Efforts Are Needed to Help Pregnant Women with Diabetes

From wiley.com

Researchers who analysed data from the UK’s National Pregnancy in Diabetes Audit found concerning shortcomings in pregnancy preparation and prenatal care for women with diabetes. In addition, significant clinic-to-clinic variation across the England and Wales suggests opportunities for improvement.
The authors of the Diabetic Medicine analysis noted that better integration of care between primary and specialist teams; more effective use of technology; and focus on sex, contraception, and pregnancy planning are needed. 
“A nationwide commitment to delivering integrated reproductive and diabetes healthcare interventions is needed to improve the health outcomes of women with diabetes,” wrote the authors.
Data from the National Pregnancy in Diabetes (NPID) audit: Challenges and Opportunities for Improving Pregnancy Outcomes

http://newsroom.wiley.com/press-release/diabetic-medicine/efforts-are-needed-help-pregnant-women-diabetes

Ten Ways to Lower Blood Sugar

From diabetesselfmanagement.com

Diabetes is a disease of high blood sugar. Keeping blood sugar levels in target range can help reduce the risk of diabetes complications and improve your quality of life.
For example, Dr. Richard Bernstein, author of Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 12. He figured out strategies lowering his blood sugar levels and is now 83 and still working, lifting weights, teaching, and writing. He has had no major complications.

With the right approach, you might be able to do something similar. Here are ten ways to lower blood sugar:

1. Eat fewer carbs

Sugar in the blood is called glucose. Glucose comes from the carbohydrate in food, and refined carbohydrates — often white foods like sugar and white bread — contribute a large amount of carbs to the diet. These foods get in your system too fast for your body to respond. But all carbs break down into glucose eventually. Starches, including starchy vegetables like squash and sweet potatoes, also contain carbohydrate. These foods just take longer to get into your system.
The best way to lower your sugar is to reduce the amount of carbohydrate you eat. When you do have carbohydrate-containing foods, they should be healthful items, such as green vegetables and whole grains. Avoid refined sugars as much as you can. You can learn more about low-carbohydrate eating for diabetes by reading “Carbohydrate Restriction: An Option for Diabetes Management.”

2. Move more

Glucose is our bodies’ main fuel source. You have to burn that fuel or it will stay in your blood (or be stored as fat) and cause problems. Aerobic exercises like walking or bicycling are good, but just moving more throughout the day — taking stairs instead of elevators, parking farther away, doing gardening or housework, standing at your desk, and so on — will also ower blood sugar.
The most important time to walk may be after meals: You’ve just taken in sugar; now use it. See ideas for starting exercise here.

3. Get strong

Muscles burn more glucose than any other type of tissue, even when they’re not exercising. Some studies show strengthening improves balance, sleep, and mental health. Weights or resistance training make you stronger and help lower your blood sugar.

4. Try plant medicines (with your doctor’s OK)

These include items such as bitter melon, okra, guava, cinnamon, mulberry, ginger, turmeric, and many others that can help lower glucose in a variety of ways. Some keep glucose out of the system; others help cells use it. You can read about some herbs that may be helpful for managing blood sugar here.

4. Use your prescription medicines as directed

Prescription diabetes medications can help lower blood sugar levels, and in some cases, they are necessary, as in the case of insulin for people with Type 1 diabetes. Medicines have side effects, though, and many are expensive. Work with your doctor to figure out what’s right for you, and remember that medicines are never the only aspect of treating diabetes. You still have to care for yourself through diet, exercise, stress management, and other lifestyle measures.

5. Sleep.

Lack of sleep is known to cause insulin resistance, raising blood sugars. Sleep is not a waste of time; it’s your body’s time to heal.

6. Reduce stress.

Get out of bad life situations, or change them, or get help with them — for example, talking with your partner about an issue between you, instead of letting it fester. You can also manage stress with exercise, meditation, prayer, time in nature, pleasurable activities, therapy, or other ideas you can read about here.

7. Eat more fibre

Fibre is carbohydrate that is largely indigestible by our bodies, and it is good for diabetes and digestive health. Good sources include green vegetables, beans, and whole grains.

8. Take vinegar

Studies show that taking vinegar before meals lowers the after-meal spike in sugar levels. Taking it at bedtime can lower your fasting glucose.

9. Monitor smart

Glucose monitoring can show you what raises your blood sugar and what lowers it, but you need to do it right. Routine checking at the same times every day doesn’t do much good, unless you’re taking insulin, when you need to do it for safety. Monitor intelligently to learn how different foods, activities, and stresses affect you.

