Diabetes Heart Treatments May Cause Harm
March 15, 2010
The New York Times
By Gina Kolata
Three aggressive treatment strategies doctors had expected would prevent heart attacks among people with Type 2 diabetes and some who are the verge of developing it have proved to be ineffective or even harmful, new studies show.
The results are surprising and disappointing, heart and diabetes experts say. An estimated 21 million Americans have Type 2 diabetes, the kind once known as adult-onset, and they are at enormous risk for heart disease. The only measures proved to reduce their chances — avoiding cigarettes and taking medication to lower bad cholesterol and blood pressure — still leave diabetics with a heart attack risk equivalent to that of a nondiabetic who has already had a heart attack.
So doctors began trying other strategies they hoped would help: getting blood pressure to a normal range; raising levels of good cholesterol and lowering levels of dangerous triglycerides; or modulating sharp upswings in blood sugar after a meal.
It is not known how many doctors have been encouraging patients to take these measures, but medical specialists say it seemed reasonable and tempting to do so.
“Doctors always want to improve the lives of their patients, and that often leads to pressure to treat more and more,” said Dr. Henry N. Ginsberg, director of the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research at Columbia University. The new studies, he says, could save a lot of people from taking drugs that will not help them.
The papers were presented at an American College of Cardiology meeting on Sunday and are being published online by The New England Journal of Medicine.
In Type 2 diabetes, the body is resistant to the hormone insulin, leading to abnormally high blood sugar levels that can cause eye, kidney and nerve disease. But heart disease is what kills most patients. A quarter to a third of heart attack patients have diabetes, even though diabetics constitute just 9 percent of the population. And 25 percent of heart attack patients are on the verge of diabetes, with abnormally high blood sugar levels.
High blood sugar levels themselves increase the risk of heart disease, but researchers found two years ago that rigorously controlling blood sugar did not prevent heart disease or deaths in people with Type 2 diabetes. Researchers said the failure was probably because most of those patients also had other problems that made their odds of heart disease soar, like high levels of LDL cholesterol, low levels of HDL cholesterol, high levels of triglycerides and high blood pressure. And most were older and overweight.
Type 2 diabetes “captures all these risk factors in one patient,” said Dr. David Nathan, director of the diabetes center at Massachusetts General Hospital.
It seemed logical to look at the other risk factors. One large federal study asked if getting high blood pressure down to a level considered normal, a systolic pressure of no more than 120, would help protect diabetics from heart disease and save lives.
This hypothesis was promising because studies that observed populations found that heart disease and stroke risk increase continuously as systolic blood pressure rises from 115 on up, said Dr. William C. Cushman, a study investigator and chief of the preventive medicine section at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Memphis.
To put the idea of a normal blood pressure to the test, half of the study’s 4,773 participants took drugs to get their systolic blood pressure to 120 or below. The rest had a blood pressure goal of less than 140.
But lower blood pressure did not prevent heart attacks or cardiovascular deaths, and those with lower blood pressure were more likely to suffer severe side effects from the drugs, like high potassium levels or dangerously low blood pressures. They also took an average of 3.4 drugs to lower blood pressure, compared with an average of 2 drugs for those with the higher pressure.
A second, less rigorous study, involving 6,400 patients with Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, asked whether getting systolic blood pressure lower than 130 was any better than getting it to 130 to 140. It found that patients actually were worse off: those with the lower blood pressure ended up with a 50 percent greater risk of strokes, heart attacks or deaths.
National blood pressure treatment guidelines call for a systolic pressure of 130 or lower. That was based on expert opinion and observational studies, Dr. Cushman said. Now, he said, it is likely to be reconsidered when the group that sets the guidelines prepares a report this year.
People with diabetes also tend to have low levels of HDL cholesterol and high levels of triglycerides, a combination known to increase the risk of heart disease. And in some studies, treating that combination with a type of drug called a fibrate reduced risk in diabetics and nondiabetics who were not taking statins. So it made sense to see if fibrates also helped Type 2 diabetics who were taking statins.
It did not, concluded another arm of the federal study involving 5,518 people with Type 2 diabetes.
“It’s a disappointment,” said Dr. Ginsberg, a lead study investigator. “But it’s very, very important,” because it says most people will not be helped by taking the additional drug.
It means, said Dr. Denise Simons-Morton of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the project officer for the federal study, that “doctors and patients now know that the inclination to do intensive treatment that people seemed to think would be better for cardiovascular risk reduction wasn’t better.”
