Diabetes Infographic

Just came along this wonderful infographic that was posted to Alltop.
It visually represents data about diabetes around the world.

Exchanging meat for nuts to lower diabetes risk

According to a recent article in the New York Times, a Harvard study has found that swapping out red meat for a serving of nuts or low-fat dairy can lower the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. Dr. Hu, the author of the study, suggested that people should think about eating only one serving of processed meat per week and limiting red meat to 2-3 servings per week.

Night Shift Work May Raise Women's Diabetes Risk

According to a recent study, researchers who reviewed the information provided by the Nurses' Health Study found that women who worked regular night shifts for 3-9 years experienced a 6% increase in developing Type 2 diabetes. Those who regularly worked the night shift for 20 years experienced a 20% increase.

Research points to potential solution for Type I diabetes

An article in the L.A. Times, discusses preliminary experiments with a tuberculosis vaccine called BCG on a handful of people. The results suggest that it may be possible to reverse Type I diabetes as the vaccine seems to prevent T-cells from destroying insulin-secreting cells, allowing the pancreas to produce insulin again.

Study pushes to expand "prediabetes" label

According to a recent report in the journal Diabetes Care, having normal blood sugars is no guarantee to developing Type II diabetes in the future. In fact, the Italian study found that those that are at the high end of the normal blood sugar range are twice as likely to develop the disease as those in the low end - which means the current accepted normal range may be too wide.

You can read more about these findings here.

Setting fines for health risks in Arizona

A recent article in the New York Times describes a proposal created by Arizona's Health Care Cost Containment System that is looking to charge smokers $50 per year and charge a similar fee to diabetics who don't follow their doctor's orders to lose weight. Monica Coury, the spokeswoman for the state Medicaid agency says that they are not out to make smokers stop smoking or weighing those with weight issues. Rather, this plan is meant to help cover the increased healthcare costs associated with these patients who may not be active in the management of their own conditions.

Friday Roundup

Here is a listing of articles of interest published within the last 7-10 days:

Health
1. Drug halts patient progress to Type II diabetes, March 23, 2011, Medpagetoday.com
Brief Intro:"Treatment with pioglitazone (Actos) was able to halt the progression of impaired glucose tolerance to type 2 diabetes in a majority of patients, a randomized trial found."

2. A panel decides Washington state's health care costs, March 21, 2011, NYT.com
Brief Intro:"While all states, private insurers and the federal Medicare program decide what to cover, this state’s program is attracting nationwide attention, in part because its process is public and open. That provides a living laboratory of the complexities of applying evidence-based medicine, something that is becoming more common as a way to rein in health care costs.

The program is also drawing attention because it explicitly considers the cost of treatments in making its decisions, akin to Britain’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. "

3. Nearly 50 million Americans uninsured, CDC says, March 23, 2011. CNN.com
Brief Intro: "Almost 50 million Americans are without health insurance– 3 million more than a year ago, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report finds one in five people were uninsured during some portion of the last 12 months."

Vulnerable Populations
1. Census shows Michigan needs immigrants, Snyder says, March 23, 2011, DetroitNews.com
Brief Intro:"Gov. Rick Snyder today restated his call for increased immigration in the state in the wake of U.S. Census figures released Tuesday showing a steep decline in Michigan's population."

Will mentors help prevent diabetes?

The BBC recently reported that a five-year project will take a look to see if providing mentors to those who are considered pre-diabetic will help stop the development of diabetes within these patients. Researchers in Norfolk have begun the study that will screen 10,000 people for the disease by having them take a fasting glucose test. The Diabetes Prevention Mentors are members of the public that have already been diagnosed with Type 2 that will call their assigned mentees regularly to help educate and motivate them to meet their goals within the program.

Read more about the Norfolk Diabetes Prevention Study and about the Diabetes Prevention Mentors.

