do the filtering properly and allowing the proteins to seep out of the urine.

The researchers studied this situation and for the first time found what was capable of the motion that contributes to the breakdown of the podocytes. They focused on this and found uPar as linked to the movement. These are the same molecules associated with the healing of wounds, inflammation, metastasis and invasion of tumor.

There is a need for more studies to find out how uPar interacts with the others that are involved in the filtering of the protein and its leakage to the urine. They are now carrying out a clinical trial to block the uPar. Hopefully this will be the first step to intervene in these diseases.

I tried to get the latest research on the early kidney disease but didn't find any. Meantime, there is something we can do. After consulting with the doctor a special diet may help reduce the kidneys' workload and control the build up of fluid and waste products. This may help in slowing down the kidney function loss. Generally, this diet controls the, quantity of protein, sodium and phosphorus but make sure you get enough calories.

Sometimes there are no symptoms of the early stages of this condition so it is important that one who is at risk like those with diabetes and hypertension be tested. Usually they use the urine and blood test to find the creatinine in the blood. This way we can protect ourselves until they find the cause of early kidney disease.

Therapy for Cancer and Arthritis May Be Good as Diabetes Treatment

Researchers for Yale School of Medicine report that an antibody used for treatment of some cancers and arthritis seem to holdup type 1 diabetes when they tried it on mice. They say that even after stopping the administration of the antibody, it continues to be of benefit.

They say that rituximab, the antibody they used, reduces the B cells. There is evidence that B cells have a part in autoimmune disease by interrelating with the immune system's T cells. The T cells are the ones that destroy the cells that produce insulin.

Li Wen, the division of endocrinology's senior research scientist, said that after successfully depleting the B cells, regulatory cells come out which can hold back the autoimmune and inflammatory reaction even after the return of the B cells. Li Wen and team were stunned by the fact that there were both T and B cells in the regulatory cells.

What Li Wen and her Yale collaborator, Mark Shlomchik, M.D. did to find out whether the depletion of the B cells would be a treatment for type 1 diabetes, was develop a mouse model. They engineered these mice to be predisposed to diabetes and put the molecule retuximab on surface of the B cells of these mice.

The investigators found that the drug therapy considerably delayed diabetes by 10 to 15 weeks than their mice counterparts which were treated with a placebo. This translates to about 10 to 15 years in humans. Five of the 14 mice who had already diabetes stopped requiring insulin for two to five months while their counterparts stayed being diabetic. So it has some promise as a form of diabetes treatment.


What does this mean? Shlomchik said that it looks like the B cells play two parts in diabetes and perhaps in other autoimmune disease as well. At the start the B cells may encourage the disease to appear but after depletion with rituximab, they stop the disease. This shows there may be no need for multiple medications to further deplete the B cells.

I hope they will continue on with this research but in my search for new development, I didn't find any. However, this did not diminish my admiration for the researchers for I have no idea nor want to find out how to engineer mice to be susceptible to diabetes. Why, I did not even do well at my chemistry class in the university and I am terrified of mice. So despite my overwhelming desire to help the diabetics, I will not go near those creatures. I draw the line there, so sorry guys!

What Drug Lowers Risk for Cardiovascular Disease Among Diabetics with Kidney Disease?

Cardiovascular disease and diabetes are linked in the sense that the diabetics have a higher risk for heart troubles than their counterpart who do not have diabetes. The question therefore that begs an answer is what can we do to lower that risk?

That risk can be reduced by maintaining the ABC's of diabetes at acceptable level. How do we do this? This can be done by eating healthy, exercising regularly and taking medication as prescribed. Losing weight if applicable is also part of maintaining the ABC.

Every little step you take will help maintain the ABC. Once the numbers come nearer the target levels, the chance to prevent heart attack is higher, much higher. Smoking is a great no, no. If you are smoking, quit. It is as simple as that. Now what do these ABC stand for anyway?

A is for A1C which tells the story of where your average blood sugar is up to in the preceding two to three months. In fact, this is now what they advocate as the way to diagnose diabetes instead of that fasting glucose test. The recommendation is to target the A1C of below 7.

B is for blood pressure that tells the story of how hard your heart has to work because it measures the force of blood in the blood vessels. The recommendation is to keep the blood pressure reading to below 130/80 mmHg.

Now how about the C? Well it stands for cholesterol which is the amount of fat in the blood. Just to get us confused, there are two kinds. There's the HDL which is our friend because it aids in protecting the heart. And there is the LDL which we can call frenemy (This is a new word just added recently to the dictionary) which means a fake friend because it clogs our blood vessel.

The Journal of the American Society of Nephrology reports in the January issue that treating patients with CKD (chronic kidney disease) with pioglitazone may lower the risk for cardiovascular disease. A new study on this confirms this.

University of Cologne's Dr. Christian A. Schneider of Germany said that this drug reduced death and cardiovascular occurrence when they studied more than 5000 type 2 diabetics who were at high risk for cardiovascular disease due to damage to the large blood vessels.

The patients treated with pioglitazone showed a lower risk for cardiovascular occurrence when compared to those assigned to take the placebo. The rate of death and cardiovascular events was reduced by 33.33%. It was noted that the decrease happened among those with lower stage of kidney function.

Dr. Schneider said their findings may not apply to diabetics with lower risk for cardiovascular events. Caution should be exercised when looking at the result of their study until it is further confirmed. This research was supported by Takeda Pharmaceutical Company. Let’s just follow the recommendation to lower the cardiovascular disease.