Archive for March, 2010

    How to Prevent the Impacts of Diabetes?

    Diabetes has been a standard sickness amongst a lot of individuals across the world. It’s an ailment that’s believed to be a disorder that is affecting the method your body makes use of or breaks up food for energy. When you have got diabetes, typically your blood sugar gets too high. Diabetes has been widespread with individuals who have nutritional deficiency, folks who are obese, and folks with less physical movement and can sometimes be genetically acquired or hereditary.

    Diabetes has 2 sorts, Type I and Type II. Type I is believed to be as insulin dependent diabetes mellitus. With Type I diabetes, the body does not turn out any insulin or it makes less insulin to regulate the extent of blood glucose in the body. Insulin – could be a hormone made by our pancreas and it can help glucose move to be absorbed by our cells. With Type I diabetes, frequent insulin injections are needed to maintain or help the glucose be absorbed the cells.

    Another type of Diabetes is Type II which is opposite of the primary kind, it’s described to be a condition whereby you’ve got plenty insulin however the cells has become resistant to it. Type II diabetes is believed to be a lifestyle disease as it’s mainly brought about by lack of physical exercise or physical activities, by obesity, or just eating to several of everything, though with proper diet and exercise, you’ll fight Type II diabetes.

    So How to Prevent the Impacts of Diabetes?

    1. Medication

    Always comply with what your doctor tells you to do – especially when it comes to medication. You’ve got to take your prescribed medications day in and day out without exception.

    2. Positive Attitude

    While it can be difficult at times, the difference between a diabetic with a positive attitude and one with a negative attitude is amazing. Those with a positive attitude about the disease tend to treat it like a challenge and an opportunity to live their life as normally as possible. However, the diabetic with a negative attitude generally has a poor diet, doesn’t exercises and fails to take their medications.

    3. Prevention

    This is critical when it comes to your daily diet. How often do you end up eating out somewhere with friends or relatives? If you aren’t the one making the call as to where you’ll eat, or if you are eating at a friends house, it’s important that you inform people you are with that you are a diabetic and that you need to eat a healthy meal. Even if eating a healthy meal isn’t possible at a given time, you can prevent issues by eating a much smaller portion.

    4 Caring For Your Feet

    This is critical in order to avoid foot disease. As a diabetic, you’ve got to monitor your feet on a daily basis. Problems start when you can’t feel your feet due to neuropathy. Simply by running a 10 gram filament test, you’ll know if you have a problem. If you can’t feel the filament, this means your feet will not feel burning hot water, a stone or even a nail in your shoe. If you lose sensation in your feet, your eyes will need to replace the pain fibers. If you don’t pay attention to your feet on a daily basis, you could end up facing foot disease and eventual amputation.

    5. Eye Care

    Diabetics need to have an eye exam by a qualified ophthalmologist or optometrist at least once a year – and more often if necessary. If you’ve controlled your diabetes, your eye doctor will see two eyes in excellent condition. If not, early signs of eye disease will likely be present. When that happens, you’ve got no choice but to control your your blood sugar, in addition to controlling high blood pressure. Failure to do so could eventually lead to blindness.

    6. Monitor Your Blood Sugar

    These days, diabetics have absolutely no excuse for not monitoring their blood sugar level on a regular basis. With incredibly compact and extremely accurate glucose meters available, you can check your level multiple times a day, no matter where you are or what your are doing. Knowing where you stand throughout the day is critical.

    7. Monitor Your Diet

    You know the saying “you are what you eat”? Well, in the case of a diabetic, you have the choice of being in control of your life or your life being out of control. It’s that simple. Gain weight and you gain insulin resistance, which will lead to all sorts of complications. The good news is that you can control this by eating a sensible diet. Don’t get hung up on a “diabetic diet”! Simply eat a healthy diet like anyone else should and you’ll be fine. These days, most restaurants have healthy options, so there is no excuse why you can’t follow a sensible diet, even when away from home.

    8. Continual Testing

    With all the potential complications of diabetes, it’s critical that you have your doctor run several tests throughout the year. Urine tests, foot exams, eye exams, etc., etc. are critical seeing as it can take up to ten years for many complications to develop. Keeping on top of potential problems before the exist will go a long way in keeping complications at bay.

    9. Exercise Regularly

    You may be thinking you’ve got to run 5 miles a day or ride a bike for 3 hours a day. Not even close. A simple brisk walk for 20 minutes can do wonders for you. The key in exercising is to pick something you are comfortable with and do it with consistency.

