Source: LifeScan, Inc.

· OneTouch® Ultra® Test Strips – Genuine(L) Counterfeit®
· Click Here to Download Image

Performance testing of the counterfeit test strips obtained by LifeScan to date shows erratic test results that do not meet LifeScan’s performance specifications. It is unknown how counterfeit test strips which may be in the marketplace will perform. LifeScan cannot ensure the accuracy and reliability of blood glucose test results obtained from test strips it did not manufacture. Patients should discontinue use of these counterfeit test strips and replace them immediately. Patients should also contact their physician to assess potential treatment implications. Use of these counterfeit test strips could result in inaccurate test results that may lead to improper treatment. For example, insulin treatment based on inaccurate blood glucose results could result in serious injury or death.

The outer cartons of the recently discovered counterfeit test strips have all of the following characteristics:

OneTouch Ultra Test Strips
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20061013/NYF098-a )
— Multiple Languages-English and French text on the outer carton;
— Lot Number 2691191 (located on outer carton and vial); and
— Limited to 50-Count OneTouch Ultra Test Strip packages.

OneTouch (Basic/Profile) Test Strips
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20061013/NYF098-b )
— Multiple Languages-English, Greek and Portuguese text on the outer
carton;
— Lot Numbers 272894A, 2619932 or 2606340 (located on outer carton
and vial); and
— Limited to 50-Count OneTouch (Basic/Profile) Test Strip packages.

A detailed description of this issue, specific information for merchants, and periodic updates are available at www.GenuineOneTouch.com.

Upon identifying these incidents, LifeScan immediately notified the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is vigorously pursuing legal actions. The company is also notifying wholesalers, distributors, retailers and pharmacists so that they can quickly identify and remove the counterfeit test strips from the market. Any merchant or patient who discovers counterfeit products is encouraged to report their finding by calling LifeScan at 1-866-621-4855. In addition, any patient or healthcare professional that discovers counterfeit products should file a report with FDA’s MedWatch program by visiting: http://www.fda.gov/medwatch/What.htm or calling 1-800- FDA-1088.

LifeScan, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company, and a leading maker of blood glucose monitoring products, is dedicated to creating a world without limits for people with diabetes. For healthcare professional resources, and information on diabetes care and LifeScan products and services, visit www.LifeScan.com.

(1) The counterfeit OneTouch Ultra Test Strips are intended for use with
the OneTouch® Ultra®, OneTouch® Ultra® 2, OneTouch®
UltraSmart®, and OneTouch® UltraMini(TM) Blood Glucose Monitoring
Systems.
The counterfeit OneTouch (Basic/Profile)Test Strips are intended for
use with the OneTouch® Basic®, OneTouch® Profile® and
OneTouch® II Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems.

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April is deemed Foot Issues Related to Diabetes Awareness Month. Unfortunately, many people with diabetes are unaware of the importance of routine foot care. Physicians and educators are constantly reminding the public of the importance of measuring insulin levels and making sure to follow a diet and exercise plan. What about checking your feet for ulcers, callous and sores? This is a critically important preventive measure as it can potentially save your limb.

Diabetes foot issues like ulcers are important to monitor

Recent statistics show that more than half of the 20 million Americans with diabetes have no idea what a foot ulcer is, yet more than three million (15%) of them will develop a foot ulcer, and 25% of those will require a lower limb amputation as result of their ulcer not healing and becoming infected.

A new study published in the International Wound Journal highlights the effectiveness of a graft made from human tissue which helps the body repair the foot ulcer quickly by providing a means to rebuild the area of missing tissue. The reported data shows that this treatment known as GRAFTJACKET can heal these limb-threatening wounds faster, more effectively as and for less cost than standard wound care alone. The study found that patients are two to three times more likely to achieve complete wound healing when treated with GRAFTJACKET. Additionally, patients treated with GRAFTJACKET also healed more quickly, in five to seven weeks, as compared to six to eight weeks in the control group.

I have used GRAFTJACKET in my patients with compromised diabetic foot ulcers with great success. I have been able to prevent foot and leg amputations in hundreds of diabetic patients. Many patients come into my office seeking a second opinion after they have been told that their foot ulcer cannot be healed and that they must have an amputation. Often I can them tell them that there is an alternative approach that will save their limb. It is a wonderful satisfaction to heal their wound and allow them to continue to enjoy life walking on their own two legs.

As the rate of diabetes increases in this country, it’s important to be educated about preventive care and new medical treatments.

Check your feet daily and if you notice anything suspicious, see your doctor right away. You could be saving not just your limb, but your life.

This is an unpaid guest post By Dr. Jeffrey Niezgoda, medical director of The Centers for Comprehensive Wound Care and Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, St. Luke’s Medical Center, Aurora Health Care, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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When I was diagnosed with having diabetes in the year 2000, I did not change anything about my lifestyle for a long time. It wasn’t until I started having more pronounced symptoms that I made any changes.

