Fasting diet 'regenerates diabetic pancreas'

From bbc.co.uk

The pancreas can be triggered to regenerate itself through a type of fasting diet, say US researchers.

Restoring the function of the organ - which helps control blood sugar levels - reversed symptoms of diabetes in animal experiments.
The study, published in the journal Cell, says the diet reboots the body.
Experts said the findings were "potentially very exciting" as they could become a new treatment for the disease.
People are advised not to try this without medical advice.

In the experiments, mice were put on a modified form of the "fasting-mimicking diet".
It is like the human form of the diet when people spend five days on a low calorie, low protein, low carbohydrate but high unsaturated-fat diet.
It resembles a vegan diet with nuts and soups, but with around 800 to 1,100 calories a day.
Then they have 25 days eating what they want - so overall it mimics periods of feast and famine.
Previous research has suggested it can slow the pace of ageing.

Diabetes therapy?

But animal experiments showed the diet regenerated a special type of cell in the pancreas called a beta cell.
These are the cells that detect sugar in the blood and release the hormone insulin if it gets too high.
Dr Valter Longo, from the University of Southern California, said: "Our conclusion is that by pushing the mice into an extreme state and then bringing them back - by starving them and then feeding them again - the cells in the pancreas are triggered to use some kind of developmental reprogramming that rebuilds the part of the organ that's no longer functioning."
There were benefits in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes in the mouse experiments.
Type 1 is caused by the immune system destroying beta cells and type 2 is largely caused by lifestyle and the body no longer responding to insulin.
Further tests on tissue samples from people with type 1 diabetes produced similar effects.
Dr Longo said: "Medically, these findings have the potential to be very important because we've shown - at least in mouse models - that you can use diet to reverse the symptoms of diabetes.
"Scientifically, the findings are perhaps even more important because we've shown that you can use diet to reprogram cells without having to make any genetic alterations."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-39070183

Meat-eaters are twice as likely to get diabetes

From nzherald.co.nz

Vegans are at lower risk of developing diabetes, new research suggests.
Consuming animal products doubles someone's risk of developing the potentially fatal condition, scientists claim.
And it only takes less than a tablespoon of butter each day, according to the Spanish study, reports the Daily Mail.
Researchers evaluated the link between eating different types of fat and type 2 diabetes.
Some 3,349 participants were assessed over a period of nearly five years by a team from the universitat rovira I virgili in tarragona.
Consumption of 12g of butter each day doubled the risk of the condition, they discovered.
While eating the same amount of whole-fat yoghurt was associated with a lower risk, the study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found.
Recently, dietary guidelines have shifted toward a plant-based diet rich in legumes, whole-grain cereals, fruits, vegetables and nuts.
It is also recommended to keep consumption of animal-based foods low, as they may linked to cancer, heart disease and strokes.
At the same time, vegan diets have become increasingly popular in the past few years mainly due to growing concerns about the treatment of animals.
More and more people are ditching the meat in favour of an animal-free diet,
and research last august suggested it could be a clever switch after scientists found swapping meat and eggs for lentils and nuts could add years to someone's life.
Eating less protein from animal sources and choosing instead to eat cereals, beans and soya, substantially reduced death rates.
But a study published yesterday suggested that a lack of meat in a father's diet could massively impact their chances of ever having grandchildren.

In a study on fruit flies, scientists from Monash University, Melbourne, found skipping out on protein can damage their offspring's chances of conceiving.

Another benefit of going vegan

Vegans don't need to worry about bulking up.
Their diets are just as effective in protein uptake and maintaining muscle strength as meat eaters, new research suggested.
Critics of the ethical diet have long been convinced that those who stick to plant-based foods are missing out on protein from meat.
But scientists from the University of Massachusetts discovered that so long as they eat legumes, nuts and kale, they will have the same strength as a meat-eater.

