Diabetes drug can reduce risk of cancer, researchers find

Metformin reduced the development of lung tumors in mice by more than 70%. Clinical trials on humans for lung, breast and prostate cancer are being organized.

September 01, 2010|By Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times

A growing body of evidence suggests that the widely used diabetes drug metformin can reduce the risk of cancer, researchers said Wednesday.

A study in mice exposed to tobacco carcinogens shows that the drug can reduce the development of lung tumors by more than 70%, and results from a small clinical trial in Japan suggest it can reduce rates of colorectal tumors in humans. The National Cancer Institute is now organizing a clinical trial to test the drug in people who smoke, and other trials are testing it against breast and prostate cancer.

Diabetes Treatments, Which is Best For You

There are a lot of different ways that a person can treat diabetes. There are just as many different treatments for diabetes as there are people who experience symptoms of the disease. Many diabetics get discouraged when they are forced to search for the best treatment for themselves. If you have trouble treating your disease it will be hard to stay upbeat about it. The good news is that, because there are so many diabetes treatments out there, eventually you and your doctor will figure out what works best for you. In this article we are going to discuss some of the diabetes treatments that might work.

Halt your smoking habits. Even if you hadn't become a diabetic, you already realize how awful smoking is for you. Now that you are struggling with this maddening disease smoking is even worse. Why is this so? You can destroy your blood vessels, by smoking. This makes it really troublesome to deal with your blood sugar levels. It makes it harder for your body to get your diabetes medication to the cells that need it the most. In addition, it causes heart disease, cancer and a range of other health issues. If that isn't awful enough, it leaves you with a really awful odor. Quitting smoking and tobacco use will be hard at first but you will be very glad that you did it. Some people do not like the idea of using synthetic medications to treat their diabetes. Instead, they look for herbal and alternative methods for treating diabetes. If your disease is well maintained through alternative or herbal remedies your doctors probably won't have any problems with your using them. You want to make sure that you check in regularly with your primary doctor so that, if the alternative methods, stop working well you'll still have a way to treat your disease. Whether or not you want to accept it, sometimes western medicine really is best for diabetes treatment.

If you are a drinker, it is very important for you to quit. Alcohol consumption is a major no-no for diabetics. It can be tolerable with high temperance (no more than 20 ounces in a day), however if you have too much trouble keeping track of the amount of alcohol you drink, you are better off to just stop drinking all together. You blood sugar levels can get a bit crazy if you drink alcohol. This makes if tougher for Type 1 diabetics to manage their levels of insulin and tough for Type 2 diabetics to keep watch of their sickness. Plus, the empty calories don't do anybody any good.

Diabetes is a bothersome sickness to have to deal with. It is not uncommon for diabetics to have to handle several unsuccessful remedies prior to find the right treatment that works well for them. It is common for diabetics to have to confront several regimen failures before they find the best treatment method for themselves. Eventually you will find the best diabetes treatment for your body and your lifestyle and everything will get back to normal. Remember: diabetes does not have to completely hinder your life. With some adjustments you can lead a really similar life to the one you had before the illness occurred.


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Source: Kathi Caillier is our guest expert on Diabetes And Exercise

Food for Diabetics - Good and Bad Food for Diabetics

If you are diabetic, finding the right balance of food can be hard. This article will cover the different foods you should eat and avoid when you have diabetes.

Food to Avoid

Avoid food high in sugar, honey and artificial sweeteners. Use an alternative sweetener like stevia. Foods High in sugar include sweets and chocolate. If you need the occasional piece of chocolate (like most of us!) then try to eat Continental dark chocolate with at-least 75% cocoa solids.

You should also avoid certain types of vegetables including beans, parsnips, carrots and peas. All these are high in starch.
You should also avoid fruits including banana, grapes, strawberries and mangoes.

Avoid types of grains including pasta, rice, barley, corn, wheat and rye and foods that contain ingredients that end in ol or ose. These are mainly types of carbohydrates.

Foods to Eat

Foods you should eat should be high in fibre. A high fibre diet is very important for diabetics. This includes cereals, nuts, fruits, seeds and certain vegetables. Food with fibre in is good for diabetics as it reduces cholesterol and glucose levels.

