David's Page

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Kris Freeman is the best cross country skier in America, and an Olympic medal contender for a country that has not won a medal in this discipline in 34 years.

His blood sugar dropped, and he fell to the ground during the 30K cross country race on day 9 of the Olympic games. With the help of a German coach and some sustenance he got back on his skis and finished the race.

Kris Freeman is an inspirational character who demonstrates the importance of

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Pharmaceuticals and FDA notified healthcare professionals of a nationwide recall of Accusure Insulin Syringes. All syringes, regardless of lot number, are subject to this recall. These syringes were distributed between January 2002 and October 2009 to wholesale and retail pharmacies nationwide (including Puerto Rico). The syringes in these lots may have needles which detach from the syringe. If the needle becomes detached from the syringe during use, it can become stuck in the insulin vial, push… Continue

Leisure centre 'junk food' alert

Vending machines stocked with unhealthy snacks in leisure centres run the risk of fuelling childhood obesity, warn experts.

Crisps and chocolate are on sale where children exercise despite being banned from schools and children's TV, the British Heart Foundation found.

And children's meals on offer at the 35 venues spot-checked were dominated by chips, nuggets, sausages and burgers.

The charity wants stricter regulation over the food choices available.

The r… Continue

An Indonesian woman has given birth to an 8.7-kilogramme (19.2-pound) baby boy, the heaviest newborn ever recorded in the country, a doctor said Wednesday. Skip related content

The baby, who is still unnamed and is 62 centimetres (24.4 inches) long, was born by caesarean section Monday at a public hospital in North Sumatra province, a gynaecologist who took part in the operation told AFP.

"This heavy baby made the surgery really tough, especially the process of taking him out of his mum's womb… Continue

Type II or age onset diabetes is often associated with the lifestyle we lead, what we eat and how much physical activity we do.

Often the health care professionals who we visit give help and advice on how we can change our lifestyles, how we can change our behaviour.

What are your experiences? Did you manage to achieve the change? Are you still working on it? Can you share with the rest of our community the help and support and ideas given to you by your healthcare support team?

For those sti… Continue

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/health/policy/19monitor.html

This article from the New York Times today raises concerns over accuracy of blood glucose monitors used by patients. (This means most of our members!)

July 19, 2009
Standards Might Rise on Monitors for Diabetics

By GARDINER HARRIS
Federal officials may soon require improvements for the glucose monitors used by more than 11 million diabetic… Continue

According to researchers from the UCLA Meditation may be the key to a bigger brain and a better life.




Push-ups, crunches, gyms, personal trainers — people have many strategies for building bigger muscles and stronger bones. But what can one do to build a bigger brain?

Meditate.

That's the finding from a group of researchers at UCLA who used high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of people wh… Continue

By Helen Briggs
Health reporter, BBC News


"Diabetes has to live with me, not me live with it"

"I'm just an ordinary guy who went quite quick in a boat, really."
Astonishing words for a five-time Olympic gold-medal winner.
Sir Steve Redgrave is also surprisingly modest about the struggle with diabetes that almost cost him his fifth gold.
"I don't really want to jump on the bandwagon and say, 'Oh look at me, I'm a diabetic, what a terrible condition this is,'" he says.
"I will drip feed informa… Continue

Gazpacho

A low calorie soup that makes a great summer starter or light summer lunch served with bread.

Serves 4


Ingredients
• 750g/1lb 10oz ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped and deseeded
• 300ml/1/2 pint passatta or tomato juice
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon olive oilpinch sugara few drops Tabasco (optional)
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 1/2 cucumber, chopped
• 1 green pepper, deseeded and chopped
• large bunch fresh basil, torn
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• ice-cubes to… Continue

Sunday the 10th May

It takes a village! And the village is growing!

As we know mydiabetes.com was established as a community to provide support to patients, family members, friends and healthcare professionals travelling along the diabetes highway.

We knew, that like diabetes, there would be no quick and easy ways to build the community. We never realised however how quickly we would grow and from how far a field our members would come from. This morning members of our community spanned the g… Continue

Keeping with the advice of the health care professionals who look after us is not always easy. Following diets and exercise programmes, checking of blood sugar levels, attending appointments can be tough.

I often wonder how difficult it must be for parents whose children have diabetes. It’s tough enough bringing up children but to add the necessity to keep track of your child’s blood sugar levels and to administer insulin injections must at times become very challenging.

For these parents ther… Continue

Sunday 29 March
Manchester.

Good Morning!

www.mydiabetes.com is for patients, family members, friends and healthcare professionals and is about providing support and encouragement to each other along the diabetes journey. It’s also about sharing our good and sometimes not so good news with each other.

The clocks have sprung forward and it’s a beautiful sunny day here in Manchester. The daffodils are in bloom and the trees are showing signs of turning gr… Continue

Today the BBC reported

A common virus may be the trigger for the development of many cases of diabetes, particularly in children, UK researchers have reported.

Signs of enteroviruses were found in pancreatic tissue from 60% of children with type 1 diabetes, but in hardly any children without the disease.

They also found that 40% of adults with type 2 diabetes had signs of the infection in insulin-producing cells.

The study published in Diabetologia raises the possibility of a vaccine.

Altho… Continue

My friend was telling me that he saw a newspaper article this week that tried to make the point that patients living with diabetes, especially type II diabetes were solely responsible for bringing the disease upon themselves. He was very angry and so was I when he told me about the article.

Nobody really knows how diabetes starts and once diagnosed we know that for some people it can be liberating, for others it can be very, very worrying and the cause of much anguish and torment. Complications… Continue

My friend told me the story that explains that it takes a village to raise a child. In other words to make things happen and to succeed requires not just the work of one individual parent but the work, commitment and support of the whole of society.

Maybe it’s a bit like living with diabetes. We need the expertise of the medical professionals, the support of our family members, help and encouragement from friends and associates and a generous dash of self belief that we can face and deal with t… Continue

Good Morning!

One of our members has been in Las Vegas this week. Not on holiday but to look after her parents. Her mother has undergone heart surgery and she has been teaching her dad how to cook meals that will be more suitable for both him and his wife. The last I heard is that between them they had cooked over 65 lo-salt healthy meals and mum is recovering from the operation. Good for them and the best wishes of the mydiabetes.com community are with you.

One of the challenges facing all of… Continue

Rebecca Scritchfield writes on food nutrition and excercise - she also throws in some opinion for good measure.

This artice from Rebecca's blog caught my attention.

Rebecca writes

"Did you catch The Jan. 22 episode of 30 Rock? If you did, you saw the subplot of Tracy getting “bad news” from his doctor about his risk of diabetes while Tracy dismisses it as a “white myth” that diabetes is related to food intake.

I found the story quite hum… Continue

Columnist Richard R. Rubin, PhD, CDE, ADA's Past-President, Health Care & Education writes for the American Diabetes Association

The article is written for friends and family members of people living with diabetes.

If you have diabetes and you would like more help and support from someone you are close to, ask that person to read this column. Be sure to point out tips you especially want the person to take to heart.

If you have a loved one who has diabetes h… Continue