http://m.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11803718

Two slices of buttered toast a day doubles diabetes risk, study suggests

From telegraph.co.uk

Eating two slices of buttered toast a day can double the risk of diabetes, warns new research.
A study of more than 3,000 people found those who consumed just 12 grams (0.42 ounces) were twice as likely to develop the disease within the next five years.
Scientists say the finding underlines the importance of switching to a Mediterranean style diet.
It is rich in legumes, whole grain cereals, fruits, vegetables and nuts and low in animal based foods like red meat and pastries.
They added that increasing evidence is suggesting plant based diets benefit health and also have less impact on the environment.
Butter is rich in unhealthy saturated fatty acids and trans fats and has been linked to a high risk of suffering type 2 diabetes, the form linked with obesity.
So the international team of researchers evaluated the associations between the amount of fat, and the type, consumed by 3,349 people in the PREDIMED (Prevention With Mediterranean Diet) and their risk of diabetes.
At the start the participants, who were all Spanish, were free of diabetes but at high risk of heart disease or stroke.
After four and a half years 266 of them had diabetes and this was twice as likely among those who consumed higher amounts of saturated fatty acids and animal fat.
The consumption of whole fat yogurt was associated with a lower risk, reports the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Dr Marta Guasch-Ferre, of Harvard University, said: "These findings emphasise the healthy benefits of a Mediterranean diet for preventing chronic diseases, particularly type 2 diabetes, and the importance of substituting saturated and animal fats, especially red and processed meat, for those found in vegetable sources such as olive oil and nuts."
Diabetes UK says as well as being protective against type 2 diabetes, Mediterranean diets rich in fruit, vegetables and fibre can help people with diabetes to control their blood sugar levels.
Previous large-scale studies have linked a Mediterranean diet with a lower chance of developing diabetes.
A traditional Mediterranean diet is principally composed of oily fish, poultry fresh fruit and vegetables, legumes, fresh bread, pasta and olive oil.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/02/17/two-slices-buttered-toast-day-doubles-diabetes-risk-study-suggests/

Dealing with diabetes distress

From medicalxpress.com

"Diabetes distress" isn't the same as depression, however, diabetes experts note. It's a condition unique to the 24/7 demands that come with diabetes, particularly for people dependent on insulin.

"The day you develop diabetes, it's like the universe just handed you a new full-time job that you have to do in addition to whatever else you're doing. It's a special job that has a big impact on the rest of your life. There's no pay and no vacation," said William Polonsky, president of the Behavioral Diabetes Institute in San Diego.

Alicia McAuliffe-Fogarty, vice president of lifestyle management at the American Diabetes Association, put it this way: "Diabetes distress is the extra burden that people with diabetes have to carry. They have to do everything that other people do—take care of work, family, finances—and in addition they have to make sure to check their blood sugar, remember to take their medicine and/or adjust their insulin doses, count carbohydrates when they eat.

"It's a day-to-day and minute-to-minute burden. It's doing everything 'right' and still seeing your blood sugar levels go up," she added.

Diabetes distress is a range of different emotional responses that come with dealing with the burdens of caring for diabetes, Polonsky explained.

"It's being fed up and overwhelmed with the demands and concerns of diabetes. It's feeling powerless in the face of diabetes. It's knowing that despite your best actions, sometimes those [insulin] numbers go up and down and it seems beyond your ability to influence. And it can negatively influence one's quality of life," he added.

The phenomenon hasn't been well-studied—Polonsky said he and his colleagues are in the middle of a study on diabetes distress that will hopefully answer some questions about the condition.

He said diabetes distress probably affects about 30 percent of people with diabetes at some point in their lives.

"It's not everybody, and it's not all the time, but it's pretty darn common, and a whole lot more common than depression" among those with diabetes, Polonsky added.

Diabetes distress and other psychological conditions are common enough that the American Diabetes Association added a section to its Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes - 2017 guidelines on screening and treating people with diabetes for distress, depression and other mental health concerns.

The new guidelines, published recently in the journal Diabetes Care, suggest that providers screen all of their diabetes patients with standardized tests for these conditions.

A demanding juggling job with no breaks

There are two main types of diabetes—type 1 and type 2.

People with type 1 diabetes don't make enough insulin—a hormone the body needs to use the carbohydrates in food for fuel. Because of this, people with type 1 rely on insulin injections or insulin delivered through a tiny catheter inserted under the skin and then attached to an insulin pump worn outside the body. People with type 1 diabetes using shots may need five or six insulin injections daily.