A final studyinvestigated the popular hypothesis that rapid rises in blood glucose after a meal were dangerous and could lead to heart disease. Many doctors were giving drugs assuming the hypothesis was correct, Dr. Nathan said.
“Every meeting you go to, some academic is talking about how postprandial hyperglycemia is really bad and that you should aim specifically to get it lower,” Dr. Nathan said. The study, he said, “is a direct test of that.”
The study, which involved 9,300 patients at high risk for diabetes because their blood sugar was high, tested the drug nateglinide, which enhances insulin secretion. It also tested a blood pressure drug. Neither decreased heart disease risk.
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New Gene Test May Help Pick A Diet Plan
March 3, 2010
Reuters
By Maggie Fox
Can’t lose weight on a low-fat diet? Maybe you need to cut carbs instead, and a new genetic test may point the way, maker Interleukin Genetics Inc reported on Wednesday.
The small study of about 140 overweight or obese women showed that those on diets “appropriate” for their genetic makeup lost more weight than those on less appropriate diets, researchers told an American Heart Association meeting.
“The potential of using genetic information to achieve this magnitude of weight loss without pharmaceutical intervention would be important in helping to solve the pervasive problem of excessive weight in our society,” Christopher Gardner at Stanford University in California, who worked on the study, said in a statement.
Massachusetts-based Interleukin’s $149 test looks for mutations in three genes, known as FABP2, PPARG and ADRB2.
The company says 39 percent of white Americans have the low-fat genotype, 45 percent have the type that responds best to a diet low in processed carbohydrates and an unlucky 16 percent have gene mutations that mean they have to watch both fat and processed carbohydrates.
The researchers randomly assigned around 140 women to one of four diets — the low-carb Atkins diet, the ultra low-fat Ornish diet, the very low-fat LEARN diet or the more balanced Zone diet.
Interleukin went back and tested about 100 of the women for their DNA by using a cheek swab and then looked to see if the women on the “right” diets lost more weight.
MOST EFFECTIVE MATCHES
Over a year, people on diets appropriate to their genetic makeup, as determined by the test, lost 5.3 percent of body weight. People on mismatched diets lost 2.3 percent, the Stanford researchers told the meeting.
Cholesterol levels improved in line with weight loss, they said.
The company said the test looks for genes that affect metabolism.
“One of the gene variations affects absorption of fats from the intestine,” Ken Kornman, chief scientific officer at Interleukin, said in a telephone interview. He said people with that particular mutation absorb more fat from their food and thus should avoid fat if they want to lose weight.
Another of the variations affects insulin response — the body’s production of insulin to metabolize sugar, he said. Simple carbohydrates such as sugar and processed flour stimulate people with that particular gene type to store more of the energy as fat.
Ten percent to 16 percent of people have both mutations, and must watch both carbs and fat, Kornman said.
“What we don’t know is if they are on the right diet for their genotype whether it affects satiety or feeling full,” he said. He said the company planned broader studies to ask these questions.
Interleukin markets the test under the brand name Inherent Health. It also can test who might best lose weight in response to exercise.
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Sodas Linked to Pancreatic Cancer
February 9, 2010
Natural News
By Mike Adams
A 14-year study of 60,000 people in Singapore found that those who consume two or more sweetened soft drinks per week have an 87 percent higher risk of pancreatic cancer.
Published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, the study was led by Mark Pereira of the University of Minnesota who said, “The high levels of sugar in soft drinks may be increasing the level of insulin in the body, which we think contributes to pancreatic cancer cell growth.”
Nearly 38,000 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the United States each year, and over 34,000 die from the disease each year. This research points to what may be the common culprit of all those preventable deaths: Sugary soft drink consumption.
Poison in a can
NaturalNews has warned readers for years about the dangers of consuming soft drinks. The sweetener used in most beverages — high-fructose corn syrup — is linked to both diabetes and obesity. The phosphoric acid found in soft drinks is highly acidic, stripping minerals from bones and promoting osteoporosis. At the same time, soft drinks can cause kidney stones, too.
For those who consume diet sodas, the health risks may be even worse: Aspartame causes neurological side effects that include blindness, headaches and impaired cognitive function.
The beverage industry, of course, denies any links between soda consumption and negative health effects. It wants consumers to naively believe that liquid sugar, phosphoric acid and pressurized carbon dioxide are all good for you!
But experience tells us otherwise: Look at the people you know who consume the most soft drinks and ask yourself this simple question: Are they the healthiest people I know? Probably not.
