Here’s some good news for women who find it hard to squeeze into their skinny jeans, courtesy their big bottoms: a generously proportioned derriere could be good for health, say scientists. Researchers believe the type of fat that accumulates around the hips and buttocks, rather than around your stomach, may offer some protection against developing the disease.
Mice given subcutaneous fat transplanted into their bellies started to slim down after several weeks. They also showed improved blood sugar and insulin levels compared to other mice. Dr Kahn said this is an important result because it shows that not all fat is bad and could help prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes.

Since this study was done in mice, there is a fair amount of work involved to validate whether this remains valid in the case of humans. However, any such research is bound to be helpful in the fight against diabetes.

All but one of the 11 extremely obese teens studied saw their diabetes disappear within a year after weight-loss surgery, the researchers reported. The 11th patient still had diabetes, but needed much less insulin and stopped taking diabetes pills.
Previous studies have shown the diabetes benefits of obesity surgery for adults. Dr. Thomas Inge, a pediatric surgeon at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and his colleagues wanted to find out if the same was true for adolescents.
fter one year, those who had surgery had lost between 72 and 218 pounds (33 to 99 kilograms), although none had dropped to a normal weight. For 10 of them, their diabetes was in remission and they stopped taking diabetes medicine. For the teens who did not have surgery, they all still had diabetes after a year and there was no difference in their weight or their use of diabetes medication. Their blood sugar levels did improve, the researchers said.

In the absence of natural reduction of weight, this would seem to be an option that obese people (teens and others) could employ so as to reduce their incidence of obesity and also diabetes. However, this still needs more study to validate this as a safe option to take.

The study “Effect of a Low Glycemic Index or a High Cereal Fibre Diet on Type-2 Diabetes: A Randomised Trial” has found that these foods are better at managing glycemic control for type-2 diabetes and risk factors for coronary heart disease than high-fibre diets.
“Our study shows that a low GI (glycemic index) diet can also minimise the risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease. It does this better than a diet high in fibre, but with a higher GI,” he said. GI is a measure for calculating the glucose level of the blood. A low GI diet contains foods that have a low glucose level. “Pharmaceuticals used to control type-2 diabetes have not shown the expected benefits in terms of reducing cardiovascular disease. Our hope is that the low GI diet may help all the complications of diabetes,” he added.

Given the increase in diabetes projected over the next many years, along with impacts on cardiovascular ailments, research that can improve the efficacy of treatments will go a long way to help in reducing the impact of diabetes.

So it’s essential to have drugs which control sugar levels and reduce weight. And that’s what a new injectable drug, Byetta, does, say experts. It’s made from the saliva of the Gila monster, a venomous lizard found in Southwest America. It’s the first in a new range of anti-diabetic medicines and is FDA-approved. However, it can be used only on Type 2 diabetics.
It works in three ways: It signals the pancreas to make the right amount of insulin after a meal; stops the liver from making too much glucose when the body does not need it, reduces appetite and the amount of food eaten and slows the rate at which glucose leaves the stomach. “Byetta” says Mithal, “can produce nausea and vomiting in some patients. It is a niche drug, not for all diabetics, but is a good choice for those who need to lose weight with high post-meal blood sugar rises that remain uncontrolled even on oral medicines.”

This is not a true wonder drug, since it does not work on everybody, and also has complications for some people. However, one great complication that it avoids is to send a patient into hypoglycemia which is possible in the case of insulin injections. However, one problem is that Byetta is somewhat expensive.

Diabetes is responsible for over 1 million amputations each year. Cardio-vascular disease is the major cause of death accounting for 70% of all diabetes fatalities, said president, DiabetesIndia, S R Arvind.
Arvind said India is the expanding diabetes capital. Over 40 million are suffering from diabetes in the country and it is going to increase multifold in the next 15 years. Unfortunately, there are only 22,000 trained physicians.

India is fast becoming the diabetes capital of the world, with a economy that is expanding, with food that is heavy and oil rich, and with more white collar and service work (meaning a more sedentary lifestyle).

The fast transition of India to western lifestyle has made the country a hub for the disease and diabetes is fast emerging as one of the most common chronic ailment to affect children. Lifestyle changes and awareness of the disease can help many people to live safely with diabetes. “Obesity and inactivity among children have increased cases of diabetes among people of age 12-20 which was earlier prevalent only in those above 35 years of age,” says Dr Shailesh Lodha, senior consultant endocrinology, Fortis-Escort Hospital.
The incidence of juvenile diabetes caused due to genetic factors in children less than seven years is also rising by nearly 3%, whereas for mature patients it is rising by 5%. Meanwhile, the number of diabetes patients among grown-ups is also rising at a similar pace. Diabetes in itself causes less harm, but it can cause permanent damage to vital organs if remains undiagnosed for a long time.

