1. Prevent diabetes from ever occuring.
2. Develop the cure to diabetes.
3. Or take care of the people who have it in order to prevent complications.

All three approaches are actively being pursued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the CDC, or Center for Disease Control. The National Institutes of Health is involved especially in doing research of methods to cure both type 1 diabetes, and type 2 diabetes, but they are focusing on type 1 diabetes. The Center for Disease Control on the other hand, is focusing most of the programs that it runs on ensuring that all proven science is put into daily practice for those who are dealing with diabetes. The general idea is that if every piece of important research and science is made meaningful in the day-to-day lives of people who are dealing with diabetes, then the research is not wasted. These are the approaches for a cure that are currently being pursued:

• Pancreas transplant.

• Transplantation of Islet cells which produce insulin.

• Development of an artificial Pancreas.

• Genetic Manipulation, which will create pseudo islet cells by inserting the human insulin gene into fat or muscle cells which do not normally make their own insulin.

These approaches are still facing challenges, like preventing rejection by the immune system, finding enough adequate insulin cells, keeping transplanted cells alive, etc. Progress is being made fairly consistently however, in all of these areas.

Is insulin a cure for diabetes? No, insulin is not a cure for diabetes, and neither is injecting it. Insulin can allow a diabetic to survive, but many devastating consequences can be caused by the disease when the blood sugar level is crudely controlled. The insulin injections a diabetic takes cannot be as precisely or as continuously adjusted to maintain sugar levels that are safe, in the way that blood sugar and insulin levels match normally.

The diabetic can risk a dramatic injection of insulin when blood sugar levels are too low. These reactions can include loss of consciousness, confusion, coma and even possibly death if not handled properly. When the injected insulin is below the amount that is required, the diabetic’s blood sugar can rise to cause damage to the diabetic’s eyes, heart, nerves, kidneys and blood vessels. Insulin is not a cure for diabetes, because it does not restore the diabetic’s ability to adjust their production of insulin every minute, which is a normal part of living.

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Don’t have any diabetic friendly gift ideas? No worries. I have put together some Christmas Gift Ideas for Diabetics that should make any Diabetic on your list happy.

What’s great is that not all the gifts are diabetes themed but all are included in the American Diabetes Gift of Hope program meaning partial proceeds go towards Diabetes research and awareness. What better Christmas gift could a diabetic receive than support for finding a cure for diabetes?

Pocket Page Recipe Book $15.99
We all know that diet is one of the most important elements in living a diabetes friendly lifestyle. A great gift for the diabetic in your life would be providing a place for them to organize all of those diabetes friendly recipes that they have been accumulating. Go one step further and gather some diabetes friendly recipes to fill their book for them.

Snowman Cookie Jar $19.99
I know that this may seem a little impersonal and actually kind of cruel – diabetics can’t have cookies right? Wrong. Instead of giving them an empty cookie jar you can fill it with homemade diabetes friendly cookies. There are tons of places on the web that you can find wonderful diabetes friendly cookie recipes. The diabetic in your life will appreciate the homemade touch.

Cast Iron Fragrant Wax Melter $17.99
Now like I said, not all the gifts have to have a diabetic theme to them. This one is just plain cool. You should also remember that partial proceeds from your purchase of this gift go towards diabetes research and awareness…a gift in itself. This wax melter comes with Cinnamon and Apple scented wax and will remind anyone in smelling distance of a homemade apple pie.

Make A Donation
One of the most thoughtful gifts you can give a diabetic is an honorary donation to the American Diabetes Association in their name. This donation will go towards finding a cure for Diabetes. The person you are making the donation in honor of will receive a card in the mail personalized with a message from you announcing your care and support. To me this is the best gift a diabetic could receive.

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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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New diagnoses of type 2 diabetes rose from 4.8 per 1,000 people from 1995 to 1997 to 9.1 per 1,000 people from 2005 to 2007. These new cases mirror the increase in obesity rates, and obesity is a leading cause of the blood sugar disease, officials said.

“The risk factors for type 2 diabetes include obesity and inactivity, and we know the South has a high prevalence of both obesity and physical inactivity when compared to the other regions in the United States,” said study author Karen Kirtland, a data analyst in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Diabetes Translation.

“The message that we want to get out is to promote lifestyle interventions for people who are at risk for diabetes,” Kirtland said. “People who are at risk for the disease may be able to delay it or prevent it by losing weight, being physically active and making healthy food choices.”

For the study, published in the Oct. 31 issue of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Kirtland’s group used the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to collect data on new diabetes cases in 33 states that reported data for both time periods.

The researchers said the state-by-state breakdown, the first of its kind, found that new cases of diabetes ranged from a low of five per 1,000 people in Minnesota to 12.7 per 1,000 in West Virginia. The territory of Puerto Rico had the largest number of new cases at 12.8 per 1,000 people.

The highest numbers of new type 2 diabetes cases were in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia, the researchers found.

An estimated 23.6 million American adults and children have diabetes, but almost one-quarter of them are unaware they have the disease. In 90 percent to 95 percent of cases, people have type 2 disease.

Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Yale University School of Medicine’s Prevention Research Center, said reversing the obesity epidemic is key to cutting the rate of type 2 diabetes.

