Sugar Turned On Me

Anyone who was a kid remembers that when adults attempted to make something fun, it usually came out lame if not embarrassing. It’s not that their hearts weren’t in the right place, it’s just they weren’t connecting to the actual interests of their youthful audience. Trying to make medical stuff fun? Even worse.

It usually involved a musical number.

However, today someone pointed me towards a trailer for a video game targeting kids with Type 1 diabetes. It’s called The Magi and The Sleeping Star . It involves a character who is the chosen one, has to save his homeland, yadda yadda. He also is diabetic and has to periodically take care of himself.

The trailer shows a third person shooter gaming environment  similar to the Ratchet and Clank series or later Jak and Daxter games. There’s things to shoot and puzzles to solve, but mostly we see the shooting.

My fear is that someone tacked on a Blood Glucose mini-game to an existing property.  That said, it looks like it might have some entertainment value and I’m certainly not going to begrude a kid growing up with diabetes a video game that speaks directly to them. Also, all we’ve seen is one trailer and that’s not enough to form anything resembling a solid opinion.

So if you have a kid with Type 1 and you let them blow things up, keep an eye out for this one.

High Fructose Corn Syrup, one of my favorite punching bags, has shown up again in a new study that connects the consumption of fructose, a gene called PGC-1 and insulin resistance.

As I’ve ranted before, HFCS is in everything and hard to avoid. It is a liquid sweetener that is easier to transport and use than granulated sugar and is used for its cost effectiveness. It’s also been linked with liver disease and the obesity epidemic, though not conclusively.

This recent study done by Dr. Gerald Schuman of the Yale College of Medicine dealt with the function of a gene called PGC-1 which in conjunction with another gene can trigger fat production by the liver.  Rats in the test were given a hight fructose diet with PGC-1 inhibited. These rats failed to develop insulin resistance, a condition that one would expect in rats consuming tons of fructose and also one of the symptoms of Type 2 diabetes.

The ramfications of this study are too far over the horizon to say with certainty, but if the results continue to prove true, then a missing link into HFCS and the rash of Type 2 Diabetes we’re seeing these days may no longer be missing.

Of a side note, Pepsi is getting ready to release sodas with real sugar again. Appears business is starting to listen to the demand for non HFCS sweetend products.

When I got diagnosed as hyperglycemic, it was recommended I do 30 min of exercise a day, every day. I followed through with that for a while, though more recently I’ve slacked off a good bit. I still try to do things like vigorously use stairs now and again, but I know it’s just a trick to make myself feel better.

For others though, this may be a way to prevent type 2 diabetes.

A study released recently suggest that as little as seven and half minutes of exercise a week could better your ability to control blood sugar. The doctor who did this research states that it’s a “dramatically different view from current thinking.” If the results hold out to further testing, this could be huge for the time challenged, hyperactive yet chairbound populace of the United States.

The suggestion is doing four to six repetitions intense physical activity for 30 seconds twice a week. Even I, the slack de la slack, can find time for that.

The sad news is that if you’re already diabetic, higher levels of exercise still seem to be the recommendation. And whether you’re diabetic or not, check with your doctor to make sure that you’re doing the exercise regimen that is right for you.

But if you find that the last time you ran was during recess on a playground or if the only thing that raises your heart rate is watching the economic news on CNN, then you may want to check into this guy’s research and see if when it comes to exercise if a little dab ‘ll do ya.

Link: Short, Intense Workouts May Fight Diabetes

The phrase “gastric condom” sounds like the name of a punk band, but in fact is a real device being tested to combat obesity and type 2 diabetes. The concept is that there’s a device that is inserted through the digestive tract and that puts a membrane around the first 60 centimeters of the small intestine. The membrane’s presence causes the stomach and intestines to react in such a way that reduces the absorption of nutrients and causes rapid weight loss, equivalent to gastric band surgery. The process promises to be cheaper than gastric bypass or gastric band surgery, is more easily reversible and would require little change in eating habits.

Somehow, I’m still wary of it.

I have known people who have gotten gastric band surgery and had some dramatic results with it.  I understand their decision and won’t fault them for it, but I’m a little hesitant to consider surgical alteration to lose weight. I’m only slightly less iffy on the idea of doing it to reverse my diabetes.

The criteria for recommending bariatric surgery revolves around Body Mass Index (BMI) which is a measure of your weight vs. your height. At my weight prior to my diagnosis, I might have been a candidate as I had a BMI of over 35 and I had a complication (hyperglycemia). While I wasn’t very happy with my body at the time, I hardly considered myself in a condition where the best option was to surgically alter myself and I’d never trusted the BMI, knowing that it would count a body builder who weighed the same as I did as being just as obese as my sedentary butt.

If you are at a point where diabetes and weight is a critical issue for you, if your weight is due to overeating, if you can’t find another way to lose weight and if you’re doctor recommends it is safe, I can see getting the surgery and the gastric condom being a viable alternative to having your stomach stapled to itself. But it seems that nature of the device offers a quick fix to a complex problem, perhaps a little too quick.