Using Google's Fusion Tables to visualize information

Instead of putting up a news article today, I wanted to discuss a Google tool that I recently made use of to help visualize a large amount of information, Google Fusion Tables. I along with a partner made use of this tool for a couple of Health 2.0 challenges. We were looking for a tool that would allow us to create a map of certain data points without requiring programming skills like the Processing visualization tool.

While Fusion Tables may not deliver a visualization product that comes anywhere close to what you could experience with Processing, it does a good job of plotting out your data points on an international, national, state or even local basis. It also allows you to share tables with partners so that they can collaborate on creation and editing. In addition, you can make your table public (to share with all), unlisted (to share with those who have the direct link), or private.

For one competition, we ended up using Fusion Tables to plot out the 2006-2008 birth rate data across the country. This included data that provided information by ethnic group, delivery method and number of Medicaid paid births. You can view that table here:http://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?dsrcid=546923

For another competition, we plotted out organizations that had received diabetes-related grants during 2009-2011. The reason why we did this was because we wanted to provide a new way for professionals working with diabetes in their own communities to seek out potential partners that were already involved in that kind of work. We figured that the best way to do this was to plot on a map those organizations that were successful enough to win a grant to fund their work. You can view the map here: http://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?snapid=164616 (make sure to select the full address option in the location area so that you can view the information as it was intended).

If you click on each red dot on the diabetes partnership map, you will see the following:
- Organization information (contact information, location, county, website (if available) and phone number).
- 2007-2009 adult diabetes stats for the state in which the organization is located.
- A link to American Fact Finder Census data for each location.
- A link to the County Health Rankings site for each county the organization is located in.

In addition, we created a Google custom search engine for professionals to find the targeted authoritative diabetes-related information they need. We thought this was a good idea as a search for "diabetes" in a regular search engine comes up with over 110 million results.

While we didn't end up winning either of the competitions, the experience helped us think about effective ways to promote partnerships among professionals and grantees and how to effectively promote the use of targeted and authoritative information to those already experiencing information overload.

U.S. 'diabetes belt' is identified

According to a CNN article, in the April issue of the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, researchers have been able to identify a diabetes belt of 644 counties in 15 U.S. states. Located primarily in the southeastern part of the country, the belt defines where diabetes care and prevention is most needed.

According to the article includes portions of the states of: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia, as well as the entire state of Mississippi.

Friday Roundup

Here is a list of articles of interest that have been published in the last 7-10 days:

Health
1. Breast-feeding reduces childhood obesity risks in babies exposed to prenatal diabetes, Medscape Today, March 3, 2011
Brief Intro:"Breast-feeding may protect babies who were prenatally exposed to diabetes against childhood obesity, according to the results of a retrospective cohort study reported in the March issue of Diabetes Care."

2. Potassium levels may explain racial disparity in Type 2 diabetes, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, March 2, 2011
Brief Intro:"Low serum potassium appears to be independently associated with incident type 2 diabetes, and low dietary potassium is more common in African Americans than in whites. "

3. Diabetes takes six years off your life by increasing risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer, study says, Los Angeles Times, March 2, 2011
Brief Intro:"A 50-year-old with Type 2 diabetes will lose an average of six years of life as a result of the disease, only one less than would be lost by a long-term smoker of the same age, researchers reported Wednesday."

4. Gene therapy against HIV not a proven cure, experts say, Businessweek.com, March 1, 2011
Brief Intro:"Experts are reacting with cautious optimism to the announcement Monday that researchers reconfigured immune cells so that they became resistant to HIV in six patients infected with the virus."

Education
1. Education secretary cautions districts about layoffs, NYT.com March 3, 2011
Brief Intro:"Arne Duncan, the federal secretary of education, urged state and local authorities to avoid short-sighted decisions as they cut school budgets, and said laying off teachers based solely on seniority was “a wrong way to cut spending.”