What I find interesting is that most doctors believe that denial is part of the normal process in which a patient must go through in accepting the responsibilities of this disease. It’s as if your brain just cannot grasp, at one time, all of the lifestyle changes that will need to be made in order to battle diabetes.

Some of the effects of denial associated with diabetes would be not testing your blood glucose level regularly. You may think that you know what your level is by the way you are feeling. Another would be not changing your diet. What would one bite hurt? As anyone with diabetes knows, testing your levels and eating an appropriate diet are fundamental responsibilities for diabetes care.

Once you get over the initial denial and make the necessary lifestyle changes you will see that you will be happier and healthier for it. But another risk pops up… complacency. When you are having success in your battle of diabetes you may fall back into denial because you think everything is ok. Your sugar levels have been fine so why do you need to keep checking them so often? You haven’t had any sweets for so long, what would one dessert hurt?

It is very common for this to occur. The best thing that you can do once you have noticed yourself slipping is to just get back on track. The longer you go without really taking care of yourself the more long term damage you are doing to your body.

Be proactive, be aware and most of all be happy.

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Today diabetes patients are able to use electronic blood sugar monitors that give automatic readouts every 5 minutes. Also available are insulin pumps that are the size of a beeper, strap to patient’s belts and give an insulin injection right under the skin. These products, along with advanced medication to control blood glucose and a form of insulin that is actually inhaled rather than administered by an injection, are available on the market today. As of right now, not all of those are covered by every insurance. They can be quite costly if paying out of pocket but obviously well worth it.

So what is in the works for the advancement of diabetes treatment? One of the most interesting, in my opinion, is an artificial pancreas. This would essentially be the cure for diabetes as we know it today. The artificial pancreas would consist of a monitor that gives a readout of the blood sugar level directly to an insulin pump. This would be an automatic function which the patient would not have to constantly worry about. This is years in the future but definitely in sight.

There are an estimated 20.8 million diabetics in the country today. As we all hear, this number is actually on the rise. The CDC has predicted that 1 out of 3 Americans born in the year 2000 will wind up with diabetes. It is about time that there are finally options in treatment for diabetics. You and your doctor can work together to find the treatment that is best for you.

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After I became pregnant with my second son Ace, I was diagnosed with GD. I went through the depression, the anger and the denial and I couldn’t understand why this was happening to me. Thankfully with the support of online ‘friends’ and my family I was able to channel all of those feelings into taking care of myself and my son, and into something more creative. I saw my glucose meter bag as a way to do this.

I realized that I had to take this very boring black nylon bag with me everywhere I went and it just didn’t represent my personality or my style. So I began looking for a more stylish alternative, I came up with more black bags, and occasionally a navy blue one. They just were not acceptable, so I decided to design my own. I handcrafted my design and began getting feedback from other people with diabetes. People seemed interested and that’s when my then idea, became a flicker of entrepreneurial spirit.

Stick Me Designs mission is to give people with diabetes variety and choice when it comes to their diabetic testing carrying needs. If you prefer black, there’s plenty of choices for that, but if you prefer a little color, a little contemporary style than Stick Me Designs has a bag for you.

Our bags have plenty of pockets for simple necessities, and for testing supplies, and 5 elastic placeholders to hold various meter sizes, lancets and testing strips. The interiors will also be pre-treated to resist stains and preserve the bags beauty. We also have hopes to launch a luxury collection, a wedding collection, an active collection, a mens line and a special occasion line in the future.

Our first collection is available now and retails for $34.99, and we’re also accepting wholesale orders from medical specialty supply outlets.

Very Best Regards,
Rickina Velte
Stick Me Designs

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Along with countless side effects from Diabetes, complications with the foot can be debilitating. Of the world’s entire amputation rate, complications from diabetes are responsible for 25% of the amputations. This breaks down to roughly every thirty seconds someone is losing a limb to diabetes.

How will an Indicator Plaster Neuropad, or IPN, change the way we detect Diabetic Neuropathy in the future?

The IPN can be performed either in the office or by the patient at home and takes about roughly 10 minutes. The fact that this test can be performed at home by the patient is phenomenal and it allows the patient to participate actively in the prevention and detection of diabetic foot complications.

Currently, it is suggested that patients utilize the Indicator Plaster Neuropad once a year as a way of detecting peripheral neuropathy. This 10 minute examination results in either a pink light when the nerve conduction is normal or a blue light when nerve damage is present.

There is no cure for diabetic neuropathy but awareness and care can prevent complications which could become severe enough to warrant amputation.

Patients who register an abnormal result on the IPN, meaning they have neuropathy, can be instructed on how to better care for their feet and can also schedule more regular foot exams.

Awareness is key. Like GI Joe used to say: “Knowing is half the Battle…Go Joe”.

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An overweight America may be fixated on fat and obsessed with complex carbohydrates, but nutritionists say the real problem is much sweeter we’re awash in sugar. Not just any sugar, but high fructose corn syrup.