    10. Stay Educated

    There is so much happening in the field of diabetes research, you really owe it to yourself to keep on top of any new advances as it could help improve your lifestyle and help extend your life. Pick up recent books, or maybe even take a course on diabetes once in a while. Become a member of the American Diabetes Association as they do a great job in keeping people in the loop. You’ll also get the magazine Diabetes Forecast.

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    Are There New Diabetes Drugs Available to Lower Blood Sugars?

    Is there now something better than Byetta? The marketing people at Novo Nordisk certainly want us to think so. In January 2010 regulators gave their approval to sell the new drug for type 2 diabetes called Victoza in the world’s biggest market for diabetes drugs, the USA.

    Victoza is a new drug in the class of medications known as GLP-1 analogues. Glucagon-like peptide 1, or GLP-1 for short, is a hormone secreted by the lining of your intestines when there is food in your gut. GLP-1 has a number of functions that help lower blood sugars. Victoza:

    • stimulates the pancreas to secrete more insulin, and it has a stronger effect on the pancreas when blood sugar levels are high
    • decreases the secretion of glucagon. This is the hormone the pancreas secretes to make sure blood sugar levels do not go too low while the bloodstream is waiting on digested food. Glucagon triggers the release of glucose from glycogen stored in the liver
    • makes beta cells grow bigger and it increases the expression of genes to make insulin
    • keeps the stomach from producing acid so food stays in the stomach longer, helping you feel full, and
    • increases sensitivity to insulin.

    So what’s not to love about any drug that mimics GLP-1?

    The problem is sometimes the net effect of the drug is to lower blood sugars, and sometimes drugs in this class, which also includes Byetta, raise blood sugars. And both effects can be drastic.

    The average benefit of taking either Victoza or Byetta is a lowering of your HbA1c level of about 1%. That’s very useful, but you get that much benefit from the far less expensive metformin or the absolutely cost-free changes you can make in your blood sugar levels with a sensible plant-based diet.

    Victoza has the potential to raise the risk of thyroid cancer… at least in lab rats. Among humans who take the drug, it increases the frequency of thyroid problems to about 3% a year. This effect, of course, completely cancels out any benefit of the drug for those 3% of diabetics who take it.

    There are just not a lot of good reasons to take Victoza. If you do, be sure your health care practitioner monitors your thyroid function every year.

    Virtually any prescription medication has the potential for adverse side effects. Since these particular ones slow stomach emptying, their most common adverse effects are gastrointestinal disturbances such as:

    • nausea,
    • constipation
    • stomach ache, and
    • diarrhea.

    So the best plan is to take these medications at a low dose and work up gradually to the ideal dose to stabilize your blood sugar levels.

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    How to Cure Back Pain?

    Back injuries affect over 80% of us at some point in our lives. In the workplace, over 2 million workers experience back injuries and it costs employers over 30 billion dollars annually. Not only do back injuries affect our work lives but our personal lives as well. The back is part of virtually every movement we make and injuries to it can affect quality of live dramatically – sometimes resulting in debilitating pain that results in unemployment.

    When we think of back injuries we think of heavy lifting that results in a traumatic one-time injury, however, most of the time this is not the case. Back injuries are the result of repeated stress over many years and surprisingly it’s not always heavy lifting that causes it. The sedimentary lifestyles that are so prevalent today are also a factor.

    The back is a complicated grouping of bones, ligaments, muscles, tendons and nerves which are amazingly strong, yet easily damaged. Most workers don’t take precautions to protect the back, yet injuries can be prevented if we understand how the back works.

    If you are a sufferer and your back pain does not need any medical attention, then there are some things you can do yourself if you have simply over exerted your muscles.

    Some examples of treatment you can use are:

    • Resting in bed
    • Medical or herbal pain treatments
    • Hot or cold compresses
    • Massage and relaxation
    • Exercise

    Bed rest on a firm mattress that supports the back is often a good place to start. I usually find lying on the floor helps me.

    There are numerous over the counter medicines you can buy, and there is an increasing move toward natural herbal remedies today. These can be used to relieve pain and also to relax the muscles. Always seek the advice of a doctor and do not self-diagnose.

    Heat and cold can be a tremendous help too. For some people heat can bring quick relief. This could be with a hot water bottle, a bean bag or a nice hot bath with some herbal additives.

    For others, a bag of peas from the freezer wrapped in a cloth, so that the skin is protected, is a good solution. I use a gel pack we keep in the freezer. Cold packs work well, but if you have conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis or related symptoms you should avoid using cold packs.

    If you just have a stiff back and you feel that your muscles are tight, you might find that a gentle massage works wonders for you. Do make sure it is a gentle massage though. Your partner can help here. Using something like baby oil is a good idea when having a massage.

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