In people with type 2 diabetes, the body is no longer able to use insulin properly. Most (95 percent) of diabetes cases involve the type 2 form of the disease. Sometimes, people with type 2 diabetes also need to use insulin injections.

However, using insulin is a difficult balancing act—too much or too little can cause problems, even life-threatening ones.

When blood sugar levels drop too low from too much insulin, people can become disoriented, and if levels drop even further, they may pass out. Blood sugar levels that are too high and left untreated over time can cause complications such as kidney troubles, eye problems and heart disease.

To keep track of blood sugar levels when using insulin, most people rely on glucose meters and a lancing device that pricks the finger to draw out a drop of blood. This may be done as few as 4 times a day, or as many as a dozen or more times daily, depending on how blood sugar levels are fluctuating.

And, many factors besides insulin can influence blood sugar levels. Food, alcohol, physical activity, emotions such as stress, and illness all can cause unpredictable changes in blood sugar levels.

It helps to find strength in numbers

Both Polonsky and McAuliffe-Fogarty said it's important to recognize and treat diabetes distress because it can have a negative impact on blood sugar management.

"In some studies, diabetes distress can impact diabetes care more than depression," McAuliffe-Fogarty said.

Antidepressants aren't likely to help someone with diabetes distress, according to Polonsky.

McAuliffe-Fogarty suggests checking in with your health care provider so you can go over your current diabetes management regimen. It's possible that changes in your management might help, she said.

Or, it might help to have a visit with a diabetes educator to go over some of the basics again, she recommended. Many people with type 1 diabetes are diagnosed as children, and as adults may not realize they're missing some of the basics of diabetes education.

"Maybe pick one or two things that would make the most impact on your management and focus on those one or two small things, and you'll likely achieve those goals. Then set one or two more goals and move along like that—not everything needs to happen at once," McAuliffe-Fogarty said.

It's also important to look for "evidence-based hope," Polonsky said. Many studies have suggested that with consistent modern management of diabetes, many people can live well with the disease.

"Most people have heard the scary messages, but with good care, the odds are pretty good you can live a long and healthy life with diabetes," he noted.

Both experts agreed that support is an important component of treating diabetes distress. "You don't want to do diabetes alone. If you have someone who's rooting for you, that really helps," Polonsky said.

He said parents or spouses can give a person with diabetes a break by taking over the management of the disease for a little while. It gives them a "diabetes vacation."

For some, distress can get more serious. Depression isn't always easy to spot in someone with diabetes. And some of the physical signs of diabetes, such as low energy, could signal that someone's blood sugar is out of whack, Polonsky explained.

McAuliffe-Fogarty said about one in every four or five people with diabetes will experience depression at some point.

She said signs that suggest you need to speak with a mental health professional include: changes in appetite and sleep patterns, having no interest in activities you once enjoyed, social isolation, feeling persistently sad or hopeless, and having a down mood on more days than not.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-02-diabetes-distress.html

