Diabetes Juvenil

According to a new study, diabetes and Alzheimer's diseases are more related than everybody thought. Some researchers believe that Alzheimer's could be a form of diabetes, because findings show that insulin production in the brain declines as Alzheimer's disease advances.

Through a series of experiments, a group of researchers discovered that the brain produces insulin and that this substance produced by brains of patients with Alzheimer's illness tends to fall below normal levels.

For the neuropathologist at Rhode Island Hospital and professor of pathology at Brown University Medical School, Suzanne M. de la Monte, “insulin disappears early and dramatically in Alzheimer's disease and many of the unexplained features of Alzheimer's, such as cell death and tangles in the brain, appear to be linked to abnormalities in insulin signaling. This demonstrates that the disease is most likely a neuroendocrine disorder, or another type of diabetes”.

During the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, brain levels of insulin and its related cellular receptors fall precipitously, as her group of researchers explained. They believe that Alzheimer's might be a new form of diabetes since the evidence shows insulin levels continue to drop progressively as the Alzheimer's disease becomes more severe.

The team led by de la Monte also found that low levels of acetylcholine are directly linked to this loss of insulin and insulin-like growth factor function in the brain. Acetylcholine is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.

The researchers team autopsied the brain tissue of 45 patients diagnosed with different degrees of Alzheimer's called “Braak Stages” and compared those tissues to samples taken from individuals with no history of the disease.

Rapid onset-fast acting insulin

Rapid onset-fast acting insulin always looks clear. It is fast acting and starts to work within one to 20 minutes. It peaks about one hour later and lasts from three to five hours. When you use this type of insulin, you must eat immediately after you inject.

The two rapid onset-fast acting insulin types currently available are:

1. NovoRapid (Insulin Aspart)
2. Humalog (Lispro).

Short acting insulin

Short acting insulins always look clear. They begin to lower blood glucose levels within half an hour, so you need to have your injection half an hour before eating.

Short acting insulin has a peak effect at two to four hours, and lasts for between six and eight hours. Short acting insulin types currently available include:

1. Actrapid
2. Humulin
3. Hypurin Neutral (bovine - highly purified beef insulin).

Intermediate acting insulin

Intermediate acting insulins always look cloudy. They have either protamine or zinc added to delay their action. These insulins begin to work about 90 minutes after you inject, peak at four to 12 hours, and last for 16 to 24 hours.

Intermediate acting insulins currently available include:

1. With protamine added – Protaphane, Humulin NPH and Hypurin Isophane (bovine).

Preventing Diabetes

You'll need to keep an eye on your blood sugar levels and take treatment for your diabetes for the rest of your life. If you don't have good control of your blood sugar you'll be at risk from damage to the blood vessels and nerves, with problems such as deterioration in eyesight, stroke, kidney disease and infections.

As your doctor has already explained, careful diet and pills are all that are needed in most cases. If you're overweight, simply eating less and losing weight can be enough to allow the insulin to work more effectively.

Why Use Insulin Pumps?

The number of people using insulin pump therapy to manage their diabetes is growing rapidly; roughly 250,000 people around the world use an insulin pump. Their reasons for choosing the pump are many, but generally "pumpers" all agree that it gives them tighter control and more flexibility -- both in terms of their schedule and lifestyle. This control and flexibility includes advantages such as:

1. Eating what you want, when you want
2. Worrying less about low blood sugars ("hypoglycemia")
3. Living life on your terms, not a schedule of snacks and shots

There are many scientific studies that demonstrate that insulin pump therapy results in better outcomes for teens and adults with type 1 diabetes. There are also studies that show that insulin pump therapy works well in toddlers and pre-school children.

Figures from the American Diabetic Association show that diabetes is the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S, killing approximately 210000 persons every year. Medical and other related costs can soar over $100 billion a year!!

The good news is there is a great deal that you can do to help manage the condition at an early stage. Being informed truly is the best medicine. Learning as much as you can about your diabetes, how to control your blood sugar, complications and how to prevent them, can help you stay healthy. As always, be sure to consult your physician first before implementing or changing diet or exercise routines or taking any over the counter medications or nutritional supplements.

Diabetes is a serious condition. It is a chronic disorder of carbohydrates, fat and protein metabolism, characterized by fasting elevation of blood sugar level and a greatly increased risk of heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and loss of nerve functions.

There are two major types of diabetes. Type I and Type II.

Type I is also known as Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (IDDM) and often occurs in children and adolescents. Individuals with Type I diabetes need to inject insulin everyday. It occurs when the pancreas stops producing insulin (a hormone which helps deliver sugar from the blood to the body’s cells).

Type II is also known as Non-Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (NIDDM) and is usually an adult disease. In type II diabetes, insulin is present but not appropriately available due to insulin-resistance. For a variety of physiological reasons, the hormone (insulin) is unable to do its job. The pancreas produces insulin but the body’s cells do not respond to its action and can’t absorb the glucose from the blood so glucose levels rise in the blood.

There are a number of causes which give rise to diabetes. Some of the causes are listed below; however, they should not be considered a complete list. 

Heredity plays a major role. Some individuals or ethnic groups may be genetically susceptible than others. 

Experts are convinced that obesity and a sedentary lifestyle also play a major role in the development of diabetes. 

Impaired digestion and an overworked pancreas. 

Syndrome-X (results from a combination of disorders such as hypertension, high cholesterol, blood clotting abnormalities and insulin resistance)  

Chromium deficiency. 

Prenatal factors. Recent evidence supports the concept that the nutritional status of the mother during pregnancy plays a role in determining whether the child will develop diabetes later in life. 

Food with refined sugars and high glycemic index.  

Imbalance between two critical hormones- insulin and glucagon.  

