Tune in to Ketones
Do you know what ketones are? No, it's not a musical term. In fact there's nothing melodic about them. If prolonged high blood sugar plagues you, you should know about this common complication and take control.
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Kick Butts!
Today, April 2, is Kick Butts Day 2008. Smoking is a habit that hurts everyone, smokers and non-smokers alike. Smokers are insulin resistant, show signs of insulin resistance syndrome, and are at an increased risk – 50% in men and women – for developing type 2 diabetes. Put your health first and commit to quit today!
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March is National Kidney Month
Diabetes is the number one cause of chronic kidney (or renal) failure in the U.S., and kidney disease among people with diabetes has more than doubled in the past decade. According to the National Kidney Foundation, approximately 30% of people with long-term type 1 diabetes (about one in three) will develop kidney disease. The good news is that with early detection and proper treatment, kidney disease can be slowed and, in some cases, reversed.
How much do you know about your kidneys and how they work? Take our quiz to find out! Also, learn more about the prevention and treatment of kidney disease.
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ACCORD Trial Makes News
Today, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a major change in the ACCORD (Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes) study - a large-scale North American trial with over 10,000 participants. One arm of the trial, which examined the impact of intensively-controlled type 2 diabetes management (i.e., an A1C goal of less than 6%) in preventing cardiovascular complications, was stopped eighteen months early. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) found that type 2 ACCORD participants at high risk for heart attack and stroke who were placed in the intensive diabetes management group had an increased risk of death compared with their peers who were placed in a less-intensive standard treatment (i.e., A1C of 7 to 7.9%) group. It's important to note that the increased risk was slight, and was specific to only a subset of patients who had two or more risk factors for heart disease outside of diabetes or who had pre-existing heart disease upon entering the study.
Read more about the ACCORD changes here.
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Flu Season Begins
You know it's that time of the year when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control starts up their weekly influenza surveillance reports. We're in week two now - take a look at the CDC influenza activity map to see how the flu is hitting your area.
Remember, people with diabetes are at high risk for complications from the flu, so getting your flu shot early is important. And if you do get sick, make sure you know how to take care of your diabetes during an illness.
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Managing Your Cardio Risk
Is focusing on controlling blood sugar levels enough? That's the question Gina Kolata of The New York Times asked yesterday in a feature story about heart disease risk in the diabetes population - and how high cholesterol and blood pressure remains seriously undertreated. It's also apparently misunderstood. In a recent ADA survey, only 18 percent of people with diabetes acknowledged that the disease put them at increased risk for cardiovascular disease.
The big takeaway is that while keeping blood glucose levels under control is important, and may decrease damage to small blood vessels, cholesterol reduction and blood pressure control are key to preventing cardiovascular disease. This may mean adding drugs, like statins, to an already complicated diabetes regimen, but in terms of preventing long-term heart problems, it's worth it.
Read The New York Times article.
RELATED: Take the Heart Disease Risk Quiz!
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Love Your Heart
February is American Heart Month. dLife's Lara Rondinelli, RD, CDE, explains how you can eat heart smart all year long.
RELATED: Cardiovascular Complications of Diabetes
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Kick Butt
Today is the Great American Smokeout. There's no doubt that smoking is a hard habit to break. Nicotine is arguably the most widely available, yet highly addictive and medically harmful substance in America today. An estimated 45 million adult Americans are smokers. But each year, 438,000 of these people die prematurely as a result of smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke.
Research tells us the health stakes are higher for people with diabetes. If you smoke, you're automatically doubling your risk of developing diabetic neuropathy. You're also increasing your risk of heart problems and kidney damage. And smoking has also been linked to poorer blood sugar control and increased insulin resistance.
Despite all this, roughly 25% of people living with diabetes continue to smoke. It starts with one day of saying no to tobacco. Why not make it today?
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Forgiveness is Divine
If you live with diabetes-related complications and believe that they happened because you ignored past advice, forgive yourself. Some of your issues will improve if you take better care of yourself and future complications can still be avoided or delayed. You have a great life ahead of you, so try to start each day with a positive attitude. dLife columnist Janis Roszler, LD/N, CDE has some suggestions to help you do just that.
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Seeing Clearly
Diabetic retinopathy is a frightening diagnosis. Hear about one man's experience, and how it changed the course of his life and his diabetes control.
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