Immigration
1. House passes Arizona-style bill aimed at illegal immigration, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 3, 2011
Brief Intro:"HB 87 would authorize state and local police to verify the immigration status of certain suspects. A federal judge halted a similar provision in Arizona last year after the Obama administration argued it is pre-empted by federal law."

Study provides scientists insight on how cancer and diabetes levels may be reduced

According to an article on Yahoo News, a group of Ecuadoreans with Laron syndrome have helped scientists learn of a mutation that has kept them relatively free of diabetes and cancer. According to the study, it seems that those afflicted with Laron syndrome have low levels of an insulin-like growth factor (IFG1). The participants in the study were followed for 22 years and none of the study members developed diabetes and only one developed cancer.

According to Valter Longo, one of the study's authors, if the deficiencies in IFG1 are extendable to everyone else, "then you could, with a drug that was already available, reduce the incidence of cancer and diabetes". While this might sound good, Felipe Sierra, director of the Division of Aging Biology at the National Institute on Aging, cautions against getting one's hopes up. He warns that everything is inter-related in our bodies and that changing these complex insulin-growth pathways may result in additional complications.

You can read more about the study results in the February 16th issue of Science Translational Medicine

Friday Roundup

Here is a listing of articles of interest published within the last 7-10 days:

Health
1. Why Americans aren't living longer, CNN.com, January 27, 2011
Brief Intro:"A new report from the National Research Council finds that Americans fall short on life expectancy compared with other high-income countries because of two vices – smoking and obesity."

2. CDC: Almost 26 million Americans have diabetes, CNN.com, January 26, 2011
Brief Intro:"Almost 26 million Americans older than age 20 have diabetes and more than a quarter or 7 million do not know they have the disease, according to estimates released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday."

3. Financial rewards for a doctor's care, NYT.com, January 26, 2011
Brief Intro:"In their efforts to improve the quality of medical care, policy makers here and abroad have focused on ways of providing financial incentives to doctors that reward them when they provide better care.

But a new study published in Tuesday’s BMJ, the online version of the old British Medical Journal, casts serious doubt on whether pay-for-performance programs are an effective way of improving the quality of care."

Education
1. Pennsylvania school experiments with 'segregation', CNN.com, January 27, 2011
Brief Intro:"A Pennsylvania high school says some students are separated by race, gender and language for a few minutes each day in an effort to boost academic scores, raising controversy over the historically contentious issue of segregation in schools."

Friday Roundup

Here is a roundup of news articles of interest published within the last 7-10 days:

Health

1. A writer traces illnesses back to the womb, Dec. 27, 2010, NYT.com
Brief Intro:"The idea led to her acclaimed new book, “Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives” (Free Press). Divided into nine chapters that mirror the nine months of Ms. Paul’s own pregnancies, it explores the notion that heart disease, diabetes and perhaps other illnesses may have their origins during pregnancy."

2. New drug strategy shows promise against HIV, Dec. 22, 2010, Health Day
Brief Intro:"Scientists are reporting early but promising results from a new drug that blocks HIV as it attempts to invade human cells."

3. Nutrition: At home, influence wanes on child diets, Dec. 27, 2010, NYT.com
Brief Intro:"Researchers reviewed 24 studies on parent and child dietary habits, using statistical techniques to combine their results. Their analysis, being published in the February issue of The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, found only a weak correlation between what parents and their children eat.

They also found that the association diminished over time — later studies generally showed a weaker connection than earlier ones between child-parent pairs. The authors acknowledge that their conclusions were based on limited data, that only three of the studies were conducted in developing countries, and that methodologies varied."

Vulnerable populations

1. Anti-bias agency cracks down on the use of credit and criminal checks in job screenings, Dec. 27, 2010, Chicago Tribune
Brief Intro:"The federal agency that enforces workplace anti-discrimination laws is warning employers they could be sued if they refuse to hire blacks or Latinos because of a bad credit history or a criminal record."