How To Reverse Diabetes

From menshealth.com

Dr. Nadolsky, 33, isn't someone you'd expect at the forefront of the battle against type 2 diabetes. "He's probably in better shape than anyone I know," Mamon says. That may be underselling his doctor's fitness. Dr. Nadolsky was an academic all-American wrestler at UNC, and at one point ranked fourth in the country as a heavyweight. Even though he later dropped 30 pounds, he still looks the part, with a massive upper torso, thick brow, and just enough scar tissue to make you think that if his genial smile descended into a scowl, he could moonlight as a bouncer.
But just because he looks like the "after" picture in a Bowflex ad doesn't mean Dr. Nadolsky is a fat-shaming meathead. "It was refreshing to hear his perspective," Mamon says. "I mean, you know you're fat. You know you need to lose weight. You don't need somebody to tell you that you're fat and you need to lose weight."
"I talk about it tactfully," says Dr. Nadolsky, the author of The Natural Way to Beat Diabetes. "Most people understand that diabetes comes from excess weight. They know that already. I try to get them excited about reversing it through diet and exercise."
In his patients with prediabetes or with mild and recently diagnosed cases of diabetes, Dr. Nadolsky first proposes the option to try lifestyle changes without medication. "I tell them, 'The bad news is that you're in the prediabetic range, and now you have two pathways,'" he says. "'The good news is that if you take the right one—clean up your diet, lose weight, get serious about exercise—you can nip this in the bud. But if you take the other one, you'll likely end up with diabetes.'"
The conversation Dr. Nadolsky had with Mamon in 2016 described two very different pathways. Instead of smooth, well-lit roads, he was looking at dark, deeply rutted trails. The lifestyle-management route would include powerful drugs, with the hope of eventually reducing his reliance on them. The "ah, screw it, I'll be fine" route, the one Mamon chose by default in 2013, included even more powerful drugs, starting with daily injections of insulin, most likely progressing to multiple doses, with a high risk of that insulin causing him to gain weight at a time when he needed to lose it.
"I wasn't shocked by the diagnosis," Mamon says. After all, both of his parents had been diagnosed in the previous year. "It wasn't like cancer, something that just floors you. But it was heavy news. Nobody wants to hear it."
But then Mamon asked Dr. Nadolsky an important, life-defining question: "Do you think it's possible for me to reverse diabetes?"
As it happens, a research team in England was ready to provide an answer.

Starving the Beast

Not long after Mamon got his heavy news, researchers at Newcastle University released a bombshell study in Diabetes Care, the official journal of the American Diabetes Association. Type 2 diabetes, they wrote, is "potentially reversible by substantial weight loss," a finding they described as "an important paradigm shift" with "profound implications for the health of individuals and for the economics of future health care."
The study included 30 volunteers who ate a maximum of 700 calories a day, most of it from three meal-replacement shakes, for eight weeks. Then that was followed by a two-week period to reintroduce solid food, and then six months of maintenance.
For the 12 participants labelled as "responders," fasting blood sugar fell from 160 to 114 milligrams per decilitre, on average, without any medication.
It's an astounding improvement, one that kicked them out of the diabetic range (above 125) and into prediabetic (100 to 125). Five saw their A1c return to normal.
These results aren't a fluke, says Newcastle professor Roy Taylor, M.D., who led the research team: "Patients of mine have remained nondiabetic for many years by achieving and maintaining substantial weight loss."
To be sure, we already knew that weight loss helps people with diabetes. The long-running Look AHEAD study, which has more than 5,000 participants, shows that losing just 5 to 10 percent of body weight lowers blood sugar and improves insulin sensitivity. Losing more is even better.
The reason seems pretty straightforward. "If they had not been carrying around their current amount of fat for many years, they would not have developed type 2 diabetes," Dr. Taylor says. Reversing the disease has to begin with reversing the cause of it.
But not all fat is equally culpable. The subcutaneous fat that hides your abs or pluralizes your chin may be aesthetically inconvenient, but it doesn't destroy your health. People with diabetes, Dr. Taylor says, store excess fat in their liver, which spills over into the pancreas, eventually crippling that organ's ability to make enough insulin. Dr. Taylor calls that tipping point the "personal fat threshold." Although the heaviest people are at the highest risk, nobody can predict when any individual will reach it.
"The average body mass index at diagnosis is around 30," he says, which is the borderline for obesity. "But more than 70 percent of people with BMIs over 45 don't have diabetes." (To put that into perspective, a 6-foot guy who weighs 221 has a BMI of 30. At 332 pounds, his BMI is 45.)
Weight loss reverses diabetes because it releases fat from your body, including the metabolically chaotic fat in your liver and pancreas.
Unfortunately, weight loss is no guarantee of success. All the people in Dr. Taylor's study lost a lot of weight—an average of 35 pounds for the responders, versus 29 pounds for the others—but the 12 with the best results tended to be younger, with less body fat and lower blood glucose. They were also more recently diagnosed. They'd known about their disease for four years, on average, compared with 10 years for the non-responders.
That matches Dr. Nadolsky's experience with his own patients, and it gives Mamon hope.