10. Get a good blood sugar monitor and learn how to use it

Learn about monitoring before and after a food or activity to see the effect it has on you. Learn about “Making Your Blood Glucose Monitor Work for You.”

https://www.diabetesselfmanagement.com/blog/ten-ways-lower-blood-sugar/

Exercise Is King - Again

By Hilary Green

Like most mature adults, I am on high blood pressure medication. Which I find really irritating. SO I have been looking for ways to reduce my blood pressure enough to not need the chemical medications I am taking.
As always, research beckoned, where I found so many offerings that I almost got lost in the research instead of what I really intended to do.

1. I hate to admit it, but the first thing that came up was, to lose weight, taking particular note of your waist measurements, (under 40 in for men, 35 in for women), so assuming there are others out there like me, I am passing some of them on to you.
The following is from the staff at The Mayo Clinic
"Blood pressure often increases as weight increases. Being overweight also can cause disrupted breathing while you sleep (sleep apnea), which further raises your blood pressure.
Weight loss is one of the most effective lifestyle changes for controlling blood pressure. Losing just 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms) can help reduce your blood pressure.
Besides shedding pounds, you generally should also keep an eye on your waistline. Carrying too much weight around your waist can put you at greater risk of high blood pressure."

2. Then, exercise:- Just 30 mins most days of the week (I try to manage 5), can have an enormous impact and can lower your blood pressure by as much as 4 to 9 ml mercury (mm Hg). I am so up for that! Best options - walking, jogging, cycling, swimming or dancing, or even strength training.

I think most of us can manage a walk or two and for me, if it's not an option, then I work out on some floor exercises at home. For weights I use a couple of bottles of water and sit on the edge of the sofa for leg workouts.

3. Keep to a healthy diet. It is recommended that you Be a smart shopper. Read food labels when you shop and stick to your healthy-eating plan when you're dining out, too. It's not always easy, but the benefits are huge.
Try to eat fewer processed foods. Only a small amount of sodium occurs naturally in foods. Most sodium is added during processing. Checking the labels will show just how much sodium (salt) and sugars of various kinds are added during the processing. These are added as much to increase the shelf life of a product, which doesn't appeal to me in the slightest.
These days I've started freezing my own vegetables, which I found so much less complicated and difficult than I thought. So now I have a freezer full of frozen vegetables that contain no sugar, salt which I admittedly added to the water. But, I only blanched the veggies and used the same water for any that don't add a strong flavour to the water. So my salt use is kept to a minimum.
I then checked out some foods etc that can help with lowering blood pressure. Now I've never gone in much for flavoured teas, except green and Earl Grey, but on the research front I came across the following.
Hibiscus tea contains phytochemicals that play a role in reducing blood pressure, Soy contains Isoflavones which can also help reduce the systolic blood pressure reading (the one on top). They also help in the production of nitric oxide enzymes, which help in the relaxation of blood vessels, reducing blood pressure.

4. Quit smoking

5. Work on reducing your stress levels.

6. Every cell in the body has a receptor for Vitamin D so work on absorbing, or taking Vitamin D. This can be found first and foremost in the sun's rays. It needs to be noted that if you live more than 35% up or down from the equator, this can lead to very little being absorbed as the sun's rays are weaker. Although, exposing arms and legs to the sun for 5-45 minutes between the hours of 10am - 3pm, is usually enough to meed the daily requirements for most skin types.
It can be found in oily fish, fish liver oil and egg yolks, among others. Every cell in our bodies have a receptor for Vitamin D. It's deficiency is also linked to type 1 Diabetes, MS, high blood pressure and thyroid problems.
Thanks to Authority Nutrition at Healthline.
Overweight people can also need higher amounts of the vitamin.
Don't forget alcohol -
Generally more than one drink a day for women and for men older than age 65, or more than two a day for men age 65 and younger. One drink equals 12 ounces of beer, five ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor.

Drinking more than moderate amounts of alcohol can actually raise blood pressure by several points. It can also reduce the effectiveness of blood pressure medications.
Sadly (for me), Caffeine is also bad for blood pressure levels. But then, having reduced my intake has been quite good really, so can't complain.

Generally, Overall -
Blood pressure needs to be less than 120/80
To avoid high cholesterol - Keep numbers to less than
100 mg for LDL (bad) cholesterol.
60 mg + for HDL (good) cholesterol.
If overweight, or to prevent becoming overweight, watch waist measurements stay under 40 in - men, 35 in - women.
Exercise regularly
Eat less than 7% of calories in saturated fat.
Eat less than 200 mg of dietary cholesterol foods.
So, if we want to avoid, or reverse our dependency on chemicals, following a diet plan that can actually help, is a no brainer really, isn't it?
A final note, Statins are partly responsible for making recipients tired and suffering from memory loss. Another reason for being able to avoid having to take such medications I think.
This research is an amazing way of finding and, where possible, avoiding the common situations many of us encounter when we reach adulthood, for some, this doesn't just mean when we are past the age of 55.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Exercise-Is-King---Again&id=9883912

Here’s how you can calculate your diabetes risk at home (All you need is a tape measure)

From health24.com

This health test is tailor-made for you: you can actually predict your diabetes risk with a tape measure.
A Chinese study found that guys with a waist-to-height ratio of 0.5 or higher were more likely than those with a lower ratio to have either prediabetes or undiagnosed type 2 diabetes.
Study author Dr Xiuying Qi says this method may trump body-mass index and waist-to-hip ratio as a way to gauge visceral fat – the lard that lurks between your organs and disrupts your blood sugar.

