Diabetes

2 mins walk for every half an hour around office keeps diabetes at bay

A new study suggests that taking a two-minute stroll around the office every half hour could save millions from the misery of diabetes.

Leaving the desk for a walkabout can have a bigger impact on your health than a brisk 30-minute walk before work, the Daily Express reported.

Anthony Barnett, Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, said lifestyle changes can significantly reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes, which is reaching epidemic proportions in Britain.

He said that short bursts of regular exercise in people with sedentary occupations appears to be at least as good as longer, but less frequent, periods of exercise in improving sugar and fat levels.

Scientists at Otago University in New Zealand found that volunteers who regularly walked for just one minute and 40 seconds had lower blood sugar and insulin levels.

Raised sugar and insulin readings are warning signs that Type 2 diabetes, a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke, could be setting in.

But the latest findings show that brief walkabouts could be all that is needed to lower the risks.

The study is published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Source: Deccan Chronicle

 

India is world’s coronary, diabetic capital, says expert

India has earned the dubious distinction of becoming the world’s capital of coronary heart disease and diabetes, says a wellness expert.

Conducting a fitness workshop for journalists at Mumbai Press Club here, leading wellness expert Namita Jain said that several studies exposed the health hazards faced by stress-ridden Indian society. She was speaking on the occasion of ‘World Diabetes Day’ observed recently.

According to the World Congress of Cardiology, it is estimated that by 2020, heart diseases will be the cause of over 40 per cent deaths in India as compared to 24 per cent in 1990.

“World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that nearly 200 million people all over the world suffer from diabetes and this number is likely to double in the coming years. In India, there are nearly 50 million diabetics,” Jain said.

The enormity can be gauged from a recent report that states many heart patients are below the age of 30.

In a study of 350 heart attack patients conducted by a team of doctors, around 9.5 per cent of cases were below 40 years of age and 3 per cent below 30, she said.

According to the November 2009 issue of Harvard Men’s Health Watch, as many as 10 per cent of all heart attacks in men occur before the age of 45.

Smoking was invariably a common factor in almost all the young patients. Apart from Smoking, sedentary lifestyle, obesity, stress, high-blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, diabetes, increasing age, family history are some other factors that increase chances of heart ailments.

Jain also touched upon a common problem experienced by many people – indigestion and acidity. This is due to bad eating and dietary habits, especially when we copy the West in
their eating patterns, whereas we in India have the most complete and wholesome meal – like Thali.

“Digest what you eat, eat slowly, chew well, drink water, and watch what you eat will help in somewhat alienating the problem. Your diet should consist of cereals, fruits / vegetables, proteins and fats”, she added.

Source: Deccan Chronicle

New biomarker for diabetes risk identified

Researchers have identified a biomarker, which can help predict diabetes risk up to 10 years before its onset.

Thomas J. Wang, M.D., director of the Division of Cardiology at Vanderbilt, along with colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital, conducted a study of 188 individuals who developed type 2 diabetes mellitus and 188 individuals without diabetes who were followed for 12 years as participants in the Framingham Heart Study.

Wang said that from the baseline blood samples, that they identified a novel biomarker, 2-aminoadipic acid (2-AAA), that was higher in people who went on to develop diabetes than in those who did not.

Individuals having 2-AAA concentrations in the top quartile had up to a fourfold risk of developing diabetes during the 12-year follow-up period compared with people in the lowest quartile.

Wang asserted that the caveat with these new biomarkers is that they require further evaluation in other populations and further work to determine how this information might be used clinically.

The researchers also conducted laboratory studies to understand why this biomarker is elevated so well in advance of the onset of diabetes.

They found that giving 2-AAA to mice alters the way they metabolize glucose. These molecules seem to influence the function of the pancreas, which is responsible for making insulin, the hormone that tells the body to take up blood sugar.

The findings have been published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

 

Zydus launches diabetes treatment drug Lipaglyn

Pharmaceutical entity Zydus group today said it has launched Lipaglyn, its patented new drug for treatment of diabetes.