Link: Gastric ‘condoms’ could help obese avoid surgery.

As I’ve said before in this blog, the good news about diabetes is that new treatments are being found every day, it seems. Old ones and new ones. Recently, the following three news stories caught my attention:

• Weekly Injections for Type 2 paitents: The prescription drug exenatide, sold under the brand name Byetta, requires twice daily injections. Currently, a once weekly dose of the medication, which boosts insulin production, is being tested and shows promise.
• Open Wide and Say “Ah”: Recent research revealed that diabetics have certain protiens in their saliva more commonly than people without. While still in the earliest stages of investigation, the reasearchers are hoping that this could be used to diagnose diabetes and maybe even replace blood tests, saving people from that delightful morning poke.
• Everything Old is New Again: In 1876, a drug called salsalate was being investigated as a treatment for diabeties. An anti-inflammatory, it’s used to treat arthritis today. A researcher believes that the people considering using it to help diabetics control blood sugar may have been on to something. Studies are being done and soon to be published that may give diabetics an additional and inexpensive (available as a generic, no less) medication.

Here’s hoping the above stories are not mere pipe-dreams, but something for us to look forward too.

I get updates from Google on every story that mentions the word diabetes. Some list a battle with diabetes as part of a biography; others mention it in crimes (Diabetes Monitors Stolen!). Then there’s the duplicates of press releases. But even considering all that, I get anywhere from 5 to 15 headlines about diabetes a day.

That is a lot of talk.

Much of the conversation is about how the disease is affecting the world. One will talk about the cost of diabetes. Others will point out the risks diabetics face to every part of their body: heart, limbs, brain, etc. There’s been a lot of words written about how diabetes has become an epidemic in India and southern Asia.

It’s not all bad, though. The negative has become so hard to ignore that there are signs of hope around the corner almost every day. New meds are being discovered and tested. Lifestyle advice comes at us in double handfuls. Coke is going to be making soda with a stevia derivitive.

There’s hope.

Every day, more people are talking about the disease. There’s focus and there’s interest. There’s the desire for a cure and the will to prevent. Diabetes isn’t just something your grandmother deals with anymore. It’s becoming a thought on everyone’s minds.

I’m hoping one day we’ll have nothing to talk about, that diabetes will be cast to the same pile as the black plague and leprocy, that was once a greatly feared killer will be reduced to a medical footnote. That day isn’t today, but if we keep talking about it. Maybe it will come.

So listen.

I remember that when I was a kid in science class, I was amazed that you made vitamin D just by standing in the sun. Later, when I got older, I got more of it from milk as I’d not yet developed a taste for leafy greens but had gotten used to being nocturnal. I may be spending more time in the sun soon, though.

A recent study at Chicago’s Loyola University has shown that Vitamin D may prevent diabetes and helps reduce symptoms in those already with the disease. Apparently, Vitamin D has been the subject of a fair bit of research lately, connecting its lack to stunted growth in pubescent girls and breast cancer. It’s become what one article called the “it” nutrient, which thankfully doesn’t mean what it does when they talk about “it” girls, but rather that it’s getting a lot of attention.

While I’m always a little hesitant to jump on any health research until at least one person cries “balderdash!”, I won’t deny that this is a little exciting. Aside from the potential for another natural weapon in my anti-diabetes armory, it doesn’t suck that the research may help people avoid Type 1 diabetes altogether (fingers crossed).

I think I’ll go celebrate with a glass of milk. Or brocolli. But not in the same cup.

When I was a kid, I knew a guy who was missing his left arm. There had been a horrible incident involving a motorcycle and a barbed wire fence that had caused him the injury, but he had a prosthetic arm that ended in a pair of hooks. When I looked at the guy, I thought to myself “I could stand to lose my left arm”. I’m right handed anyway and with the way science was progressing, I fully expected we’d have cybernetic limbs to turn me into Steve Austin by now.

In general, I think most of us have a list of things we could lose on our bodies, starting with the limbs, going to the sensory organs and continuing to the bits that let us have sex. At the bottom of the list though, the one that keeping is a bloody priority, is our minds. I know that the prospect of losing my ability to think, to speak and to comprehend scares the living excrement out of me.

Alas, this may be one of the symptoms of diabetes.

A few articles I read lately have pointed to studies indicating that diabetics may suffer cogintive difficulties early in life and getting worse as they get older. I’d known that the disease effected memory, so the news isn’t as shocking as it might be. Even forewarned, a pretty nail biting level of shock that comes with it still.

The defense that we have is first and foremost, keep our blood sugar under control. Also,  exercise that brain: sudoku, brain games, puzzles; use it or lose it. With the potentiality of not being able to comprehend things staring me down, doing a crossword puzzle may be little comfort, but it’s better than nothing.

At 37, I already feel like I’m getting old. When I was diagnosed, my doctor described me as  pushing 40 (My internal monologue crying out “No… not pushing 40. Lightly touching 40. Waving casually at 40 in the grocery line.”) When I forget something I was doing a second ago or where I laid my coat down when I came in, it makes me feel older. I don’t want my systems to break down and least of all, the one’s above my neck.