Misplaced T7 (thoracic 7) vertebra.  

Complications resulting from diabetes can be grave if not controlled.
Some complications include but are not limited to:

Hypoglycemia and diabetic coma.

Cataracts, diabetic neuropathy, retinopathy, nephropathy, skin ulcers, gangrene leading to amputation, stubborn skin infections and heart disease.

There are some early warning signs you should be aware of if you suspect development of diabetes such as 1) Frequent urination 2) Constant thirst or hunger 3) Blurred vision 4) Numb or tingling hands or feet 5) Slow healing of cuts and bruises 6) Frequent skin infections.

Proper treatment is often delayed because diabetes is not diagnosed until a patient is already experiencing complications.

Diet is an extremely important part of diabetic therapy. Nutrition is the cornerstone for good health. A couple of diet considerations after consultation with your physician could include complex carbohydrates that are rich in fiber, fresh vegetables and fruits of low glycemic index, rather than simple carbohydrates such as breads and pastries.

Complex carbohydrates take longer for the body to break down and absorb and therefore provide a slower or more gradual increase in blood sugar levels. Your physician may even advise you to eat smaller frequent meals throughout the day. Along with diet, exercise is also of equal importance. Exercise will increase tissue levels of chromium and also increases the number of insulin receptors. In many instances, changes in diet and exercise may push borderline blood sugar down to a normal range.

The best prevention is adopting a healthy lifestyle. Because obesity is so strongly associated with TypeII diabetes, weight control is an important element of diabetic management. If you want to lose weight to control diabetes, high blood pressure and reduce the risk for developing heart disease then walk, walk and walk some more.

Insulin injections don’t cure diabetes. They enable you to live with it…..that is if you call injecting yourself multiple times a day, “living”. The key word is HEALTHY LIFESTYLE through diet, exercise and certain herbs and supplements.

Diet is a quite important matter for diabetic people. Everything they eat may have a consequence positive or not in their disease evolution. According to researchers from Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, overweight Latino children show signs of beta cell decline, a precursor of type 2 diabetes because they are consuming lots of sugar especially in sugary drinks.

Nowadays, statistics show that nearly one out of four Latino children in the United States is overweight, and the problem appears to be worse over the future. Obesity rates are increasing along with the incidence of pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes within overweight teens. Under a researchers' report published by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, high sugar consumption during childhood may play an important role in the development of diabetes in this population.

According to experts in preventive medicine, overweight and poor diet among these children could have disastrous consequences for minority health and the health-care costs for future generations, if they are left untreated.

The research called Study of Latinos at Risk (SOLAR) Diabetes Project is conducted by the research team from the Keck School. This project examined 63 overweight Latino children in Los Angeles from 9 to 13 years old and do not have diabetes.

Beta cells in the pancreas, experts explain, create the hormone insulin in response to sugar from food. Energy is something necessary to cells in the body's tissues, so they need sugar, or glucose, and insulin helps cells grab and take up glucose in the blood.

Under results of a new study, hypoglycemia, which is a drop in levels of blood sugar, and is severe enough to cause seizures or coma in young children with type 1 diabetes (those who develop the disease very early in life) does not appear to result in impairments in mental ability or behavior.

According to experts and scientific evidence, the hippocampus (a region of the brain) is particularly sensitive to prolonged episodes of severe hypoglycemia. And experts stated that “young children with type 1 diabetes are at greatest risk of severe hypoglycemic events, and this has focused concern on the potential for hypoglycemic insult to impact on central nervous system development”.

After compare 41 type 1 diabetic adolescents and children -who had a history of hypoglycemia with coma or seizure- to 43 similar diabetic subjects but without a history of severe hypoglycemic events, findings demonstrate that a subgroup of patients who had early first seizure showed more episodes of hypoglycemic seizure or coma in comparison to those who experienced a seizure at an older age.

The team applied different tests of learning and memory, but also intellectual and behavioral tests. The astonishing thing is that there were no significant differences between the seizure and no-seizure groups on the intellectual, memory or behavioral measures.

The main conclusion of the report is that results provide “some reassurance to those treating children with type 1 diabetes with intensive treatment that seizures/coma at a young age does not necessarily result in gross cognitive or behavioral impairment”.

Did you know that if you have diabetes you have a greater chance of dying from heart disease or stroke and it doesn't make any difference if you are a woman or a man? One reason is high blood levels of sugar make the walls of your blood vessels thicker and cause them to lose their elasticity, which in turn makes it harder for blood to pass through.

Type 1 diabetes is know as juvenile-onset diabetes and usually affects children and young adults and is genetically-linked. The following are some conditions that are typically found in people with type 2 diabetes, which is know as adult-onset diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

Depression: Depression doubles the risk of a person getting diabetes and after being diagnosed with diabetes a person will go through major lifestyle changes which will cause them to be more depressed. Diet changes and taking medicines are among the things that cause them to be more depressed.

Obesity: Obesity is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and strongly associated with insulin resistance. Loosing weight has been shown to improve heart-health along with diabetes.

Inactivity: Lack of exercise is another major risk factor. Along with loosing weight, exercise has helped to reduce blood pressure and the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Hypertension: High blood pressure has long been recognized as a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke. If you have both high blood and diabetes your risk for heart disease doubles.

A symptom of diabetes is the skin of a diabetic person becomes very dry and flaky due to excessive loss of water, leading to dehydration which could result in a coma. Also it takes a long time for sores or cuts to heal. Diabetes is usually accompanied by sudden weight loss. There are many things that could be or may not be a symptom of diabetes. If you think you might have diabetes, go to your doctor right away to find out and it never hurts to have your heart checked out at the same time.