 Lipaglyn will be available across India and is priced at Rs 25.90 per tablet. It is recommended for once administration of once day as a 4mg tablet, the company said in a statement.

Commenting on the launch of the drug, Zydus Cadila Chairman and Managing Director Pankaj R Patel said: “It’s a great milestone for Indian pharmaceutical research today as Lipaglyn completes its journey from the lab to the market.”

The drug is marketed by Zydus Discovery, a new division launched to extensively market the original research product of Zydus group’s research pipeline.

Lipaglyn is a drug for treating diabetic dyslipidemeia, a condition where a person is diabetic and has elevated levels of total cholesterol.

In June, the company had said it expected the drug to be a “blockbuster” and clock over USD 1 billion sales a year when it will be sold globally.

Patel had said the company was in the process of filing applications in developed markets like US and Europe, after which it will tie up with other companies for marketing the drug.

The company had spent USD 250 million in developing Lipaglyn, which took nearly 12 years to fructify. It will be spending another USD 150-200 million to launch the drug in overseas markets in next 3-5 years period, Patel had said.

In India, the company expects Lipaglyn to clock an annual turnover of Rs 100 crore in the next 3-4 years.

Article originally appeared in Zee News

Bypass surgery lowers risk of dying by 30% for diabetics

Study finds 30 percent lower risk of dying for diabetics with bypass surgery vs. stentA new study by Indian origin researcher has suggested that diabetic people have a 30 percent less chance of dying if they undergo coronary artery bypass surgery rather than opening the artery through angioplasty and inserting a stent.

Dr. Subodh Verma, a cardiac surgeon and principal author of the paper, said that although bypass surgery is more invasive than stenting, it is imperative that physicians and patients realize that long term mortality reduction is best achieved with bypass surgery.

Verma and Dr. Jan Friedrich, an intensivist at St. Michael’s, decided to conduct a meta-analysis of all existing randomized control trials comparing the two procedures- coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) and the angioplasty.

They also found that while patients with diabetes did better with CABG, the procedures was associated with an increased risk of non-fatal strokes. They said this may be related to the fact the heart has to be stopped during the procedure.

The study is published in the journal Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology.

 

15% of common strokes occur in adolescents and young adults

A team of researcher including an Indian origin has suggested that 15 percent of the most common type of strokes occur in adolescents and young adults, and more young people are showing risk factors for such strokes.

Co-author neurologist Jose Biller of Loyola University Medical Center said that the impact of strokes in this age group is devastating to the adolescent or young adult, their families and society.

About 85 percent of all strokes are ischemic, meaning they are caused by blockages that block blood flow to the brain. And more young people have risk factors for ischemic strokes.

Those risks include high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, abnormal cholesterol levels, congenital heart disease and smoking.

Strokes in young people have a disproportionally large economic impact, because they can disable patients before their most productive years. And while coping with the shock of having a stroke, “younger survivors may be dealing with relationships, careers and raising children – issues that require additional awareness and resources,” the consensus report said.

Biller, one of the nation’s leading experts on stroke in young people, is second author of the consensus report. Biller is chair of the Department of Neurology of Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. First author of the report is Aneesh Singhal, MD of Massachusetts General Hospital.

The study has been published in the journal Neurology.

 

Diabetes rises in China, reaching ‘alert’ level

The disease was more common in China than in the United States even though the population was slimmer

Almost 12 percent of adults in China had diabetes in 2010, with economic prosperity driving the disease to slightly higher proportions than in the United States, researchers said Tuesday.

The overall prevalence of diabetes in China in 2010 was found to be 11.6 percent of adults — 12.1 percent in men, and 11 percent in women, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

In the United States, about 11.3 percent of people over 20 have diabetes according to 2011 data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The disease was more common in China than in the United States even though the population was slimmer — average body mass index, a ratio of height and body weight, was just 23.7 in China compared to 28.7 in the United States.

“The prevalence of diabetes has increased significantly in recent decades,” said the JAMA study.

“These data suggest that diabetes may have reached an alert level in the Chinese general population, with the potential for a major epidemic of diabetes-related complications, including cardiovascular disease, stroke, and chronic kidney disease in China in the near future without an effective national intervention.”