Beat Diabetes at Dinner

Mamon estimates that he weighed 185 to 190 in high school, and then "gained the typical 5 to 10 pounds a year." It wasn't until he opened a baseball card shop in 1998, when he was 24, that he ballooned. "I couldn't play sports because we were open until 8 at night," he says. "I was single and I had business responsibilities, so a lot of times I was eating at Bennigan's at midnight."
Seven years later he closed the shop and went into the restaurant business, where long hours on his feet couldn't mitigate the damage caused by stress-fuelled eating and drinking after his shift. Even then, when his weight blew past 300 on its way to 400 and beyond, he told himself he carried it well. "I never thought of myself as a big, fat slob," he says. "People would always think I was 50 to 100 pounds lighter than I was."
The time for deceiving himself was long past. With Dr. Nadolsky's guidance, Mamon started tracking every single bite of food that crossed his lips. "I dropped my calories to 1,000 to 1,200 a day for the first three to four weeks," he remembers. "When I think about what I would've been eating a year ago, I'd say it was easily 4,000 calories or more a day. Easily." He lost 20 pounds in two weeks, and 40 more in the next four months.

Mamon also became militant about his carbs, for a simple reason. "Lowering carbohydrate intake will automatically lower blood sugar," Dr. Nadolsky says. The logic: Diabetes begins with insulin resistance. Insulin resistance causes high blood sugar. That sugar comes primarily from the carbohydrates in your diet. The more carbs you eat, the higher it goes, and the more insulin your already-stressed pancreas is forced to produce. Mamon follows these rules:

• No more than 40 grams of net carbs (total carbs minus fiber) per meal
• No more than 20 grams of net carbs per snack
• No meals or snacks that are 100 percent carbohydrate (except an apple)

The cascade also works in reverse. Fewer carbs means less blood sugar, which means less insulin. Over time your insulin sensitivity should return to normal. "If I could get my patients on low-carbohydrate diets, I would," Dr. Nadolsky says. "But it's very tough from a practical standpoint."
Adherence is the biggest stumbling block. For example, a 2010 study in the journal Obesity assigned 70 volunteers with diabetes to follow a diet with just 30 grams of carbs a day—the equivalent of an English muffin or a medium-to- large banana. At the beginning of the study they were eating about 200 grams a day. But by the end of the study they were only down to 193 grams. And that's simply because they were eating less total food. Their percentage of calories from carbs actually went up.
That's an extreme example, of course, but it highlights the unfortunate disconnect between the logic of cutting carbs and the reality of it for people who have diabetes. (Here are some easy ways to cut back.) Short-term studies sometimes show dramatic results for one diet or another, while long-term research shows little difference. How much weight you lose matters far more than how you lose it.
There is, however, one other way to fight diabetes.
Every Step Matters If you don't have type 2 diabetes, you have three ways to avoid getting it:

• Stay lean. For every 1-point increase in your BMI (for a 6-footer, it would mean gaining about 8 pounds), your risk of developing diabetes goes up 8.4 percent.
• Maintain your waist size. A 1-inch gain in waist size boosts your risk by 8 percent.
• Exercise more. Physical activity cuts your risk by a whopping 50 to 80 percent, not least because it helps prevent weight and fat gain.