You should also eat fruits that include grapefruit, peaches, lime and apples. Eat fruit and vegetables gradually throughout the day so your blood sugar level won't suddenly rise. You can also eat seafood of all types preferably boiled, steamed, baked or grilled - Not fried.

Eat white meats like chicken, fish and duck. Although you can eat lamb or beef once or twice a week. Eggs are fine for diabetics but try to avoid the yolk. Cheeses are also fine apart from cottage cheese.

Certain combinations of vitamins can help to control diabetes.

Diabetic Diet Plan Introduction

When it comes to a healthy diabetic diet plan you will want to take time and talk to your doctors and/or a dietitian for a little help. You may think that it is going to be a lot of hard work and may even think that it is going to be very hard to do. No matter what you may think, there is plenty of help out there for you to get onto the right track of a healthy diabetic diet plan.

One thing that you will want to make sure is that you eat the right kinds of food and make sure to get the proper exercise so that your body is able to work off all the food that you have taken. When planning your meals for the day you may think that there is nothing that you have to eat but in reality that is not true. You do not need to cut out all the food that you have at home. The only thing you need to do is to cut back the proportions that you are taking in.

There are other things that you need to do as far as the diabetic diet plan. You will need to ensure that you are not eating a large amount of fried foods. That is because the grease is not the greatest thing for you or really any one to eat. With the fats in fried foods you will have more of a chance of obtaining heart disease in the future. It is better to have the meat broiled and the vegetables steamed. Beside that, try using herbs and spices, lemon juice, vinegar or salsa in seasoning food. Trim away extra fat from meat before cooking. Lean cuts of meat is the preferable meat for consumption than others.

The above mentioned are just some of the basics guide for a diabetic. So why not get a little advice from your doctor or a dietitian so that you know exactly what you should and should not do.

The Rule of Diabetic Diet
Regardless of the makeup of the diet, eating just enough calories to maintain an ideal weight is the most effective dietary strategy to prevent the onset of diabetes.

Diabetic Ketoacidosis: An Overview

Diabetic ketoacidosis is when you have acids, called ketones that build up in your blood supply, which signals that your diabetes is not under control. Ketones are found in your urine when you are not getting enough insulin into your body.

These acids can be fatal because they poison your body. People who have Type 2 diabetes rarely see this happen, but if you have Type 1 diabetes this is a real problem.

Type 2 diabetics do sometimes experience a similar condition called hyperosmolar nonketotic coma, but it is most common in elderly diabetics. Learning about the symptoms of diabetic ketoacidosis is very important for Type 1 diabetics to help prevent a diabetic coma or even death. Here are some of the symptoms of diabetic ketoacidosis.

- Urinating more frequently than normal
- Extreme thirst or dry mouth
- High levels of blood glucose
- Increased levels of ketones in the urine

When these symptoms occur, they progress to other symptoms, which are more serious. These symptoms are:

- Feeling tired all of the time
- Breathing difficulties
- Skin that is flushed and dry
- Breath that has a fruity odor
- Confusion and inattention
- Nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain

Nausea is one symptom that can be caused by many things, but if you continue to vomit for longer than two hours, you need to call your physician or go to the emergency room.

Testing for ketones takes a simple urine test using a test strip. Your physician will tell you how often and when you should test your urine for ketones. If you have a cold or the flu, then you should test your urine every four to six hours and when your glucose levels are higher than 240mg/dl. Your physician can advise you on what level of ketones is dangerous for you.

Some of the reasons why your ketones may be elevated are:

- There is not enough insulin in your body. If you do not have enough insulin, you body will start breaking down fat to use as an energy source. This can occur if you do not inject enough insulin or your body is using more than normal due to illness.

- If you miss a meal or are sick and not eating your ketones may become high.

- You are having an insulin reaction. If you have high ketones in the morning this may mean that you had an insulin reaction during the night.

If you have high ketones, you need to see your physician or go to the hospital immediately. Learn the warning signs and check your blood sugar and ketones as directed by your physician.

Diabetic ketoacidosis is not something that you should shrug off. If you have any symptoms of this condition, you need to contact your physician immediately or go to the emergency room. It could be the difference between life and death.

