Heart Disease Prevention - Why Prediabetes Should Not Be Ignored?

When a person has a blood sugar level higher than normal but not high enough to be a diabetic, he or she is said to have prediabetes. Prediabetes, also known as borderline diabetes, usually has no obvious symptom. Yet, the risk of developing Type-2 diabetes and other serious health conditions including heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure and stroke would be higher. Read more at:

Heart Disease Prevention - Why Prediabetes Should Not Be Ignored?

Can Foods Rich in Magnesium Reduce Stroke Risk?

Being the leading cause of heart disease and cancer, cigarette smoking is also strongly linked to stroke.

A study that was published on March 10, 2008 in the Archives of Internal Medicine reported that diets rich in magnesium could help smokers reduce their stroke risk. Carried out by researchers from Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, the study was aim originally to look at possible lung cancer therapies.

Researchers have not figured out the mechanism behind the finding, but suspected that it might be the magnesium that helps reduce high blood pressure. High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is a disorder that can lead to stroke if it is not treated in time.

About 26,556 Finnish male smokers were followed for more than 13 years. The study found that those who consumed an average of 589 milligrams of magnesium each day in their diets had a 15 percent lower risk for cerebral infarction than those who consumed less magnesium. Cerebral infarction is a kind of stroke that occurs when blood flow to the brain is blocked.

The effect was found to be stronger for men younger than 60 years old. Meanwhile, the study also showed that the intake of calcium, potassium and sodium was not associated with risk for any type of stroke.

Magnesium can not only lower blood pressure but also influence the cholesterol level or the use of insulin that turns glucose into energy. Any of these 2 mechanisms would affect the risk for cerebral infarction but not hemorrhagic stroke. Hemorrhagic stroke is another type of stroke that occurs when the vessel ruptures, causing blood to leak into the brain.

Foods rich in magnesium can be found in whole grains, black beans, broccoli, halibut, oysters, peanuts, rockfish and spinach. However, the researchers are not sure if taking magnesium dietary supplements would also produce the same result.

Is The Number of Young Diabetics Rising in Asia?

Diabetes mellitus, more often referred to as diabetes, is a condition in which the body does not produce enough or properly respond to insulin. Being a hormone produced in the pancreas, insulin has the function of enabling cells to absorb glucose and turning it into energy. When a person has diabetes, the glucose will accumulate in the blood and this will eventually lead to various complications. For instance, diabetes has been identified as a risk factor for heart disease.

There is no doubt that diabetes has turned into a global problem. It is expected that the number of victims will grow from 240 million in 2007 to 380 million in 2025.

In Europe and North America, overweight and obesity have long been thought to lead to Type-2 diabetes. However, a study, published on May 27, 2009 in the Journal of American Medical Association, reported that the number of diabetics is rising in Asia affecting those who are relatively young and less likely to be struggling with obesity, unlike in the West.

Based on the figures from the International Diabetes Federation, more than 60 percent of diabetics will reside in Asia, the fastest growing region in the world. Countries with low- and middle-income will face the hardest hit. The number of diabetics will grow from 40 million to nearly 70 million in India; 39 million to 59 million in China; and 3.8 million to 7.4 million in Bangladesh.

While the trends of diabetes could be influenced from genetic makeup and cultural differences to smoking and degrees of urbanization, the most startling result was still related to body mass and age.

Despite lower obesity rate, the waistlines of Asian population keep expanding as a result of rapid economic development, changing diets and more sedentary lifestyle. Expanding waistline is considered to be harmful to diabetes. This is because fat around the abdomen stores excess energy and releases chemicals that control metabolism and use of insulin.

Although people across Asia generally have lower body mass index (BMI), which is the ratio of weight (kg) divided by the square of height (cm), they can have a similar or even higher chance of developing diabetes, according to the study.

The Number of Diabetics Rises In Europe!

According to IDF (International Diabetes Federation), diabetes affects 246 million people worldwide and the figure is expected to rise to some 380 million by 2025.

People should never treat diabetes lightly because it could lead to fatal consequences. Diabetics might have symptoms such as frequent urination, thirst, unexpected weight loss, extreme hunger, and frequent fatigue. If the blood glucose is too high, they can develop comatose.

If the blood sugar level is not controlled effectively, diabetes can lead to blindness, neuropathy (damage to nerves), and even lower-limb amputations. Patients, who also have hypertension (high blood pressure), can have a higher chance of getting kidney failure. Meanwhile, one should not forget that diabetes has been a known risk factor for cardiovascular and heart disease, too.