Most likely, if they’ve been drinking sodas for many years, they’re suffering from obesity, diabetes, kidney stones and perhaps even pancreatic cancer.
Click here for the full report.
Study Links Soft Drinks to Pancreas Cancer
February 8, 2010
Reuters
By John O’Callaghan
People who drink two or more sweetened soft drinks a week have a much higher risk of pancreatic cancer, an unusual but deadly cancer, researchers reported on Monday.
People who drank mostly fruit juice instead of sodas did not have the same risk, the study of 60,000 people in Singapore found.
Sugar may be to blame but people who drink sweetened sodas regularly often have other poor health habits, said Mark Pereira of the University of Minnesota, who led the study.
“The high levels of sugar in soft drinks may be increasing the level of insulin in the body, which we think contributes to pancreatic cancer cell growth,” Pereira said in a statement.
Insulin, which helps the body metabolize sugar, is made in the pancreas.
Writing in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, Pereira and colleagues said they followed 60,524 men and women in the Singapore Chinese Health Study for 14 years.
Over that time, 140 of the volunteers developed pancreatic cancer. Those who drank two or more soft drinks a week had an 87 percent higher risk of being among those who got pancreatic cancer.
Pereira said he believed the findings would apply elsewhere.
“Singapore is a wealthy country with excellent healthcare. Favorite pastimes are eating and shopping, so the findings should apply to other western countries,” he said.
But Susan Mayne of the Yale Cancer Center at Yale University in Connecticut was cautious.
“Although this study found a risk, the finding was based on a relatively small number of cases and it remains unclear whether it is a causal association or not,” said Mayne, who serves on the board of the journal, which is published by the American Association for Cancer Research.
“Soft drink consumption in Singapore was associated with several other adverse health behaviors such as smoking and red meat intake, which we can’t accurately control for.”
Other studies have linked pancreatic cancer to red meat, especially burned or charred meat.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest forms of cancer, with 230,000 cases globally. In the United States, 37,680 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in a year and 34,290 die of it.
The American Cancer Society says the five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer patients is about 5 percent.
Some researchers believe high sugar intake may fuel some forms of cancer, although the evidence has been contradictory. Tumor cells use more glucose than other cells.
One 12-ounce (355 ml) can of non-diet soda contains about 130 calories, almost all of them from sugar.
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School Staffers Received Insulin Instead of Swine Flu Vaccine
January 22, 2010
ABC News
By Joseph Brownstein
When staff members at a Wellesley, Mass., school went to the nurse last Friday, they expected to be injected with a vaccine for theH1N1 flu. What they received instead was a shot of insulin resulting in a bout with low blood sugar.
While the staffers seem to be suffering no long-term damage from mistakenly receiving the insulin injections, investigations are ongoing to determine what caused the medical error. Indications thus far have been that a school nurse was responsible. The nurse has been temporarily relieved of duty.
While ABC News contacted people at the departments of health for the town of Wellesley and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the Wellesley School District, it remains unclear how the flu vaccine, which can be distributed in pre-filled syringes or vials, was mistaken for insulin, which is drawn from a vial because each dose needs to be calibrated when it is given.
Such errors have happened before. This past fall, a number of people in the neighboring town of Needham received a seasonal flu vaccine in place of the H1N1 vaccines they were supposed to receive. And in 2007, a teacher in the nearby town of Attleboro also received an injection of insulin instead of the intended flu shot.
“Mistakes can always be made,” said Lisa Lowery, a registered nurse and immunizations program manager for the Visiting Nurse Service in Indianapolis. While she is reluctant to blame the nurse, she said other steps can be taken to avoid such a problem.
The benefit of having a nurse specifically performing a vaccination clinic, according to Lowery, is that it allows the nurse to be more focused. “You’re in a habit of doing what you’re doing. You’re doing one vaccine and only one vaccine,” she said.
“In practices, you’re taught to take the bottle to another nurse and have her double-check what you’re about to give,” she said — a situation that isn’t possible when a school nurse alone is administering vaccine.
“That nurse is not used to injecting vaccines as a school nurse,” said Lowery. “It would have been her habit to pick up insulin. Having someone to back them up and check them out would have prevented some more errors. If you’re holding a vaccination clinic, use someone who’s used to doing that.”
Kay Renny, a registered nurse and manager of community programs for the Visiting Nurse Association of Southeast Michigan in Detroit said other steps are typically taken to avoid such a problem.