Only 30 percent of Chinese with diabetes were aware of their condition, it said.

Further, about half of the population has high blood sugar, or a condition known as pre-diabetes, according to a nationally representative sample of Chinese adults.

Diabetes has been rising in China along with the nation`s economic growth. In 1980, the prevalence of diabetes was less than one percent of the population.

The latest findings mark a more than two percentage point increase over 2007, when a national survey found a 9.7 percent prevalence of diabetes, or about 92.5 million adults.

The current data puts the total number of cases of diabetes in China at 113.9 million.

Worldwide, diabetes affects about 8.3 percent of the global population, or 371 million people.

“China is now among the countries with the highest diabetes prevalence in Asia and has the largest absolute disease burden of diabetes in the world,” said the study.

The Chinese survey included more than 98,650 people and was led by Guang Ning, head of the Shanghai Institute of Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases and colleagues with the 2010 China Non-communicable Disease Surveillance Group.

Diabetes was more common in urban areas and among young and middle aged people who were overweight or obese, and was found to be increasing along with economic development.

The research suggested that one cause for the growing trend could be poor nutrition among pregnant women and young babies, combined with overeating later in life.

Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of the disease, and can be managed with improved nutrition and exercise, as well as medication if needed.

According to an accompanying editorial in JAMA by Juliana Chan of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, “rapid modernization” has fuelled an environment that encourages diabetes “characterized by food abundance, physical inactivity, and psychosocial stress.”

The CDC says that diabetes is a top cause of blindness, kidney failure and amputations of the legs and feet, and was the seventh leading cause of death in the US in 2007.

One in three US adults will have diabetes by 2050 if current trends continue, according to the CDC.

The disease is characterized by the body`s shortage of insulin, or an inability to use the hormone efficiently for converting glucose into energy.

Source: http://zeenews.india.com/news/health/health-news/diabetes-rises-in-china-reaching-alert-level_23744.html

 

 

How to keep your kidneys healthy

caring for your kidneys is very important because when it becomes damaged, the waste products and fluid get assembled in the body and can cause several illnesses leading to fatal conditions later in life.

Kidneys are essential in the urinary system and serve the body as a natural filter of the blood. They remove wastes and excess fluid thus cleansing your blood in your body. Kidneys maintain the balance of salt and minerals in your blood and help regulate blood pressure.

Taking care of your kidneys will help you to take care of the rest of your body. Kidneys are two small organs located at the rear of the abdominal cavity in the retroperitoneum performing several life-sustaining roles.

Therefore, caring for your kidneys is very important because when it becomes damaged, the waste products and fluid get assembled in the body and can cause several illnesses leading to fatal conditions later in life.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD), also known as chronic renal disease is dangerous and is characterised by a steady loss in renal function over time.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is classified into five stages with stage 1 being the mildest and usually causing few symptoms and stage 5 being a severe illness with poor life expectancy if untreated. The last stage is also called end stage renal disease (ESRD) or end stage renal failure (ESRF) where a patient needs dialysis or transplants to stay alive.
The most common causes of CKD are diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and a family history of kidney failure. Other risks include: obesity, autoimmune diseases, urinary tract infections and systemic infections.

The National Kidney Foundation of India, an NGO, ranked kidney diseases as third amongst life-threatening diseases (after Cancer and Cardiac ailments) in the country. It also estimates that 100 people in a million succumb to kidney ailments and around 90,000 kidney transplants are required annually in India.

Below are some tips to help you keep your kidneys healthy:

– Follow a healthy diet by choosing foods that are healthy for your heart such as fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy foods, etc.
– Do not smoke.
– Limit your alcohol intake.
– Exercise regularly.
– Maintain a healthy weight to avoid overweight.
– Reduce salt in your diet.
– Keep your blood pressure and cholesterol under control.
– Do not overuse over-the-counter painkillers or NSAIDs.
– Drink plenty of fluids/water
– Seek medical help or talk to your doctor if you think you are at risk of for CKD.

Source: http://zeenews.india.com/news/health/health-news/how-to-keep-your-kidneys-healthy_23698.html