A study, published on May 28, 2009 in the British Journal ‘The Lancet’, revealed that incidence of Type-1 diabetes in children aged below 5 in Europe is expected to double and those aged below 15 will increase by 70 percent by 2020 over the 2005 levels.

Based on diagnosed cases between 1989 and 203, the researchers warned that the trend will be highest in the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe. The dramatic increase could be attributed to genes as well as the modern lifestyle habits.

In general, there are 2 types of diabetes, namely Type-1 and Type-2 diabetes. Type-1 diabetes generally begins during childhood and early adolescence. The immune system destroys cells in the pancreas that make insulin, and this does cause the glucose level in the blood to rise dangerously. Insulin is the hormone, which breaks down glucose into other forms of energy.

A mix of genetic vulnerability and environmental factors, such as increases in weight and height, less exposure to early infections in childhood and delivery by caesarean, might cause such disorder, according to health experts.

On the other hand, Type-2 diabetes occurs when there is insufficient insulin or cells become insensitive to the insulin that is produced. It is closely linked to chronic obesity, resulting from sedentary lifestyles and the consumption of sugary and fatty foods. The number of Type-2 diabetics is far more than Type-1 diabetics.

Tobacco Can Be Useful, Are You Sure?

Smoking and tobacco have always been linked to unhealthy news. Smokers not only have the higher chance of getting heart disease, lung cancers, and other ailments, the secondhand smoke originated from them could also cause harmful effects to the people around them. Many studies have confirmed the claim.

However, an interesting finding by researchers from the University of Verona have found a healthy use for tobacco after they genetically bled modified plants containing a medicine that could stop Type-1 diabetes.

They published their findings on March 19, 2009 in the journal BMC Biotechnology and indicated out that they had produced tobacco plants containing a potent anti-inflammatory protein known as interleukin-10 (IL-10), which could help patients with insulin-dependent Type-1 diabetes and other autoimmune diseases.

Agrochemical companies such as Bayer and Syngenta have been searching ways to produce complex protein drugs in plants but the progress has been slow.

The new finding is believed to mark the latest advance in the emerging field of molecular farming that might offer an alternative way of producing biotech drugs and vaccines at a cost cheaper than traditional factory systems do.

The European researchers believe the antibody medicines and vaccines, which are produced in cell cultures inside stainless steel fermenters, could eventually be grown more efficiently in fields. This is because plants are the world's most cost-effective protein producers. They have studied several different plants around the world, but tobacco is their firm favorite.

The researchers’ work has drawn the attention from tobacco giant Philip Morris, which is supporting a conference on plant-based medicine in Verona in June 2009.

Meanwhile, Swedish biotech company Diamyd has already been testing a conventionally produced GAD65 vaccine against diabetes in clinical trials. On the other hand, Protalix plans to submit its drug for regulatory approval in the United States and Israel in the 4th quarter of 2009.

Why Should People Walk or Bike to Work?

Exercise forms an integral part in the prevention of heart disease and many other ailments. However, many of the working people are being pressured by heave workload that they can hardly find time to engage in any form of exercises or physical activities.

A large study in United States for health and commuting found that walking or biking to work, even partway, can boost physical fitness but sadly, very few Americans actually do it. In fact, only about 17 percent of workers walked or bicycled any portion of their commute.

According to experts, things like crumbling sidewalks, lack of bike paths and long distances have prevented American commuters from walking or biking to work.

Researchers from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill examined the tests and questionnaires from 2,364 workers (middle-aged city dwellers) who were part of a larger federally funded study on heart disease risk. These participants, who lived in Chicago; Minneapolis; Birmingham, Alabama; and Oakland, California, were asked in 2005-2006 about their commuting habits in the past 12 months

It was found that those active commuters did better on treadmill tests of fitness, even after accounting for their leisure-time physical activity levels. This indeed suggested that commuter choices do make a difference.

In the study, the male active commuters also had healthier numbers for body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, insulin and blood fats (known as triglycerides). On the other hand, the researchers speculated that women walked or biked shorter distances and they may have done so less vigorously

The researchers acknowledged that the study has a chicken-and-egg problem. People, who are already active, could be the ones who walk or bike to work. In other words, fitness contributes to wanting to walk to work; nevertheless, the reverse might also be true.