“We have known for some time that type 2 diabetes is a worsening epidemic in the United States and much of the world,” Katz said. “We now have evidence that the rate at which new cases of diabetes are developing is also increasing.”

Katz noted that southern states tend to have more poorer people than other sections of the country, a statistic that could contribute to the greater number of new diabetes cases in that region. “This is unsurprising, as obesity and poverty are strongly associated, and obesity is the predominant risk factor for type 2 diabetes,” he said.

The new report could have frightening implications for future generations of Americans, Katz said. “With the entire adult population of the United States projected to be overweight or obese by 2048, should current trends persist, diabetes is a clear and present danger to us all. That threat will persist and worsen, until we resolve to turn back the tide of epidemic obesity,” he said.

As the number of type 2 diabetes cases increase, so does the cost of treating the disease. Reporting in the Oct. 27 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers said the overall cost of drugs for type 2 diabetes almost doubled between 2001 and 2007. Yet, it’s not clear if newer drugs improve patient care and results, the researchers said.

Type 2 diabetes is a lifelong disease caused by the body’s inability to properly use the hormone insulin to transport sugar from the blood to cells for use as energy. Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders are more prone to type 2 diabetes, as are people with a family history of the disease, according to the National Institutes of Health.

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The International Diabetes Federation would like to thank everyone for the time and effort they have invested to guarantee the global success of World Diabetes Day 2008.

Follow the day minute by minute

Follow the day minute by minute at http://www.worlddiabetesday.org. We are making images of events from around the world available as they come in. We will be working around the clock to support the global effort to make a difference for diabetes. Wherever you are, from Fiji to Canada, we are ready to post pictures of your event.

Please submit high-quality images of your event now to http://www.worlddiabetesday.org/flickr/submit?s=0en. The sooner we receive the images, the sooner we can make them available to the global media and highlight what you are doing to mark the day.

Take a moment to reflect

Whatever you are doing on World Diabetes Day, take just a moment to consider the facts behind the campaign:

• Every 10 seconds a person dies from diabetes-related causes.
• Every 10 seconds two people develop diabetes.
• Over 250 million people live with diabetes worldwide. In 2025, this figure will reach 380 million.
• Over 500,000 children under age 15 worldwide live with type 1 diabetes.
• More than 200 children a day develop type 1 diabetes.
• In developing countries, close to 75,000 children live with diabetes in desperate circumstances.
• Type 1 diabetes is increasing fastest in pre-school children, at a rate of 5% each year.
• Type 2 diabetes has been reported in children as young as eight.
• Type 2 diabetes affects children in both developed and developing countries.

A few reasons why we’re here today

World diabetes Day is an action-oriented campaign in support of people affected by diabetes around the world. The campaign is inspired by issues of paramount importance to people with diabetes and their families. Here are some of the stories that motivate us. (All names in the stories below have been changed to protect the identities of the individuals involved. If you have a story to share, send it to the World Diabetes Day team: wdd@idf.org).

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1. Diabetes Live Is A Great Tool For Those Living With Diabetes

For those of us who understand what it is to live with Diabetes, you understand the importance of finding accurate, up to date information as well as receiving support and understanding. This is what makes the Diabetes portal, Diabetic Live, such an outstanding tool for diabetics.

What sets Diabetic Live apart from a lot of the other informational Diabetes sites is that along with getting some really useful diabetes information you are actually able to create your own blog on their site. What this will let you do is share your experiences, struggles, success, ups and downs with others who are also living with diabetes.

Being able to share and also identify with others who are sharing their views about living with diabetes is really a crucial part to successfully dealing with diabetes. We all know that support is key in our fight against diabetes.

Along with the support there is a great Diabetes 101 section on Diabetic Live which is filled with useful articles that deal with everyday situations that diabetics may find themselves in such as traveling, fighting the common cold, proper foot care and dental hygiene. We all know that there are a lot of things that diabetics need to take into consideration in our daily lives and the Diabetes 101 section of the site will make that easier.

Diabetic Live was started in 2006 by Christopher Berry. Christopher is a 33 year old Type 1 diabetic. He was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the very young age of 3, so you can imagine the experience and know how he is able to offer to others who are also living with diabetes.

Here at Battle Diabetes we feel strongly that it’s one thing to be educated about Diabetes but it’s a whole other thing to actually live with diabetes. The best type of support and advice comes from those who live it and at Diabetic Live you can be sure that you are getting just that.

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It was once thought that flavonoid rich foods such as apples, broccoli, tea and red wine were responsible for reducing the risks of diabetes. This was based on a study published in the Journal of Nutrition. After a multi-variable adjustment, it was found that the flavonoid consumption was not the key to the reduction of diabetes risk. The red wine however still played a roll. But who’s going to drink red wine on New Years? I’m drinking champagne.

It was then discovered that women who reported drinking red wine more than once a week showed a 16 percent reduced risk of diabetes compared to woman who reported drinking red wine less than once a week. The same findings were reported for white wine, beer and liquor. These new findings suggest that there is a common protective effect found in all alcoholic drinks.

Drink up and have a Happy New Year!

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