She said when her nurses are giving out both seasonal and swine flu vaccines, they do so in two separate lines with two separate forms, which do not look alike, so that nurses — who are only administering one shot — will notice. “This is the first year where we’re administering two flu vaccines at the same time,” she said, explaining it presented a new challenge.
When a mistake happens, “It doesn’t hurt them, but it doesn’t help them. What they want is what they’re there for,” said Renny. “You try to put steps in place to avoid that happening.”
She noted that the vials for insulin and flu vaccine are similar but the syringes are different, with those for insulin being smaller. “Whenever administering any kind of medication, you have to double check when you have multiple kinds of medication in front of you. You really need to double check your double check.”
Click here for the full report
School Staffers May Have Received Insulin Instead of Flu Vaccine
January 20, 2010
ABC News
By Joseph Brownstein
When staff members at a Wellesley, Mass., school went to the nurse last Friday, they expected to be injected with a vaccine for theH1N1 flu. What they received instead was a shot of insulin resulting in a bout with low blood sugar.
While the staffers seem to be suffering no long-term damage from mistakenly receiving the insulin injections, investigations are ongoing to determine what caused the medical error. Indications thus far have been that a school nurse was responsible. The nurse has been temporarily relieved of duty.
While ABC News contacted people at the departments of health for the town of Wellesley and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the Wellesley School District, it remains unclear how the flu vaccine, which is distributed in pre-filled syringes, was mistaken for insulin, which is drawn from a vial because each dose needs to be calibrated when it is given.
Such errors have happened before. This past fall, a number of people in the neighboring town of Needham received a seasonal flu vaccine in place of the H1N1 vaccines they were supposed to receive. And in 2007, a teacher in the nearby town of Attleboro also received an injection of insulin instead of the intended flu shot.
“Mistakes can always be made,” said Lisa Lowery, a registered nurse and immunizations program manager for the Visiting Nurse Service in Indianapolis. While she is reluctant to blame the nurse, she said other steps can be taken to avoid such a problem.
The benefit of having a nurse specifically performing a vaccination clinic, according to Lowery, is that it allows the nurse to be more focused. “You’re in a habit of doing what you’re doing. You’re doing one vaccine and only one vaccine,” she said.
“In practices, you’re taught to take the bottle to another nurse and have her double-check what you’re about to give,” she said — a situation that isn’t possible when a school nurse alone is administering vaccine.
“That nurse is not used to injecting vaccines as a school nurse,” said Lowery. “It would have been her habit to pick up insulin. Having someone to back them up and check them out would have prevented some more errors. If you’re holding a vaccination clinic, use someone who’s used to doing that.”
Kay Renny, a registered nurse and manager of community programs for the Visiting Nurse Association of Southeast Michigan in Detroit said other steps are typically taken to avoid such a problem.
She said when her nurses are giving out both seasonal and swine flu vaccines, they do so in two separate lines with two separate forms, which do not look alike, so that nurses — who are only administering one shot — will notice. “This is the first year where we’re administering two flu vaccines at the same time,” she said, explaining it presented a new challenge.
When a mistake happens, “It doesn’t hurt them, but it doesn’t help them. What they want is what they’re there for,” said Renny. “You try to put steps in place to avoid that happening.”
She noted that the syringes for insulin and flu vaccine are similar but “Whenever administering any kind of medication, you have to double check when you have multiple kinds of medication in front of you. You really need to double check your double check.”
School Children Mistakenly Given Insulin Instead of Vaccine
January 20, 2010
BostonHearld.com
By Associated Press
Wellesley school officials say several staff members at an elementary school had to be taken to the hospital after being injected with insulin rather than the swine flu vaccine they were supposed to get.
Superintendent Bella Wong said no students were ever in danger at Friday’s vaccine clinic for staff at Schofield Elementary School and all the people who got the wrong shot have recovered.
Wong, in a letter to staff and parents Monday, said the insulin belonged to students with diabetes and was provided by their parents.
Wong said in the letter that the school nurse who administered the insulin to staff has been placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation. She did not give the nurse’s name.
Click here for the full report.
Exercise May Aid Cognitive Function
January 12,2009
All Headline News
By David Goodhue
Seattle, Washington, United States (AHN) – Moderate exercise in middle aged and older people may lead to a reduced risk of mild cognitive impairment, and an intense, six-month aerobic exercise regimen may lead to improvement in people who already have the condition, according to University of Washington researchers.