Prior research has found that those countries having the highest levels of walking and biking also have the lowest levels of obesity. Nevertheless, little research has done to examine the health of Americans who walk or bike to work. The new study may be the first large US study of health and commuting.

Many cities in United States, workplaces are separated from homes that lengthen commutes. However, cities like Portland, Oregon, that build bike paths have higher rates of cycling. Meanwhile, companies can provide showers, changing areas and secure bike parking to encourage active commuting.

Are There Any Good Fats in Our Body?

Too many fats accumulated in our body are bad for our health. This is because too many fats could lead to overweight or even obesity. More importantly, many medical complications like diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), heart disease, etc. could be developed because of overweight or obesity.

Scientists have known that fat that buries in the abdomen (known as visceral fat) can raise a person's risk of diabetes and heart disease, but people with fat deposits in the buttocks and hips, are less prone to these disorders.

In finding out why fat located in different parts of the body have different risks of metabolic disease such as diabetes, researchers from the United States have found a surprising result: a type of fat that accumulates around the hips and bottom may actually offer some protection against diabetes.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School in Boston announced on May 6, 2008 in the journal Cell Metabolism that subcutaneous fat, or fat that collects under the skin helped improve sensitivity to the hormone insulin, which regulates blood sugar.

A series of experiments were conducted on mice where the researchers transplanted subcutaneous fat from donor ice into the bellies and under the skin of mice. Those mice getting subcutaneous fat transplanted into their bellies started to slim down after several weeks, even though no changes in their diet or activity levels was made. Their blood sugar and insulin levels were also improved compared to those mice, which underwent a sham procedure.

This no doubt is an important finding, as it not only states that not all fats are bad but also highlights a special aspect of fat that would require further research.

The researchers are working hard to find the substance produced in subcutaneous fat that offer the benefit. Once these substances are found, they hope to convert them into drugs or use them as guides to help develop drugs.

Can Sleep Adequately Prevent Heart Disease?

Previous studies have pointed out that getting too little sleep would yield negative health consequences. For instance, little sleep has been shown to raise the risk of depression, obesity and high blood pressure for children. Inadequate sleep, on the other hand, will increase the risk of fall for older adults while raise the chance of getting cancer, heart disease, infections and stroke for people in their middle ages.

According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), adults typically require between 7 and 9 hours of nightly sleep.

United States researchers from the University at Buffalo in New York said on March 11, 2009 that people who sleep less than 6 hours at night are prone to abnormal blood sugar levels, thus raising their chance of getting diabetes. In fact, people taking part in the study with fewer than 6 hours of sleep were 4.5 times more likely to develop abnormal blood sugar readings in 6 years compared with those who slept longer. The findings were presented at the Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention in Palm Harbor, Florida.

Type-2 diabetes is driven by rising rates of obesity and sedentary lifestyles. It frequently strikes a person when the body makes too much insulin and does not effectively use it. Such condition is also known as insulin resistance.

In order to see if lack of sleep can raise the risk for Type-2 diabetes, the researchers used the data obtained from a large 6-year study. 91 people whose blood sugar rose during the study period were identified and their data were compared to 273 people whose glucose levels remained in the normal range.

During the study period, those who slept less were more likely than those who slept 6 to 8 hours to develop impaired fasting glucose, which is a condition that can lead to Type-2 diabetes. Even after adjusting for age, family history of diabetes, heart rate, high blood pressure and symptoms of depression, the differences remained.

Based on the findings of the current study, the researchers hope that more research will be carried out into this very complex area of sleep and illness.

How Does Fat Accumulation Link to Diabetes?

Being overweight or obese, one is at risk of developing diabetes. Like it or not, he or she will have a much higher chance of getting heart disease and other medical conditions.

A recent study by researchers from Erasmus Medical Centre-Sophia, Children's Hospital, Rotterdam, the Netherlands argued that the amount of fat accumulation of people have as they grow into adulthood would affect their risk of developing Type-2 diabetes.

They found that fat mass of a person in adulthood was the only factor significantly related to insulin sensitivity. It has been known that reduced insulin sensitivity is a precursor to diabetes. As such, parents should be aware of the risk of fat accumulation in their children, independent of birth size or growth childhood.

There was research suggesting that low birth weight was linked to increased risk of Type-2 diabetes. Yet there were others proposing that the acceleration in growth in people who were born small but attain normal adult size has harmful effects on metabolism. Nevertheless, it is still not clear if people who are born small and catch up in body size or those remain small throughout their lifetime are at greater risk of getting Type-2 diabetes.

