According to the American Diabetes Association
Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes. Millions of Americans have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and many more are unaware they are at high risk. Some groups have a higher risk for developing type 2 diabetes than others.
Type 2 diabetes is more common in African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, as well as the aged population.
In type 2 diabetes, either the body does not produce enough insulin or the cells ignore the insulin. Insulin is necessary for the body to be able to use glucose for energy. When you eat food, the body breaks down all of the sugars and starches into glucose, which is the basic fuel for the cells in the body. Insulin takes the sugar from the blood into the cells. When glucose builds up in the blood instead of going into cells, it can lead to diabetes complications.
Diabetes is the 5th highest killer in the U.S. after heart disease, cancer, storke and respiratory illnesses. More than 70,000 Americans die of it each year according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.
Antipsychotic Drugs and Diabetes
Older people with diabetes who begin taking antipsychotic medications could be at greater risk for elevated blood sugar levels.
Effective Drug for Diabetes
Victoza® is an injectable prescription medicine that may improve blood sugar (glucose) in adults with type 2 diabetes when used along with diet and exercise.
In addition to controlling blood sugars most patients with type 2 diabetes who take Victoza®
experience a loss of appetitive and have a tendency to lose a good deal of weight.
For more information Google Victoza or go to www.victoza.com/index.aspx
Diabetes Projections
In the next 25 years, the number of Americans with diabetes will double to over 44 million people and the cost of treatment will triple according to a report by the University of Chicago. According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), 23.7 million Americans are living with diabetes.
The association’s Website www.diabetes.org/ indicates the most common risk factor is being overweight. Family history, high blood pressure and heart disease are also major contributing factors to the development of type 2 diabetes. The direct medical cost of treating Americans with diabetes will rise from $113 billion annually to $336 billion, according to the U of C report.
The diabetic population covered by Medicare alone is predicted to rise from 8.2 million to 14.6 million people, with annual treatment costs reaching $171 billion. Out of the 23.7 million Americans currently suffering from diabetes, 90% have type 2 diabetes. This makes it the most preventable of all major illnesses.
Diabetes results in other illness
According to the American Diabetes Association, diabetes is the single leading cause of kidney failure. Many people suffering from diabetes also experience nerve and blood vessel damage.
For more information on diabetes go to www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/11/26/diabetes.projections/
According to the Centers for Disease Control even “modest” weight loss will reduce the chance of developing Type 2 diabetes. Regular exercise and improvement in diet, lowered the risk of Type 2 diabetes by 58%.
Intensive Dieting And Exercise:
The Key To Beating Type 2 Diabetes?
by Lily Sparrow
Everyone, whether they are suffering from a health condition or not is aware that they key to living a long and healthful life is to eat well and get the right sort of exercise for optimum nutrition and fitness.
This becomes ever more important in someone who is diagnosed with an illness or long term health problem which needs constant medication and monitoring. Such lifestyle interventions are particularly important in someone who has been diagnosed with diabetes and scientists believe they may have discovered a way to actually put Type 2 Diabetes into remission by following a simple formula.
Intensive diet and fitness measures
A sudy, the results of which were interpreted by Edward Gregg who works for the Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina, looked at data that had been collected from the results of a survey carried out by the Action For Health and Diabetes group (AHEAD).
In total there were four thousand five hundred and three participants all with Type 2 Diabetes that took part, all of them were either slightly overweight or obese. They were split into two distinct groups, an “Intervention Group” and a “Non-Intervention Group”. The former underwent a complete lifestyle overhaul which included a strictly calorie controlled diet and an intense fitness program that meant they were exercising for three or more hours every week. The people in this group had to strictly limit their calorie intake to just one thousand two hundred a day, which was a marked reduction from their pre-survey diets.
The participants in the latter group were given a series of educational support and counselling sessions on how to manage their condition themselves and nothing else. They monitored their own diets and took little or no exercise.
The results of the study
It was found that the people who were part of the Intervention Group were more likely to experience either a total remission, or a partial remission from the signs and symptoms of their diabetes after a year of sticking rigorously to this regime than the people who were in the Non-Intervention Group, who had to solely rely on a counselling based method of support.
The scholars completing the research found that eleven and a half percent of the people in the Intervention Group who stuck to the changes had actually lowered their blood sugars back to a safe pre-diabetes level and could effectively stop taking their medication, whereas in the Non-Intervention group the success rate was only two percent.
This shows a definite trend towards strict, controlled dieting and energetic exercise being the key towards managing and combating the effects of Type 2 Diabetes.However, on a slightly less positive note it was found that of the people that had successfully managed to lower their blood sugars through use of this type of program, less than a third of them managed to maintain their blood sugar levels for the next four years, which led to the suggestion that while this type of intervention may work successfully for some, it wasn’t wholly successful for everyone. The study did go a long way to proving that the main key for assisting with the symptoms of diabetes is a sensible diet combined with regular, effective exercise that helped with weight loss for obese patients who were suffering from the condition.
It was also suggested that this type of treatment may also be successful in those people who have pre-diabetes or are suffering from impaired glucose tolerance after an initial glucose tolerance test. It may also be of benefit to patients who do have diabetes that requires some medical treatment but is not yet serious enough to require any kind of insulin therapy.
What the research tell us
It seems the key to understanding diabetes really is to be careful about the types of foods that are eaten and keeping calorie intake regulated. In the early stages of diabetes diagnosis, especially if the patient is overweight or obese, blood sugars may fluctuate as weight is lost and the body begins to shed the extra pounds it is carrying.
Maintaining a strictly regulated, calorie controlled diet that is set at a maximum of one thousand two hundred every day may become too restrictive and impossible to keep up after a certain period of time or as the desired amount of weight is lost. However, this study is the largest of its kind to ever have been completed on this matter that shows the long term results of dieting and exercise in combination do really work to actively lower blood sugar amongst suffers of Type 2 Diabetes.
It seems the key to understanding diabetes really is to be careful about the types of foods that are eaten and keeping calorie intake regulated.
Medical Disclaimer:
The information on these pages is not intended to substitute for the advice of a physician |