Mild cognitive impairment is characterized by the researchers as the state between normal thinking, learning and memory changes that occur with age and dementia. About 10 to 15 percent of people with the condition progress to dementia every year, compared with 1 to 2 percent of the general population, the researchers said in a statement.
Out of a total of 29 participants in the study who were on average 70 years old, 23 were assigned high-intensity exercise for 45 to 60 minutes four days a week.
This group showed improved cognitive function compared to the control group, and the effects of exercise were more pronounced in women than in men.
The researchers said this difference may be related to the differences in the metabolic effects of exercise. Changes to the body’s use and production of insulin, glucose and the stress hormone cortisol differ in men and women, the researchers said.
The study is published in the January issue of Archives of Neurology.
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Quitting Smoking Carries Diabetes Risk
January 06, 2010
Reuters
By Charles Dick
Smoking is well known as a risk factor for type 2 diabetes, but scientists said on Monday that quitting the habit can raise the risk even more in the short term.
A study by U.S. researchers found that people who stop smoking have a 70 percent increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the first six years without cigarettes as compared to people who never smoked.
The researchers said they suspected the increased diabetes risk comes from extra weight gain common in people who quit.
But they said no one should use their findings as an excuse to continue smoking — a habit which can also cause lung disease, heart disease, strokes and many types of cancer.
“The message is: Don’t even start to smoke,” said Hsin-Chieh Yeh of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the United States, who led the study.
“If you smoke, give it up. That’s the right thing to do. But people have to also watch their weight,” she added.
Type 2 diabetes — often called adult-onset diabetes — is a common disease that interferes with the body’s ability to properly use sugar and insulin, a substance produced by the pancreas which normally lowers blood sugar after eating.
Overweight people and those with a family history of the disease have an increased risk of developing it, as do smokers.
Diabetes is reaching epidemic levels, with an estimated 180 million people suffering from it around the world.
Diabetes cases are forecast to triple in the United States in the next 25 years to 44 million with the costs of caring for them rising to $336 billion a year.
Yeh’s study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine journal, looked at almost 11,000 middle-aged adults who did not yet have diabetes from 1987 to 1989. The patients were followed for up to 17 years and data about diabetes status, glucose levels, weight and more were collected at regular intervals.
The researchers found that people who quit smoking had a 70 percent increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the first six years after stopping compared to people who never smoked. The risks were highest in the first three years, and returned to normal after 10 years.
Among those who did not stop smoking the risk was lower, but the chance of developing diabetes was still 30 percent higher compared with those who never smoked.
Tobacco is the leading preventable cause of death in the world, killing more than 5 million people a year. A report by the World Lung Foundation last August said smoking could kill a billion people this century if trends hold.
College Refuses to Graduate Overweight Students
December 21, 2009
Mercola
By Dr. Mercola
Lincoln University has introduced a unique way of tackling obesity. In 2006, the Pennsylvania university introduced its Fitness for Life program with the aim of encouraging students to lose weight.
The premise was that if a student had a body mass index (BMI) of above 30, which indicates obesity, then they should take some college-sanctioned steps to show they had lost weight or at least tried — or they cannot graduate.
The Fitness for Life course includes walking, Pilates, exercises and fitness games.
This year, some students have not completed the program, so they may not be able to graduate. Around 30 students are unlikely to graduate because they have not taken steps to reduce their BMI.
That obesity is a growing problem in the United States and many parts of the world is not in question.
It would certainly seem that Lincoln University made this decision with good intentions. However, obesity itself is not the underlying cause of any health problem. The underlying cause is usually an unhealthy diet which is overloaded with processed food and sugars like fructose, lack of exercise leading to increased insulin and leptin levels, and an overload of emotional stress that has not been addressed.
These are some of the primary factors that cause your body to become overweight or obese … and the cycle continues from there.
This is not an aesthetic issue, it’s a functional one; your body is designed to operate best when it’s at an ideal weight. Carrying around extra pounds will inevitably increase your risk of developing just about every chronic degenerative disease known to man.
To get an idea of how far-reaching the problems can be, browse through these 20 diseases and conditions that are directly attributable to being overweight. The list includes diabetes, cancer, heart failure, erectile dysfunction and many more.
Obesity has been on a steady rise since the 1960s, and today has been labeled the fastest-growing health threat in the United States.
Already, two-thirds of the U.S. population is already overweight, and a recent study found it’s possible that virtually every American adult could be overweight by 2048. Left unchecked, it seems the rates are climbing to 80% — or four out of five people.
Click here for the full report