And if it's too late for prevention? You won't be surprised to learn that exercise can help you roll it back. For example, a 2016 Duke University study took a group of inactive middle-aged people with prediabetes and had them exercise for six months. The ones who walked at a casual pace for an average of 11 miles a week saw significant blood sugar improvements.
Dr. Taylor's team at Newcastle University tried for something much more challenging. Those who did 12 weeks of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) decreased their liver fat by an average of 39 percent while also improving postmeal glucose tolerance and several aspects of cardiovascular function. The protocol they followed three times a week is as complex as any you'll find in published research. They started with five two-minute intervals the first week and advanced to nearly four-minute intervals in week 12, all at an intensity described as "very hard." They also did 60 seconds of upper-body exercises with resistance bands during the three-minute recovery periods between intervals. (Dr. Taylor adds that they were supervised "by a very motivational person.")
But it doesn't need to be that complicated to be useful. "People think they need to do P90X or something," Dr. Nadolsky says. "They have a cartoonish idea about what exercise is, and that extreme training is the only way for it to be effective. They don't realize something that feels good is actually beneficial." That's why he encourages his patients to start by simply walking, preferably after meals, when it does the most to reduce blood sugar. If you like the idea of a high-intensity interval workout you can do right in your living room, though, try Men’s Health’s new MetaShred Extreme program.
But strength training is almost equally valuable. A 2014 study in Sports Medicine comparing published research found that those who did aerobics lowered their A1c 18 percent more than those who lifted. Practically, though, there's no reason to choose one over the other, and most guidelines recommend doing both. What matters most is that you do something, and common sense tells us that you're most likely to do more of something you enjoy.
"Exercise is very good for you," Dr. Taylor says, which should not come as a shock to anybody. For people who have diabetes, any type of exercise helps keep excess post-meal blood sugar from flowing into the liver, where it's converted to havoc-wreaking fat. But he follows that ray of sunshine with a grim reminder: "Most people who've eaten themselves into a state of diabetes simply cannot exercise themselves out of it."

The Long Road Back

For his part, Mamon is sold on the benefits of regular exercise. He and his wife walk 3 miles almost every morning, and when weather permits, they walk again after work. "We found some nice trails locally that we do on the weekends as well," he says. He also plans to get back into the gym, although with a full-time job and night classes (he's working toward a master's certificate in supply-chain management), his schedule remains tight.
Mamon has now lost 83 pounds, which is 22 percent of his diagnosis-day weight. At his last appointment with Dr. Nadolsky, his fasting blood sugar was 89 and his A1c was 5.5 percent, both well below the cut-offs for prediabetes. That's with the help of three drugs, none of which is insulin. His long-term goal is to reduce his need for them, especially one that's frequently advertised on TV. Mamon says he's never gotten used to seeing the commercials and realizing, "Hey, I take that!"
At moments like those, or when his progress stalls, he admits it's hard to keep a positive attitude. But that's when he most appreciates Dr. Nadolsky's optimism. "I can be pretty pessimistic," Mamon says. "But he's like, 'Are you kidding me? You lost weight! You're healthier!' "
Mamon knows he could've gotten here sooner and made his road back to health smoother and easier if he had paid attention to that initial warning, the one that told him his blood sugar was elevated and he was heading for a disease he wouldn't wish on his worst enemy.
But considering the condition he was in a year ago, what he's accomplished is very much worth celebrating. In moderation, of course. Followed by a long walk.

http://www.menshealth.com/health/how-to-reverse-diabetes

Diabetes patch ends the pain of finger-prick tests: Sensor inside reads blood sugar levels from cells

From dailymail.co.uk

An arm patch could change the lives of tens of thousands of diabetes patients by replacing finger-prick tests.

It contains a sensor the size of a £2 coin that reads blood-sugar levels from the cells just below the skin and transmits the data to a smartphone.

That would put an end to the frequent and painful finger-prick tests used to monitor levels. A study of more than 50,000 patients shows the technology has significant health benefits.

The £96-a-month Freestyle Libre system has been available privately in the UK for a year, with around 20,000 people already using it.

But hundreds of thousands more could benefit if manufacturer Abbott is successful in negotiations to make it available on the NHS for free. The device is particularly valuable for sufferers with type 1 diabetes – an auto-immune disease that stops the body producing its own insulin, preventing the proper regulation of blood sugar.

The type 1 form affects 400,000 Britons, usually striking in childhood or adolescence. Everyone with the condition has to monitor their blood-sugar levels constantly to check whether they need an insulin injection.

The patch is thought to be especially useful for children with type 1 diabetes because their parents are able to collect data from the patch by swiping it with a smartphone, even when their child is asleep.

The device could also help the million patients with type 2 diabetes who are insulin dependent. The patch is placed on the back of the upper arm and a tiny filament – the width of three human hairs – goes through the upper level of the skin and reads the glucose levels in the substance between skin cells.

The information is transferred from the patch to a smartphone by flash-sensing – the system used for contactless card payments.

Each £48 patch lasts two weeks.