Insulin sensitivity of 136 young men and women were examined in the study. The participants consists of 4 groups: some were born small for gestational age and remained short as adults; some were born small but reached normal height in adulthood; some were of normal size at birth but grew up to be short adults; and some were born at normal size and remained normal size as adults.

At the end of the study, researchers discovered that fat mass in adulthood was the only measurement that showed a significant link with the insulin sensitivity. The group of men and women, who were born small but caught up in body size as adults, had significantly lower insulin sensitivity than the control group.

A so-called ‘fat accumulation hypothesis’ was then proposed in March 2008 by the researchers stating that ‘an increased accumulation of fat during childhood, independent of birth size, will result in reduced insulin sensitivity.’ They also believed growth acceleration in height and weight as such is not a problem as long as a normal amount of fat is accumulated.

In conclusion, the researchers urge all individuals, regardless of their size at birth, should try to achieve or maintain a normal fat mass for their body size.

What Type of Diet Can Control Diabetes and Prevent Heart Disease?

Being the most common form of diabetes, type-2 diabetes is closely linked with obesity. Because of a high blood sugar level, diabetics are at a high risk of developing heart disease, kidney damage, stroke, and blindness.

Therefore, when one is diagnosed with diabetes, he or she will have to adhere closely to the diet suggested by the doctors in order to control the blood sugar level.

The latest findings, which appeared on December 16, 2008 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, by Canadian researchers from St Michael's Hospital and the University of Toronto indicated that a diet that is rich in nuts, beans and lentils is better than a high cereal-fiber diet in controlling diabetes and hence preventing heart disease.

In the study, 210 people with Type-2 diabetes were randomly selected to try 1 of 2 diets for 6 months. All the participants were prescribed with medications for controlling their blood sugar and had monthly blood tests.

An abundance of beans, peas, lentils, nuts and pasta were given to people who were on the low-glycemic index diet. They were also asked to have low-glycemic index breads like pumpernickel, quinoa and flaxseed and breakfast cereals including large flake oatmeal and oat bran.

On the other hand, people in the high fiber group were given a largely 'brown' diet, which included whole grain breads and cereals, brown rice, potatoes with skins and whole wheat bread, crackers and cereals.

People in both groups were also encouraged to eat 3 servings of fruit and 5 servings of vegetables daily.

The examination at the end of 6 months showed that those on the low-glycemic diet lost slightly more weight. They had not only significantly better control of their blood sugar but also higher levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the so-called good cholesterol.

The results showed that the diet could be one of the many options available to people with diabetes, other medical conditions and even healthy people.

According to the researchers, many popular diets including the South Beach Diet and the Zone Diet already focus on low-glycemic index foods, which produce only small changes in blood glucose and insulin levels. In fact, many of the popular books on diets have already been ahead of the scientists in using it.

While food industry has an opportunity to produce modern foods with low-glycemic properties that can fit palatably into the diet, many of the traditional foods such as beans, pasta that were eaten by the older generations, can usefully be brought back into the diet.

Why Overweight Diabetics Should Go For Low-Carbohydrate Diet?

By following low-carbohydrate (low-carb) diet, overweight Type-2 diabetics can actually keep their weight and blood sugar under control over the long term. Diabetes, if not handled appropriately, can easily lead to heart disease and many other medical disorders.

Swedish researchers from the Blekingesjukhuset diabetes clinic in Karlshamn, Sweden limited carbohydrate intake of the participants in their study to 20 percent of total calories. The most significant effect of this low-carb diet is the absence of hunger. As explained by the researchers, the reduction in food intake will naturally force the body to use its own stores of fat for fuel resulting in weight reduction.

Starch-rich bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, and breakfast cereals were strictly prohibited, and the carbohydrate intake of 80 to 90 grams a day was limited mainly to vegetables, salad and crisp bread. This would actually minimize the glucose spikes making necessary for diabetics to take insulin.

Previously, the researchers had already found that the weight loss and glucose control were superior among the 16 obese diabetics who followed a low-carb diet compared with 15 similar patients who adopted a diet containing 55 to 60 percent of energy from carbohydrates over a 22-month period.