Calculate your ratio
To find your ratio, wrap a tape measure around your waist at the midpoint – between the bottom of your ribs and the top of your hip bones.
Divide that figure (in cm) by your height (also in cm). The resulting number is your ratio.
For example, say your waist circumference is 100cm and your height is 170cm, 100 divided by 170 equals 0.5882.
Rounded off, that gives you a ratio of 0.59, which is just greater than 0.5, meaning you have an elevated risk of prediabetes or type 2 diabetes.

https://www.health24.com/Lifestyle/Man/Your-health/heres-how-you-can-calculate-your-diabetes-risk-at-home-20180208

Study examines shift work and genetic risk factors for type 2 diabetes

From sciencedaily.com

A new study takes a deep look at the connection between shift work and type 2 diabetes. Investigators at Brigham and Women's Hospital leveraged data on hundreds of thousands of people in the UK Biobank to better understand how shift work -- especially frequent night work -- contributes to the likelihood of type 2 diabetes. The team also developed a genetic risk score for type 2 diabetes, examining genetic data for tens of thousands of workers in the database. They found that more frequent night work increased the odds of type 2 diabetes, regardless of genetic type 2 diabetes risk, among the population studied. Their results are published this week in Diabetes Care.
"We see a dose-response relationship between frequency of night shift work and type 2 diabetes, where the more often people do shift work, the greater their likelihood of having the disease, regardless of genetic predisposition," said co-first author Céline Vetter, PhD who conducted this work while at the Channing Division of Network Medicine at BWH, along with co-first author Hassan S. Dashti, PhD, RD. Vetter is now an assistant professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "This helps us understand one piece of the puzzle: frequency of night shift work seems to be an important factor."
The team examined data from more than 270,000 people, including 70,000 who provided in-depth lifetime employment information and a subgroup of more than 44,000 for whom genetic data were available. More than 6,000 people in the sample population had type 2 diabetes.
Using information on more than 100 genetic variants that are associated with type 2 diabetes, the research team developed a genetic risk score that they used to assign a value to each participant. As expected, those with the highest genetic risk scores were almost four times as likely to develop type 2 diabetes compared to individuals who had lower genetic risk scores. Shift work did not change this probability, suggesting similar effects of night shift work regardless of an individual's genetic predisposition to type 2 diabetes.
The team found that, compared to day workers, all shift workers were more likely to have type 2 diabetes, except for permanent night shift workers. Those who reported working irregular or rotating shifts with usual night shifts were 44 percent more likely to have type 2 diabetes, after taking into account other established risk factors.
"Our results suggest that these two risk factors both play a role in type 2 diabetes likelihood," said corresponding co-senior author Frank A.J.L. Scheer, PhD, Director of the Medical Chronobiology Program and neuroscientist in the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders in the Departments of Medicine and Neurology at BWH. "Our finding that there does not seem to be an interaction between those two type 2 diabetes risk factors is novel, and requires replication in future studies, especially in other populations of non-European ancestry."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180212121228.htm

Going the Distance: 50 Marathons with Type 1 Diabetes

From asweetlife.org

When Ross Baker completed his first marathon in New York City at the age of 28, it was because a friend had challenged him to do so. Little did he know that crossing that finish line in November 2000 was actually the beginning of something much bigger, something he would dedicate almost two decades of his life to fulfilling.
 “When I ran NYC, I saw a man wearing a 50 states and D.C. Marathon Club shirt. It intrigued me,” says Baker.
Elated by the challenge and accomplishment of completing one of the largest marathons in the world, Baker wanted more. He remembered the man’s shirt and set out to complete 49 more marathons, one in each U.S. state, all while managing type 1 diabetes.  Baker saw the challenge as a way to travel throughout the country and as a way to show his faith in a visible way.