Abbott has applied to the NHS Business Services Authority for it to be listed on the England and Wales drug tariff – which would mean it could be prescribed by GPs and specialists free of charge.

Dr Ramzi Ajjan, of the University of Leeds, who will speak at the Advanced Technologies & Treatments for Diabetes conference in Paris today, said the patch had helped patients monitor their blood-sugar – or glycaemia, adding: ‘We want to see this system on the NHS. Patients with type 1 in particular would benefit hugely from this technology being made available.

‘Patients report that the system helped them gain a better understanding of their glycaemia by enabling multiple daily glucose checks.

‘The system’s painless nature of glucose testing is praised by patients. The real-world data confirms that patients are checking glucose more frequently, up to 16 times per day on average, which is cumbersome to maintain with the conventional fingerstick method.’

Karen Addington, of the diabetes charity JDRF, said: ‘We believe everyone who would benefit from this technology should get it on the NHS.’

A Department of Health spokesman said the technology was being checked for safety, quality and cost effectiveness before a decision could be made.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4225676/Diabetes-patch-ends-pain-finger-prick-tests.html

Excess belly fat linked to diabetes, heart disease

From upi.com

Gene variants that raise a person's odds of being "apple-shaped" may be linked to heightened risks of heart disease and type 2 diabetes, a large study suggests.
Many previous studies have hinted that a large waistline can be particularly unhealthy, compared to carrying your weight around the hips and thighs ("pear-shaped"). This new research suggests that people who carry weight at the belly tend to have higher rates of diabetes and heart disease.
These types of studies do not prove a cause-and-effect link, said Dr. Kirk Knowlton, director of cardiovascular research at Intermountain Medical Centre Heart Institute in Salt Lake City.
But, the new findings "go a step further," said Knowlton, who was not involved in the study.
The new findings give "considerably more weight" to the evidence that excess belly fat, by itself, contributes to diabetes and heart disease, he said.
That's because study took a different approach to the question: Researchers looked at whether gene variants that predispose people to abdominal obesity were also tied to the risks of diabetes and heart disease -- and whether that seemed to be independent of other factors, such as overall body weight.
That was, in fact, the case.
The findings were published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr. George Davey Smith, of the University of Bristol in England, wrote an editorial that accompanied the study.
"This study suggests waist-hip ratio influences diseases outcome," Smith said, "and that this is independent of body mass index."
The findings do not prove that shedding belly fat would cut a person's risk of diabetes or heart disease, Smith pointed out. But, he said, they do suggest it would.
For the study, researchers at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston focused on 48 gene variants that had already been linked to waist-to-hip ratio. From that, they developed a genetic "risk score."
The researchers then applied the score to more than 400,000 adults who'd taken part in several previous health studies.
To help zero in on the role of belly fat, the genetic risk score was adjusted for people's body mass index -- a measure of weight in relation to height.
In the end, the study found, waist size mattered.
Based on the genetic scores, each standard deviation in waist-to-hip ratio raised the risk of heart disease by 46 percent. The risk of type 2 diabetes rose by 77 percent.
People with a genetic predisposition toward a large waist also tended to have higher blood sugar, blood pressure and triglyceride levels -- all risk factors for diabetes or heart disease.
It all offers "pretty strong evidence" that excess abdominal fat directly contributes to diabetes and heart disease, said study lead author Connor Emdin, of Mass General's Centre for Genomic Medicine.
That assumes that people with the culprit gene variations first develop abdominal obesity and that is what raises their risk of the two diseases.
But the findings do not definitively prove that, according to Emdin.
It's still possible, he said, that the genes that contribute to abdominal obesity also feed the development of diabetes and heart disease -- through mechanisms other than extra belly fat.
Still, everyone agreed on what the findings imply: Preventing or shedding excess weight around the middle could help ward off two major diseases.
"This is something we should be paying attention to," Knowlton said.
And even though genes can make some people vulnerable to abdominal obesity, that does not mean it's destiny.
It's clear, Emdin said, that diet, exercise and other lifestyle habits make a difference.

http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2017/02/14/Excess-belly-fat-linked-to-diabetes-heart-disease/6371487097969/