The current study recorded a total of 44 months of follow up data. In the findings, which were published in May 2008 in the BioMed Central journal Nutrition and Metabolism, they reported that 5 out of the 16 patients have retained or reduced body weight since the 22 month point and all but only one have lower weight at 44 months than at start. They further revealed that the glucose levels also dropped soon after the start of the diet and have stayed down over the 44-month period.

In conclusion, the advice given to obese patients with Type-2 diabetes who followed a 20 percent carbohydrate diet with certain restriction in calorie intake has a lasting effect on the body weight and glycemic control.

Are There Gender Differences In Metabolizing Fructose?

Fructose is a simple sugar commonly used for sweetening drinks and foods. Short-term high fructose intake among young people is rather common. However, it appears that men and women have their own way of metabolizing high levels of fructose.

For men, such pattern of consumption will cause their blood triglycerides (fats) to increase and insulin resistance to decrease. This will also raise their risk for cardiovascular disease and Type-2 diabetes. On the other hand, women seem to get rid of the excess sugar load in a less harmful way.

In a study to evaluate the relationship between nutrition and metabolic disorders, researchers from Lausanne University School of Biology and Medicine in Switzerland enlisted 8 each of healthy, non-smoking men and women of normal weight and about 23 years of age to participate in 2 different 6-day diets separated by a 4-week wash-out period. The findings of the study were published in “Diabetes Care”

Not participated in sports or exercise, these men and women followed either the 'control' diet or the diet that included a lemon-flavored drink containing 3.5 grams of fructose.

The fructose load used for the study corresponded to several liters of sodas per day, which was considered quite large. 12 fasting metabolic parameters of the participants were tested the day after they completed each diet.

Fructose supplementation caused the men a significant increase in 11 of the 12 factors, including a 5 percent increase in fasting glucose and 71 percent increase in triglyceride levels. However, women had a significant increase in only 4 out of the 12 factors tested, and showed a 4 percent increase in fasting glucose and 16 percent increase in triglyceride levels.

As the current study only involved a very small number of participants, the researchers felt that further studies should be carried out to include a larger population so that gender differences in metabolic pathways could be accurately be identified and confirmed.

Meanwhile, the researchers also wonder if fructose may have effects that are more deleterious in individuals who are at high risk of metabolic disorders.

Would Gastric Bypass Help Achieve Diabetes Remission?

Gastric bypass surgery is a procedure, which involves sectioning off a small portion of the stomach, to create a pouch to limit the amount of food for a person to take. Meanwhile, the surgeon will add a bypass to reroute food past the rest of the stomach and part of the small intestine so that calorie and nutrient absorption could be limited.

Previous studies had shown that such procedure could actually control Type-2 diabetes that is commonly associated with obesity. In the past, it has been thought that the surgery creates hormonal changes that help improvement in diabetes control.

However, the surgeons at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, showed in their latest study that while gastric bypass could cause important metabolic effects that rapidly improve Type-2 diabetes, the key is still the amount of weight patients lose in the first 6 months after surgery. The findings of the study were presented in the month of June 2008 at the annual meeting of American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery in Washington, DC.

The team studied 71 morbidly obese patients with severe diabetes, which were prescribed with high doses of insulin and oral medications for controlling their blood sugar levels. The purpose of the study was to find out factors that differentiate patients who go into remission from those who do not. “The amount of weight loss by the patient” was identified as the most important factor.

All patients were found to have a better diabetes control as evidenced by better long-term blood sugar levels and lesser medication. Yet, only 48 percent of the patients went into complete remission. According to the researchers, the hormonal effects of gastric bypass surgery are still important but the weight loss in the first 3 weeks to 6 months appears to be a critical factor in diabetes remission.

Morbidly obese patients usually lose about 10 percent of their body weight within 3 weeks of surgery and they can take less medication within the first day or two. This could be an effect on gut hormones, with dramatic improvements in insulin resistance, as explained by the researchers. Nevertheless, greater amount lost at a faster pace seems to improve the chance that patients will remain in remission.

In conclusion, the researchers believed that if the weight-loss effect of surgery could be enhanced by adding medications or rigorous behavior change, it is possible to do better than a 50 percent remission rate.

Don’t Overlook Pre-Diabetes Stage!

When one is diagnosed with Type-2 diabetes, it is often too late to reverse the condition. According to health experts, early detection and intervention in the pre-diabetes stage may help prevent or delay Type-2 diabetes.

So, what exactly is pre-diabetes stage? Pre-diabetes refers to a state when a person’s blood sugar is slightly higher but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. Clinically, it is known as Impaired Glucose Tolerance (IGT) or Impaired Fasting Glucose (IFG).