The country eats more sweetener made from corn than from sugarcane or beets, gulping it down in drinks as well as in frozen food and baked goods. Even ketchup is laced with it.

Almost all nutritionists finger high fructose corn syrup consumption as a major culprit in the nation’s obesity crisis. The inexpensive sweetener flooded the American food supply in the early 1980s, just about the time the nation’s obesity rate started its unprecedented climb.

The question is why did it make us so fat?

In the past, fructose was considered beneficial to diabetics because it is absorbed only 40 percent as quickly as glucose and causes only a modest rise in blood sugar. However, research on other hormonal factors suggests that fructose actually promotes disease more readily than glucose. Glucose is metabolized in every cell in the body but all fructose must be metabolized in the liver. Any of the best glucose meters can tell you that.

The livers of test animals fed large amounts of fructose develop fatty deposits and cirrhosis, similar to problems that develop in the livers of alcoholics.

TheHolisticOption.com created this anti-High Fructose Corn Syrup commercial to depict the high-fructose corn syrup debate from a different angle.

While this video is GREAT!! It’s not airing on TV in the form of a commercial. It was created by The Holistic Option group and is found on their website and youtube. I hope it would be released to national TV, but unfortunately I also know that money talks in this world and I’m sure the Holisitc Option doesn’t have near the funds that the National Corn Refiners Association does. It was created to counter the commercial of the most recent Corn Refiners Association (CRA) TV ad:

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Your First Year With Diabetes is essentially a month by month guide letting you know exactly what you should be doing and how.

Diabetes can be overwhelming and the first 12 months can be particularly rough to go through. There are so many things to be considered, so many plans to follow, and so much of your lifestyle that needs changing. It can leave you feeling that it is an impossible feat.

Your First Year With Diabetes gives you detailed advice, tips and tricks that are meant to make it possible for you to make small, attainable lifestyle changes that when added up will transform diabetes into a manageable disease.

Some of the issues that Your First Year With Diabetes addresses are:

• Day 1: Mind Matters – explains how to mentally approach a diagnoses of diabetes by re-framing one’s mindset.
• Day 2: Diagnosis Diabetes – clarifies the various types of diabetes and the physiological implications of each on the body.
• Day 3: Eat Wisely – emphasizes the importance of a health diet and covers the fundamental rules of eating well.
• Day 4: Get Active – discusses the role and value of exercise to help manage diabetes.
• Day 5: Check Glucose – describes the different kinds of glucose tests available, how they work, and to choose which one might be appropriate.
• Day 6: A Tough Pill to Swallow – addresses the initial decition to take medication in order to manage diabetes and its basic role on a day-to-day basis.
• Day 7: Your Safety Net - encourages the reader to establish a preliminary network of support people to help share the burden of diabetes.

This book is also filled with charts, illustrations, and hundreds of questions and answers. If you or someone you love is newly diagnosed with diabetes OR needs to get themselves back on track with the basics of diabetes management, Your First Year With Diabetes is the book for them.

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The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. has reported that only 50 to 60 percent of people with diabetes get the recommended yearly eye exam. The effective treatments, including a dilated eye test, can reduce severe vision loss up to 94 percent. A persons risk for diabetic retinopathy increases with the length of time that they have had diabetes.

It was once thought that diabetic retinopathy only affected diabetics who have had the disease for a long length of time. We now know that that is not the case. For some diabetics, retinopathy is one of the first signs of the disease. Diabetic retinopathy happens when blood vessels in the eye’s retina are weakened due to high blood-sugar levels. The vessels begin to leak blood and fluid which makes the retina begin to swell, this is what causes the vision loss.

To be able to take preventative measures against diabetes, you first need to find out if you have the disease or not. The way to do this is by having your blood sugar levels checked once every 3 years once you are over the age of 45. In the case of diabetes… ignorance is definitely NOT bliss.

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The BYETTA Let’s Talk Campaign has been designed towards teaching patients of type 2 diabetes the importance and benefits of leading a healthier, more active lifestyle. It also has a large focus on the role of medication in the management of diabetes.

The BYETTA (exenatide) injection is the debut medication of a new class of drugs called incretin mimetics. This new class of drugs are for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. BYETTA has many of the same effects as human incretin hormone glucagon. BYETTA improves blood sugar after eating through multiple effects that work in unison on the stomach, liver, pancreas and brain.

The BYETTA Let’s Talk Campaign will be traveling to 10 Cities across the United States. The targeted attendee would be patients suffering from type 2 diabetes and/or their caregivers. Attendees will have the opportunity to speak to chefs, health care professionals, fitness instructors and other’s with diabetes about diabetes management.

This is a great idea for getting the word out there on the best ways to control type 2 diabetes. The more you know about your illness the better prepared you are for battling it in the most effective way each and every day. Good Luck.

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