Diabetes is a disease that has the potential of causing major long term harm to the health of society; and this will happen unless there are a number of measures taken to make society more aware of the need to prevent / control diabetes. The way forward should be to:
1. Educate people to reduce the current rate of people who are contracting diabetes.
2. For those who already have diabetes, they need to be properly aware of the normal safety measures to be taken, and follow them adequately.

Diabetes patients on insulin, suffering from acute injection phobia, have an alternative with the launch of Oral-Recosulin, a recombinant DNA human insulin buccal spray. The spray, which is on phase-3 trial and yet to be launched in the US, has been approved for marketing in India
For the treatment of both Type-1 and Type-2 diabetes, Oral-Recosulin can be used. This buccal insulin spray is developed by Shreya Life Science Pvt Ltd’s US collaborator Generex Biotechnology. Buccal spray delivers insulin through buccal mucosa, directly to the vascular system without entering the lungs.

Diabetes is a disease that is long lasting, currently non-curable, and hence attempts to make treatment pain free have a double benefit of being very attractive from a commercial sense as well as making the treatment more bearable.

The nation’s obesity epidemic is exacting a heavy toll: The rate of new diabetes cases nearly doubled in the United States in the past 10 years, the government said Thursday. The highest rates were in the South, according to the first state-by-state review of new diagnoses. The worst was in West Virginia, where about 13 in 1,000 adults were diagnosed with the disease in 2005-07. The lowest was in Minnesota, where the rate was 5 in 1,000.
Roughly 90 percent of cases are Type 2 diabetes, the form linked to obesity.
The findings dovetail with trends seen in obesity and lack of exercise — two health measures where Southern states also rank at the bottom. Diabetes was the nation’s seventh-leading cause of death in 2006, according to the CDC. More than 23 million Americans have diabetes, and the number is rapidly growing.

Diabetes is a disease that is untreatable, and is a big pain due to the constant care required for the disease. If left untreated, and if suger levels remain high, afflicted people start getting complications.

WASHINGTON: Researchers at The University of Texas School of Public Health Brownsville Regional Campus say that patients with Type 2 diabetes may be at increased risk of contracting tuberculosis because they generally have a compromised immune system, which results in life-threatening lung infections that are more difficult to treat.
Dr. Blanca I. Restrepo, assistant professor of epidemiology, said that her team found that innate and type 1 cytokine responses were significantly higher in patients with tuberculosis who had diabetes than in the control group of patients with TB and no diabetes. The effect was consistently and significantly more marked in diabetic patients with chronic hyperglycemia, or uncontrolled high blood sugar, said the researcher. The team said that their findings also showed that patients with diabetes were more at risk of developing multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. The researchers said that they had observed that almost six percent of diabetics living along the Texas-Mexico border had TB that was resistant to rifampin and isoniazid, common medications for tuberculosis.

If this research is shown to be true, it will lead to changes in the recommendations made by doctors treating patients who have a high level of Blood Sugar. It would also lead to a change in the current profile of people stated to be at a higher risk of TB; more elderly people would be at risk and would need to be periodically screened for TB if they already have diabetes (and more so if they have a long running cough).

Dehydration
- Dry skin
- Dry mucus membranes
- Fever
- Rapid heart rate
- Sunken appearance to eyes
- Sunken fontanelles (soft spot) in infants
- Unintentional weight loss
- Low blood pressure (hypotension)
Electrolyte imbalance
- Fatigue, lethargy
- Headache
- Irritability
- Muscle pains

For understanding the mortality rate associated with DI, here’s a correct analysis:
Even if untreated, DI does not cause death or reduce life expectancy as long as enough water is being drunk by the patient. Suppose the patient gets into a situation where the an adequate supply of water is not available, then problems will arise. This can happen, for example, if the patient loses consciousness, is unable to talk or move about, or is stranded in the desert or ocean (sea water is undrinkable). Therefore, it is a good idea always to carry a medical alert bracelet or card and to take extra precautions to carry extra water as well as medication when traveling in areas in which either may be difficult to obtain.