Diabetes News

FYI, Gab With the Gurus Radio Show is taking a summer break. So there's no show today. But please tune in August 5 at 3 pm Eastern (or listen later) when I present a varietey of experts to discuss lyme disease, one of the fastest spreading infectious diseases in the United States today, with an estimated 200,000-plus new cases each year, according to the CDC. My guests will be Pamela Weintraub, author of the fabulous new book, Cure Unknown: Inside the Lyme Epidemic; Pat Smith, founder and president of the Lyme Disease Association; and two renowned doctors. (And possibly a...

Recently, now that I've been feeling the horrific after-affects of an uninvited, infected tick, which took to me a few weeks ago (not sure where) and gave me this debiliating Lyme disease -- I wrote about it here -- I've been having the strangest food cravings -- for meat and lots of fish. (My cravings are for grass-fed, antiobiotic-free meat, of course. But my hankerings for meat are quite unique -- this from a woman who, for the last year, only ate the stuff once a month at most, and before that, not for years! Seafood isn't a new love....

Although Jennifer already told you about this new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine, a sister publication of JAMA, I thought it worthwhile to offer a different take on this important new research. Given that I need to sleep and rest a lot to recover from Lyme disease, I'm re-posting an item that can be found on my friend, nutritionist Jonny Bowden's blog. Here are his thoughts about the study: "This [new] study examined the association between type 2 diabetes, weight gain and- get this -- the consumption of soft drinks and fruit drinks. They looked at over 43,000...

From Gerry Pugliese for Connie Bennett's SUGAR SHOCK! Blog Men and women are different, even when it comes to diabetes risk. A new study in the journal of Diabetes Care claims that men may need to work even harder than women to prevent type 2 diabetes. Leigh Perreault, M.D., assistant professor at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Aurora, Colorado, and her team assessed the type 2 diabetes risk of more than 1,100 adults. According to Reuters, the group of men and women that were placed on an "intensive" regimen of calorie-cutting and exercise were 58 percent less...

From Jennifer Moore for SUGAR SHOCK! Blog This SUGAR SHOCK! Blog recently posted on the startling new recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics that kids as young as eight be treated with statins to control high cholesterol. Now, Stephanie Saul of the New York Times tells us of data from three organizations showing that the number of children taking drugs intended for adults is on the rise. Childhood obesity accounts for much of this unfortunate phenomenon. For example, according to an analysis by Medco Solutions, a pharmacy benefit management firm, the number of American kids taking oral diabetes medications...

Researchers determined that those participants who walked for an extra 45 minutes each day burned more fat, thereby increasing their muscle’s ability to store sugar and help control their diabetes. And another study, this one in the Archives of Internal Medicine, suggests current exercise guidelines—2.5 hours per week—may not be enough to help keep weight off. John Jakicic, PhD., an associate professor and chairman of the Department of Health and Physical Activity, and his team at the University of Pittsburgh found that participants in their study benefited from an extra hour of exercise each day. What's more, increased exercise more...

From Jennifer Moore for Connie's SUGAR SHOCK! Blog A new study suggests that sugar-sweetened fruit juices are absolutely not good alternatives to soda. Julie Palmer, ScD, M.PH. and her colleagues from Boston University report in the Archives of Internal Medicine that African-American women who drank two or more sugar-sweetened fruit drinks per day had a 31% greater incidence of diabetes than those who consumed less than one a month. (Grapefruit and orange juices, however, weren't linked to greater rates of diabetes amongst study subjects.) That's probably not news to most people, but this finding might be: African-American women who drank...

Gerry Pugliese for the SUGAR SHOCK! Blog If you milk an ear of corn, high fructose corn syrup comes out. Apparently the Food and Drug Administration believes this to be true, because they’ve announced that HFCS is natural. The decision, written in a correspondence to the Corn Refiners Association, is a backtrack by the FDA, reports Laura Crowley of Food Navigator-USA. In April, an FDA regulator stated that HFCS could not be considered “natural” because high fructose corn syrup is manufactured using a synthetic fixing agent, Crowley pointed out. However, the FDA now says that if the synthetic agents—called glutaraldehyde—do...

Jennifer Moore for SUGAR SHOCK! Blog The Planning and Land Use Committee of the Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved a proposal that would keep new fast food places from opening in several neighborhoods in South L.A. for at least a year, according to Molly Hennessy-Fiske of The Los Angeles Times. It's easy to see why Councilwoman Jan Perry, who represents south L.A., proposed the measure. A chart linked to Hennessy-Fiske's article shows that 45% of all restaurants in the South L.A. area are fast food establishments, which is the highest concentration of such places in the city. What's more,...

Jennifer Moore for SUGAR SHOCK! Blog California has become the first state in the United States to boot trans fat from restaurants and retail baked goods, according to Jennifer Steinhauer of The New York Times. This means that the 88,000 restaurants in American's most populous state will soon be free of trans fats. The ban will be phased in gradually; trans fat must disappear from restaurants by 2010 and from baked goods by 2011, according to Steinhauer. Unfortunately though, processed foods, a major source of trans fat, will be exempt from this new law. The bill's author was Democratic Assemblyman...