Everyday Americans average 5 hours of watching TV or recreational computer use. Research has been telling us that this much TV is not good for our health and that we should be outside or being active instead. And now another study has just told us that too much TV time actually contributes directly to diabetes, heart disease or earlier death if you already have one of these diseases. Yikes.
Now, the TV or the computer screen is not actually doing the damage but it is the time spent slumped on the couch, the types of food we tend to eat in front of the TV and the amount of food we tend to eat in front of the TV that actually causes the significant damage.
Dr. Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health is the primary study author. He says, "the combination of a sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy diet, and obesity creates a 'perfect breeding ground' for type 2 diabetes and heart disease." From the over 200,000 people involved in this study, they found that every 2 hours of watching daily television increased risk of diabetes by 20% and increased risk of heart disease by 15%. The most sobering statistic is that every 2 hours of TV per day increased the risk of dying early by 13%.
From the study, Hu and his research team estimate that if 100,000 people reduce their daily TV time by 2 hours, they could prevent 176 new cases of diabetes, 38 cases of fatal cardiovascular disease, and 104 premature deaths -- every year.
There is a new medication for type 2 diabetes that has been approved by the FDA. Tradjenta (linagliptin) is meant to be used as treatment along with good nutrition and exercise. This pill should be taken once a day and it can be used in combination with other type 2 oral medications such as metformin.
Tradjenta makes gut hormones available by blocking an enzyme, DPP-4, that breaks down those gut hormones. That means that this medication is called a DPP-4 inhibitor. With DPP-4 out of the way, the gut hormones are able to tell the pancreas to produce more insulin.
When Tradjenta was taken along with metformin, A1c decreased by 0.6%. With a sulfonylurea, A1c dropped by 0.5%. And Tradjenta plus metformin plus a sulfonylurea caused A1c to decrease by 0.6%.
Do you really know how to brush your teeth? Actually many people go about brushing and flossing their teeth the wrong way. Don’t be insulted because many people just don’t know their brushing technique isn’t as effective as they think. Brushing, flossing, and regularly seeing your dentist are the best three ways to prevent oral problems. But there are ways to maximize each of these three preventive measures.
Louder zzzz’s seem to be the punch line of more jokes than clinical conversations. Looked at as more of an inconvenience than anything serious, snoring is overlooked frequently as a sign for clinical problems or conditions.
Actually, snoring is a sign of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Obstructive sleep apnea is caused by frequent stops in breathing while you sleep. Normally, the breathing is stopped because there is an obstruction of the upper airway.
This occurs most often in overweight, middle-aged and elderly individuals. Obstructive sleep apnea results in low levels of oxygen in your blood (because you are not breathing in enough air), waking up often during the night, and being very sleepy during the day.
Sticking with exercise is the key in long term health for people that don’t spend a lot of time working out.
A recent study compiling data and information about exercise and mortality showed that a sedentary person’s risk for dying prematurely decreased almost 20% if that person started and sustained a walking program, 30 minutes of walking 5 times a week for several years.
Those results are not noted if the individual only continues the walking program for a short period of time. So, it is very important to pick an exercise that you can continue for the rest of your life. And having different types of exercise that you like to do is beneficial too.
How have you handled eating out since your diagnosis of diabetes?
Do you still eat out weekly, not caring about the consequences of your food choices? Or have you reverted to eating at home, scared to face a large menu with confusing choices? (Is it healthy? How will it affect my blood sugar? How many calories are in that?)
Of course it is important to make the best food choices under any circumstance, but dining out can be very difficult. Being tempted by foods and desserts that you know are not in your meal plan for the day can be a big challenge. Or navigating a menu from an ethnic restaurant where you’re not sure how the menu items are prepared can thwart your good intentions.
Even though it might be difficult, diabetes does not need to prevent you from dining out occasionally or with friends for special occasions. Planning and preparing will equip you to make the best choices possible. Here are a few ideas and red flags to watch out for.
Some parts of the US are starting to warm up and feel the beautiful affects of spring! Once the snow melts and that beautiful blue sky calls you outdoors, there are more chances of getting cuts, scrapes, blisters and any type of wound.
Take a look at this post and this post about preventing foot sores and keep reading here to learn about taking care of wounds that you do get.
The following article was published on the National Institute of Health (NIH) website earlier this week. The article explains that researchers in California discovered adding nicotine to red blood cells increases the Hemoglobin A1c.
This means that every time a person with diabetes smokes a cigarette, they are raising their blood sugar, increasing their risk for heart disease and they are at higher risk for other diabetes complications.
Here are the main points of the study:
Everyone should quit smoking, but people with diabetes really need to quit smoking.
In the study, nicotine raised glucose levels in red blood cells, the same thing that happens in the human body.
In the study, A1c increased by 8.8%-34.5% depending on the amount of exposure to nicotine.
This means that nicotine patches and other quitting methods with nicotine should be used for a short amount of time only to quit. The nicotine replacements will still raise your blood sugar.
Smoking increases your risk for heart disease and other diabetes complications, and smoking might be a contributor to uncontrolled diabetes.
Go ahead and read this article and then visit this to start your road to freedom from smoking and nicotine.
Diabetes is a disease that affects your whole body, from your eyes to your blood vessels, to your toes. But many people with diabetes live wonderful, healthy lives and are not held back by complications like nerve damage or heart problems.
They put extra effort into each day than the average person and come out with more satisfaction knowing they are conquering more than the average person.
You probably know that managing diabetes can be complicated, but there are a few changes you can make with major impact.
Controlling your blood sugar is the biggest improvement you can make but a lot goes into controlling your blood sugar:
controlling carbohydrate intake;
possibly taking medication or insulin;
exercising;
checking your blood sugar regularly;
reducing stress;
and the list goes on.
The following simple changes will help lead to better blood sugar control along with your other treatments, but making all these changes together will give you the biggest impact on preventing complications.
Checking your blood sugar right before you eat a meal is an important habit to get into. It will give you an idea what your blood sugar has been doing for the last 3-4 hours and it will give you direction in what and how much you should eat at that meal.
So what do you do if your blood sugar is high when you check right before a meal? It is important to make sure that you don't cause your blood sugar to go higher and stay there longer with your next meal.
Remember that your goal should be 90-130mg/dL before a meal if you haven’t eaten since your last meal; but if you ate a snack less than 2 hours prior, your blood sugar is just fine if it is under 180mg/dL.
It is difficult to quickly fix high blood sugar if you are just about to eat, but here are a few tips and actions that can help prevent that high reading or help you bring it down so you will still be under 180mg/dL 2 hours after that meal you are about to eat.
Everyday Americans average 5 hours of watching TV or recreational computer use. Research has been telling us that this much TV is not good for our health and that we should be outside or being active instead. And now another study has just told us that too much TV time actually contributes directly to diabetes, heart disease or earlier death if you already have one of these diseases. Yikes.