People with pre-diabetes not only have a higher chance of becoming Type-2 diabetes, but also have a higher risk of developing other medical complications such as heart disease and stroke.

A person having pre-diabetes stage is very likely to progress to diabetes, if nothing is done. However, this may be delayed or even prevented with correct lifestyle modification. In fact, studies have shown that up to a third of people with pre-diabetes may be able to bring their blood glucose levels back to normal over time. Weight loss, regular exercise and medication can correct a key defect in pre-diabetes (namely the hormone insulin, which is ineffective in controlling blood sugar). These three measures help body becomes more sensitive to the action of insulin so that insulin works better in controlling blood sugar, and sometimes, diabetes can be prevented in the pre-diabetes stage.

Unfortunately, pre-diabetes stage does not have significant signs and may just be undetected. The fastest and surest way to find out if one has pre-diabetes is to go for a blood test. IFG can be detected by an early morning blood sample after an overnight fast, while IGT can be detected using an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT). This involves taking a glucose drink and a second blood sample 2 hours after the first blood test. For people who are diagnosed with either IFG or IGT, the most important thing for them to do is to relook their lifestyles and modify accordingly. Some medications may also help.

Exercise Is Necessary Even If You Are Old!

Exercise seems to be a routine that you cannot afford to miss, whether you are a healthy person or a person with some kind of medical disorder. Especially when you land into the category of overweight or even obese, exercise is even more important as it will somehow assist you manage your body weight.

Recently, a study had found that a week of exercise significantly improved the function of insulin-making beta cells for a group of sedentary older people who are at risk of developing diabetes. The researchers from University of Michigan published their findings during March 2008 in Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. Although the study showed that short-term exercise boosts insulin sensitivity, how it might affect beta cell function remains a mystery.

Beta cell function is known to decline with age though the cause is not clear. Ageing may also make people less sensitive to the blood sugar-regulating effects of insulin and impaired insulin secretion may be developed.

There are 12 sedentary individuals aged 60 and above were examined in the study. They were asked to perform an hour-long workout every day for a week. Stints on a treadmill, exercise bike and cross-training machine were included in the exercise sessions. The participants were required to work out at 60 percent to 70 percent of their maximum allowable heart rate capacity.

At the end of one week, the sensitivity to insulin showed an increase of 53 percent, on average, and the beta cell function (called the disposition index) had raised by 28 percent for the study participants. Meanwhile, the researchers could not find any changes in the fat mass, levels of fat in the blood, or any other factors that might explain the effect of exercise on beta cells.

As such, the researchers indicates that longer-term exercise training studies are required and are in fact in progress currently to evaluate further exercise training effects on beta cell function in age-related glucose intolerance.

Diabetes is a condition, if not managed well, that might lead to other complications like kidney failure, blindness, and neuropathy. Meanwhile, a diabetic may have a higher risk of getting heart disease.

Is Diabetes Risk Nurture or Nature?

Most people are aware that diabetes, being a risk factor for heart disease, is caused by development of insulin resistance. Nevertheless, many may not know what cause diabetes.

Previous research has shown that babies who are small at birth are more likely to have rapid weight gain in childhood. This means that it is highly possible that these babies will be obese and have insulin resistance in adulthood.

A new study in twins, carried out by the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, indicated that development of insulin resistance is influenced more by current body weight than by birth weight. Based on the results found, the researchers further suggested the after delivery growth pattern is potentially more important than fetal growth, in terms of later development of insulin resistance.

1194 females twins aged between 18 and 74 were included in the study. The relationships between birth weight, body mass index (BMI) and change in body size over the life course and insulin resistance were studied.

The researchers could not determine a significant relationship between a person’s weight at birth and the development of insulin resistance. However, they did find out that there was a significant positive relationship between current weight and insulin resistance: insulin resistance increased with the increasing of current BMI.

This association was mediated equally through both individual effects and shared environment influences of the twins. No evidence was found to show that relationships between birth weight, BMI and change in body size and insulin resistance were mediated by genetic makeup.

Is Surgery A Better Choice For Treating Obese Diabetics?

Doctors will usually advise their obese patients to watch their diet in order to cut down the unwanted weight. Surgery will only be used as the last resort when everything else fails.

However, a new study has found that abdominal surgery is more effective than dieting in helping obese diabetic patients to cut weight and control blood sugar.