Source: http://www.articlecircle.com/ - Free Articles Directory

Memo to boss: 11-hour days are bad for the heart

LONDON (Reuters) - People working 10 or 11 hours a day are more likely to suffer serious heart problems, including heart attacks, than those clocking off after seven hours, researchers said on Tuesday.

The finding, from an 11-year study of 6,000 British civil servants, does not provide definitive proof that long hours cause coronary heart disease but it does show a clear link, which experts said may be due to stress.

In all, there were 369 cases of death due to heart disease, non-fatal heart attacks and angina among the London-based study group -- and the risk of having an adverse event was 60 percent higher for those who worked three to four hours overtime.

Working an extra one to two hours beyond a normal seven-hour day was not associated with increased risk.

"It seems there might a threshold, so it is not so bad if you work another hour or so more than usual," said Dr Marianna Virtanen, an epidemiologist at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and University College London.

The higher incidence of heart problems among those working overtime was independent of a range of other risk factors including smoking, being overweight or having high cholesterol.

But Virtanen said it was possible the lifestyle of people working long hours deteriorated over time, for example as a result of poor diet or increased alcohol consumption.

More fundamentally, long hours may be associated with work-related stress, which interferes with metabolic processes, as well as "sickness presenteeism," whereby employees continue working when they are ill.

Virtanen and colleagues published their findings in the European Heart Journal.

Commenting on the study, Gordon McInnes, professor of clinical pharmacology at the University of Glasgow's Western Infirmary, said the findings could have widespread implications for doctors assessing patients' heart risks.

"If the effect is truly causal, the importance is much greater than commonly recognized. Overtime-induced work stress might contribute to a substantial proportion of cardiovascular disease," he said.

(Editing by Charles Dick)

Increasing Soda Consumption Fuels Rise in Diabetes, Heart Disease

HealthDay Reporter by Ed Edelson
healthday Reporter – 1 hr 16 mins ago
FRIDAY, March 5 (HealthDay News) --Increasing consumption of sugary soft drinks contributed to 130,000 new cases of diabetes, 14,000 new cases of heart disease and 50,000 more life-years burdened with heart disease in the last decade, a new U.S. study finds.


"The finding suggests that any kind of policy that reduces consumption might have a dramatic health benefit," said senior study author Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who was to present the finding Friday during the American Heart Association's Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention annual conference, in San Francisco.


The study used a computer simulation of heart disease that has been applied to other cardiovascular risk factors, such as obesity and dietary salt, Bibbins-Domingo explained. "We probably underestimated the incidence, because the rise is greatest among the young, and our model focuses on adults 35 and older," she said.


One plausible explanation is that the increased incidence of cardiovascular problems is due to a rising incidence of diabetes, Bibbins-Domingo said, while an increase in obesity might also be responsible.


"Whatever the mechanism, large population studies do suggest an effect of drinking large lots of sweetened beverages," she said. "No one argues that these drinks are not fine in moderation, but over the past decade their consumption has been on the rise, while consumption of other beverages has declined."


A statement by Maureen Storey, senior vice president for science policy for the American Beverage Association, noted that the study had not yet been published in a scientific journal, and therefore had not undergone review by outside, qualified scientists.


"What we do know is that both heart disease and diabetes are complex conditions with no single cause and no single solution," Storey said in the statement, which noted that consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is not listed as a risk factor by the American Heart Association. "Rather, we need to continue to educate Americans about the importance of balancing the calories from the foods and beverages we eat and drink with regular physical activity."


But the study does suggest that any kind of policy that reduces consumption might have a health benefit, Bibbins-Domingo noted. One such policy is a proposed tax on sugar-sweetened drinks, she noted. "The reason why there is a current debate about a tax is that scientific evidence in populations has consistently shown that more than one drink a day increases your risk," she said.


The American Heart Association recommends limiting consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks such as soda pop, while "alternative choices are available," said Dr. Robert H. Eckel, a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado and a past president of the association.


"Juice from fruit itself is nutrient-rich, and its nutritional value goes beyond the carbohydrate content," Eckel said.


The recommended daily sugar intake amounts to just one can of sugar-sweetened soda a day for a man and slightly less for women, he said.


More information


The cardiovascular effects of dietary sugar are described by the American Heart Association.