So I eat right and  find ways to keep my brain active and hope that maybe, just maybe, when I’m older I remember what I was doing all of it for.

One of the glorious aspects of the internet is the ability to voice one’s outrage almost as soon as you have it to as wide an audience as you can find. While usually, I try to calm down a bit before I spew out my irritation upon an unsuspecting public, today I feel little remorse in dipping my virtual quill into a jar of bile and vitrol and scribbling upon the imaginary paper you see before you. The cause for this teeth grinding, stomach tightening irritation: The proposed NY soda tax .

The gist of it is this: New York state’s 2009 budget includes an 18% tax on sodas, sugary soft drinks and fruit drinks under 70% juice. This in theory would be used to fight obesity and raise awareness. It’s being likened to the higher taxes on cigarettes and Govenor David Paterson is saying this is a necessary step in the battle against childhood obesity and diabetes.

I won’t say that obesity isn’t a problem, even if I think the standard by which obesity is determined is arbitrary. There is a point where excess body fat has negative health impacts and that’s a serious problem. As this is a blog about diabetes, I obviously am not going to say that that isn’t an issue either. So why does this thought anger me? Because it’s a sin tax, and sin taxes are wrong.

Taxation is one of the big sticks a government can wield, on par with military force. “The power to tax is the power to destory” it has been said. In theory, taxation is to raise monies necessary for the government to do it’s job, but properly applied it can be a blunt instrument used to enforce the will of the state.

Sin taxes are mommy government cutting your allowance; it’s not the government’s job to be a parent to the populace.

Besides that, when a tax like this gets proposed, it usually gets defeated because of who it targets the most: the poor. Cheap food is made with a lot of sweeteners so that it will be palatable. I’m not saying this is a good plan and it’s one of the things that I feel is a shame upon the fast food and mass produced food markets. But raising taxes on the sweet stuff means raising taxes on the cheap stuff which means hurting poor people.

Does anyone need or have to drink soda? No. Do some people do it because it’s cheap? Yep.

Then there’s the standard by which they’re choosing drinks. Consider that 8oz of soda,  chocolate milk, unsweetened apple juice or orange juice all have about the same amount of carbs (within 5 grams). How many of those are going to get taxed again? Sure, the last three all have vitamins, but so does Glaceau Vitamin Water… which would be taxed and has less sugar per serving than any of these.

Most importantly, taxes like this  skirt the actual issue involved, that being the matter of personal responsibility. I got to be a type 2 diabetic by consuming about a gallon of soda every 48 hours for 15 years combined with not really supplementing my diet with much else of any nutritional value. I blame no one for this but myself.  The day I found out that I was diabetic, I stopped drinking soda.  I reject the idea that I or anyone else can’t avoid soda if they choose and have to be forced into a better choice.

Not to mention, we’re talking about childhood obesity here. The adults are the one’s supplying the soda most of the time, I imagine. Do you think that upping the cost is going to make them suddenly buy healthy drinks or simply serve the same thing and grumble about the price of groceries?

Be it a tax on cigarettes, a tax on booze or a tax on soda, you don’t get the result you want until you change the people. Until then, you’re merely profitting off of people’s bad behavior because as a society we’ve failed to teach ourselves moderation. I don’t doubt that we need to do something to make sure that the next genaration doesn’t all die of heart failure by the time they’re 40, but I find the idea that we should do that by poking the wallets of people an offensive and dangerous concept.

After all, what else do we think is a problem that we can tax? What does the government have to target before we see that such practices for the rude extortion that they are? Do we really have the right to say stay healthy or pay up?

Me, I don’t think so.

Now that World Diabetes Day has come and gone, it would be about this time that a concerned blogger might post a cautionary “don’t forget” article reminding you that diseases exist on other days beside the ones we set aside for their rememberance. The previous sentence withstanding, I am not that blogger. I read the news and I don’t think that people are really in danger of forgetting.

This doesn’t mean that what it means to have diabetes is commonly understood. I’d be suprised if 5 out of any random 10 people in America could tell you what diabetes actually is. But if the news is any indicator, diabetes is at the forefront of the thoughts of a lot of people.

Some of those are the people calculating that diabetes is costing America 200+ billion dollars a year. Some of those are people trying to cure the disease. Some of those people are trying to continue to educate about the disease and it’s prevention. Others are those trying to help the person in their life that can’t forget diabetes because they have it.

Some of the research is encouraging. As I posted yesterday, new drugs are constantly being developed. People are getting closer to the roots of the problem and others are finding ways to prune those roots.

Then there are studies like these:

There are miles left to go, so to speak.

So no finger wagging, no guilt tripping tugs at the collective conscious of the blogosphere.  The world knows that diabetes is there, both the parts that do and don’t make/use insulin normally. I trust you.

But if the world ever thinks it might forget… don’t think I’m not watching.