2. Hispanics leave Connecticut town as FBI probes complaints of police abuse, racial profiling, Dec. 26, 2010, Chicago Tribune
Brief Intro:"Racial profiling allegations began swirling about two years ago in East Haven, a predominantly Italian-American seaside suburb of about 28,000 people 70 miles northeast of New York City. Hispanics make up only about 7 percent of the population, but their numbers had been growing as the peaceful, small-town setting and thriving businesses attracted newcomers from Mexico and Ecuador."

Cells reprogrammed to treat diabetes

In a recent article published in USNWR, researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center described their findings of converting sperm-producing cells to insulin-producing cells to replace diseased ones in the pancreas. The new technique is edging closer to provide the amount of insulin needed to cure diabetes in humans.

New York Asks to Bar Use of Food Stamps to Buy Sodas

According to an article published in the New York Times, Mayor Bloomberg is looking to ban the purchase of sodas with food stamps. The request was made to the USDA and is part of an aggressive anti-obesity push by the mayor that has included advertisements, stricter rules on food sold in schools, and an unsuccessful attempt to impose a tax on the product.

The request was a ban for two years to study whether or not it would have a positive impact on health and whether a permanent ban was merited.

Even 1 Soda a Day Can Hike Your Diabetes Risk

According to an article in U.S. News and World Report, a study recently published in the journal of Diabetes Care found that people with a daily habit of one or two sugar sweetened beverages were more than 25% likelier to develop type 2 diabetes than were similar individuals who had no more than one sugary drink per month. Those who drank sweetened drinks at a rate of one per day also had a 20% higher rate of developing metabolic syndrome.

Friday Roundup

Here is a listing of of articles of interest published within the last 7-10 days:

Health
1. New vaccine a game changer for polio, BBC, October 26, 2010
Brief Intro: Dr. Bruce Aylward, the Director of World Health Organization's Polio Eradication Initiative, tells the BBC World News Service that a new vaccine is changing the fight against polio.

2. Health insurance companies drop NM policies for individuals, small groups, The New Mexico Independent, October 26, 2010
Brief Intro: Four health insurance companies (National Health, Aetna, John Alden, and Principal), have notified the New Mexico Division of Insurance that they will no longer write individual of small group plans in New Mexico. Some companies discontinuing coverage may or may not renew their customers' existing policies.

3. 1 in 3 Americans could have Diabetes by 2050, RTT News, October 26, 2010
Brief Intro: A new report from the CDC suggests that the national diabetes rate could skyrocket by the year 2050 if the obesity rate continues to rise.

Education
1. Making things hard to read 'can boost learning', BBC, October 22, 2010
Brief Intro: According to an article published in the international journal Cognition, researchers at Princeton University recruited 28 volunteers for a study to determine if difficult to read font can improve learning and information retention. Researchers found that those given a more difficult to read font actually recalled 14% more of what they had read.

The research team then decided to tested their results on 222 Chesterland, Ohio students that were between 15-18 years old. They found that students given the harder-to-read materials actually scored higher on classroom assignments than their control group counterparts.

2. Year-round school gains ground around U.S., MSNBC, October 27, 2010
Brief Intro: The Indianapolis School Board are soon scheduled to make a decision about whether or not they should adopt year-round classes. If the measure is approved, pupils would go to school in cycles of eight to ten weeks, with three to five weeks off after each, throughout the year. According to Indianapolis Superintendent Eugene White, the new plan would add 20 class days to the school year and provide more frequent, shorter breaks that would allow the students to come back refreshed but retain more of what they have been taught.

Diabetes risk and magnesium

According to a new study released in Diabetes Care, study participants who had a higher intake level of magnesium were less likely to develop the disease. The study looked at both men and women between 18-30 years of age and followed the participants for 20 years. Out of the 4,497 participants, 330 developed diabetes. People who had the highest level of magnesium intake were 47 percent less likely to have developed diabetes compared to those with the lowest intake.