Although creating awareness for type 1 diabetes wasn’t Baker’s primary intention, he has done just that. On October 15^th 2017, after finishing the Maui Marathon, the 45-year-old law enforcement officer and single dad became the first person with type 1 diabetes to complete a marathon in every state. Seventeen years after the NYC Marathon, he’d completed his goal. “I wanted to show others what you could do with T1D, but I also wanted to show myself what I was capable of,” Baker says. He also said the challenge has made him resilient and purposeful, and extremely confident in handling adversity, something diabetes demands and teaches you as well.
He originally planned to run 3-5 races per year and finish in 15 years. At first, he sought out races he could drive to, checking off 7 states near his North Carolina home that first year. He then realized he needed to plan and budget for longer distance trips.
  “I tried to plan trips that were no longer than 3 days, so I could return to my family quickly,” says Baker, who has two daughters, ages 8 and 15. “I also took others along whenever possible.”
Diagnosed with T1D at 19, Baker has dealt with diabetes the entire time he has been running marathons. But other personal and health issues created additional challenges along the way. A serious car accident in 2008, a bout with thyroid cancer in 2009, and a divorce in 2015 were all things that tested his strength and resiliency. Running has helped him persevere and overcome these challenges.
“I can go the distance,” he says.
To manage his blood sugar during training and races, Baker says he always had a plan. He was always prepared for low blood sugars, carrying food and drinks with him on every run. He would also plan his routes to pass by grocery or convenience stores, and would choose things to eat that were easy to chew and wouldn’t melt. Baker has used Omnipod, a wearable, tubeless insulin pump, since 2013. He says the device has made it easier for him to control his blood sugar without the aggravation of carrying syringes and vials of insulin.
Baker also always made sure that those around him knew he had diabetes, so they could help if needed. “When running, it’s not always easy to distinguish between fatigue and hypoglycemia,” he says.
While living with diabetes is tough, Baker hopes others will see his accomplishment as an example of how people like him can set and reach big goals. He says being diagnosed with T1D isn’t a death sentence, it’s a life sentence, so live your life and don’t dwell on it. “You may have to work harder, but the results will be sweeter!”
Now that Baker’s marathons are behind him, he is onto new challenges, like completing a half-Ironman triathlon and hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro. He also hopes to write a memoir of his marathon journey, and hopes others, with or without T1D, will be inspired to follow their dreams.
“This is the only life you have,” he says. “Pursue your dreams and find happiness in the steps.”

https://asweetlife.org/going-the-distance-50-marathons-with-type-1-diabetes/?utm_source=ASweetLife.org+List&utm_campaign=f9da6f2395-ASweetLife+Weekly+Update++-+Nov.+14%2C+2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5125b14cf8-f9da6f2395-413392997

The Diabetes Miracle

From bookshare.org

Synopsis

The breakthrough 3-step program to conquer type 2 diabetes with little to no medication. If you've been diagnosed with prediabetes or type 2 diabetes, it's easy to think, "How did this happen? I watched what I ate. If only I had tried harder, eaten fewer calories and burned more. " But you're not alone, and it's not your fault. Many traditional diets can actually promoteinsulin resistance over time because they don't take into account your different metabolism. You may be one of the millions who have Metabolism B (metabolic syndrome), an inherited condition that can cause your body to overreact to carbohydrate foods, release excess insulin, and gain body fat--and eventually develop type 2 diabetes. The good news is that you can take control of your diabetes, starting today. When registered dietician Diane Kress herself developed this condition over a decade ago--despite following the ADA-recommended dietary guidelines--she realized that the "status quo" nutrition plans just don't work for everyone. In The Diabetes Miracle, she identifies the reason why. Now, she shares the groundbreaking 3-step program that she has created for the prevention and management of this progressive, potentially fatal condition. It's the miracle diet and lifestyle plan that thousands of her patients have been successful with--and that Kress personally adheres to today, controlling her diabetes without medication. Now you can get the facts and eat to treat the root cause of type 2 diabetes. With The Diabetes Miracle, you can expect to: Correct your body's insulin imbalance naturally and stop the progression from Metabolism B to prediabetes to diabetes "Rest, reset, and retrain" your pancreas to process carbs and react more normally to blood glucose changes Lose weight and keep it off--especially the love handles and excess back fat Get the best blood sugar readings you have experienced since your diagnosis on the least amount of medication Have more energy, sleep great, look younger, and feel healthier Gain control of type 2 diabetes on an easy, livable program This diabetes bible provides clear details about the disease itself, the newest parameters for diagnosis, and preventing complications. Kress also gives you the most up-to-date information on blood glucose testing, medications, the use of insulin, and tricks of the trade for great blood sugar control. With helpful Q&A throughout and a fresh, compassionate approach, The Diabetes Miracle takes the frustration out of living with type 2 diabetes so that you can take control. . . permanently. Get ready for better health and a brand new lease on life!

https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/1926933?returnPath=L2Jyb3dzZS9sYXRlc3Q%2FbW9kdWxlTmFtZT1wdWJsaWM%3D