The research, which appeared in the January 23 Issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, indicated that Type-2 diabetics, overweight patients receiving gastric bypass surgery lost 5 times more weight and were better able to contain the disease compared to patients who tried to lose weight by dieting.

The study was conducted in Australia by researchers from Monash University in Melbourne. They believed it is not the method but the degree of weight loss that appears to be the major driver of glycemic improvement and diabetes remission in obese participants. As such, they recommended using intensive weight-loss therapy as the first step in the management of diabetes rather than simple lifestyle change.

Over the span of 2 years, the study followed 60 obese participants, some of whom practiced conventional dieting and others who received gastric surgery.

The remission rate in the diet group was only 15 percent as compared to 76 percent for the group receiving the abdominal operation. The surgery group also had an average of 20.7 percent body weight loss after 2 years, comparing with only 1.7 percent among the conventional dieting group. In general, a weight loss of about 10 percent is required for the participants to see a remission in their diabetes.

Data showed that some 20 million Americans suffer from Type-2 diabetes, which is often linked to obesity and high blood pressure. Diabetes results when a person’s body cannot regulate blood’s level of insulin, an essential hormone that tells the body to store or burn sugar.

Very often, diabetics will also have other health problems such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol that increase the risk for heart disease and stroke, and circulatory problems, which can damage heart, liver and kidneys. A patient's vision, legs, feet and other extremities can also be adversely affected.

Data from the American Diabetes Association indicates that more than 65 percent of people with diabetes die from heart disease or stroke.

How Does Alcohol Lower Blood Sugar?

Diabetes is not only a risk factor of heart disease but also a serious medical disorder. Diabetics who do not have their blood sugar levels managed properly will lead them to many other complications and in some serious situations, blindness, amputation and even death can just happen to them.

In the past, drinking alcohol beverages has been known to lower blood sugar levels in diabetics. And now, results of a new study on animal, conducted by a group of researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, revealed the mechanisms involved. The findings that were published in the journal Endocrinology show that alcohol produces a massive redistribution of blood flow within the pancreas.

According to what was observed in the study, alcohol seems to send more blood to a region of the pancreas called the islets. The islets contain cells whose main function is to produce insulin, the key hormone that lowers blood sugar levels in the body.

Using various techniques, the researchers showed that pancreatic islet blood flow is increased by about 4 folds in rats after an injection of ethanol. Overall blood flow to pancreas, by contrast, was not affected. The alcohol injection also led to increased insulin secretion, resulting in low glucose levels.

Further study also showed that alcohol induced pancreatic blood flow changes by affecting a chemical called nitric oxide and the vagus nerve, a nerve that is responsible for sending many important signals in the body.

Based on the results obtained from the study, the researchers recommend doctors to advise their diabetic patients, especially those with liver problems, to be very careful with alcohol, if they are taking drugs to lower blood glucose, since these drugs may increase the effects of alcohol.

New Possibility To Fight Obesity By Drug

The generation of adipocytes (the precursors to fat cells) could be prevented by just suppressing the protein entirely with its beneficial properties being decreased. The protein, known as perixosome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARg), can actually turn on various genes related to obesity in the body.

This is the latest finding presented by the researchers at the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) at the recent AACR Centennial Conference on Translational Cancer Medicine on November 7, 2007.

Obesity is a well known risk factor not only for diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease but also for prostate, breast and colon cancer. Recent studies have also shown that a protein responsible for generating fat cells can also cause cancer.

The scientists figured out that if they could identify the gene targets of PPARg, they could open up new targets for drug development against a number of diseases, including obesity, diabetes and cancer.

Only a limited number of direct targets for PPARg have been identified so far. A number of new PPARg target genes which are connected to adipogenesis and insulin sensitivity have been identified by the scientists at the GIS. According to them, these direct targets when inhibited, could lead to a dramatic reduction of adipogenic potential.

The oral hypoglycemic drugs currently available can effectively treat Type II diabetes. But it could also cause bad sides effects including heart disease, liver toxicity and weight gain.

If new drugs can be developed to direct specifically those PPARg targets to regulate insulin sensitivity, then it is possible to provide a safer and more efficient therapeutic approach.

The researchers plan to test their data on mice.

Diabetes And Alcohol

Do you know that non-diabetic postmenopausal women who drink moderate amounts of alcohol can reduce insulin concentration and improve insulin sensitivity, according to Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)