Symptoms of diabetes can be sometimes similar but sometimes a little different for Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.
Type 1 Diabetes Symptoms:
Type 2 Diabetes Symptoms:
As you can see, some signs of diabetes for Type 1 and Type 2 are common. If you experience one or more of these diabetes symptoms listed above, you should consult your doctor to be on safe side.
Diabetes appears to harm sperm and may decrease a man’s fertility, says a British study in the journal Human Reproduction.
Many men having diabetes for a long period of time are sufferuring from Erectile Dysfunction which is commonly known as ED. Cialis, Viagra, and Levitra (vardenafil) are 3 major FDA approved medications that treats ED.
Researchers analysed sperm samples from 56 men and found that 52 percent of men with diabetes had fragmented sperm DNA, compared with 32 percent of men without the disease, BBC News reported.
The diabetic men also had higher rates of DNA deletions in the mitochondria, which produce energy for cells. Defective sperm DNA can cause male infertility, pregnancy failure and miscarriage, BBC News reported.
The study also found that the diabetic men had significantly lower-than-normal semen volume, but showed no differences in sperm concentration, structure or movement.
While it’s not clear whether diabetes actually affects male fertility, the researchers said their findings are troubling given rapidly rising rates of diabetes. They recommended further research, BBC News reported.
Adults with diabetes may be at higher risk for developing mild cognitive impairment, a condition that is often seen as a precursor to Alzheimer’s disease, new research found.
“There is mounting evidence that diabetes is bad for cognition,” said Dr Jose A. Luchsinger, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University. “The mechanisms need to be elucidated. Type 2, or adult-onset diabetes, which the study refers to, is increasing in the US and in the world. The consequences of the potential cognitive complications of diabetes could be devastating from a public health standpoint.”
Still, there are perhaps more questions than answers in the new study, which was published Monday in the April issue of Archives of Neurology.
“What is the real message for diabetes control?” asked Dr Larry Deeb, president of medicine and science for the American Diabetes Association. “If the message is that you’re at greater risk for MCI (mild cognitive impairment) no matter what, that’s one thing. If taking good care of blood sugar makes a difference, as seems to be the case for most other complications of diabetes, that’s another thing. One would hope this might be another argument for controlling diabetes.”
Health experts already knew that type 2 diabetes can be a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. The evidence has been less clear on whether diabetes is related to a higher risk of mild cognitive impairment, often considered a bridge state between normalcy and Alzheimer’s.
“There are few studies looking at the outcome of mild cognitive impairment,” Luchsinger said.
How the study was conducted
For this study, Luchsinger and his colleagues looked at 918 men and women older than 65 (average age 75.9) who did not have mild cognitive impairment or dementia at the start of the study. The participants, all from northern Manhattan in New York City, were assessed every 18 months with an in-person interview as well as physical and neurological examinations.
Almost one-quarter - 23.9 percent - of the participants had diabetes, 68.2 percent had high blood pressure, 33.9 percent had heart disease, and 15 percent had suffered a stroke.
During follow-up that averaged 6.1 years, 334 of the participants developed mild cognitive impairment. And people with diabetes had a higher risk of having mild cognitive impairment, especially amnestic MCI, which affects memory more than non-amnestic MCI.
Diabetes tied to impairment
Overall, 8.8% of cases of mild cognitive impairment among the study participants could be attributable to diabetes. And the rates were higher for black Americans (8.4 percent) and Hispanics (11 percent) than for non-Hispanic whites (4.6 percent). This makes sense, given that minority populations in the United States have a higher prevalence of diabetes.
What explains t?e possible link between diabetes and impairment?
Diabetes could contribute to plaque build-up in the brain, with such a build-up a hallmark of Alzheimer’s, the study authors said.
But, they added, more research is needed.
“Studies are needed to see if preventing diabetes prevents cognitive impairment and how diabetes treatment affects cognition,” Luchsinger said. “We also need to see how cognitive impairment in persons with diabetes affects their ability to follow their treatment, which is usually complex and involves several medications.”
Other experts applauded even the tentative findings.
This type of research may help target populations who could one day benefit from drugs, said Maria Carrillo, director of medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer’s Association.
Risk factors are real
“This supports the idea that risk factors are real,” Carrillo added. “The field has now matured to a point where we can start looking at earlier and earlier aspects of the disease. It makes sense to look even earlier than that and try to tease out what the risk factors look like in that population, in case we have a disease-modifying drug coming up in near future.”
“This is documenting what we know a little bit better and emphasising that patients should control their blood sugar as well as they can early in the disease,” added Dr Joel Zonszein, director of the Clinical Diabetes Centre at Montefiore Medical Centre in New York City. “This is another piece of information, more wood to the fire.” – (HealthDayNews)
More than 18 million Americans have diabetes and 15% of them will develop chronic wounds like foot ulcers .
The ulcers can take weeks to heal and if the infection spreads to the bone, there are serious consequences.
A sore on your foot is a nuisance for anyone but for someone with diabetes they can be especially annoying.
Sores can easily turn into an ulcer and in serious cases, result in amputation.
Now, Baptist Hospital is offering a new approach to healing.
Football fans may know the name Ross Browner.
He lives in Nashville now, but spent a decade in the NFL as defensive end for the Cincinnati Bengals and the Green Bay Packers.
12 years ago, doctors diagnosed Browner with diabetes a condition that has now led to a serious foot ulcer.
He said, “My foot just kind of blew up and I was on antibiotics. The foot dried at the bottom, it cracked and got infected.”
Diabetic foot ulcers usually start out as a callus or blister but can quickly develop into a serious problem.
Poor blood circulation and elevated blood sugar often limit the body’s ability to repair the injured tissue. Decreased sensation in the limbs can also
To treat Browner’s ulcer, doctors at Baptist Hospital’s Wound Care Center are using a total contact cast.
Part of the cast is applied with the patient sitting up and the rest is applied with the patient lying down with his/her foot in the air. It allows fluid to drain away from the foot.
Baptist Dr. Warren Patterson said, “The cast is put on like a cone so a third of the body weight is absorbed by sides of the cast. This offloads considerable weight.”
The cast fits closely around the foot and
Patients wear casts about eight weeks and doctors change it several times to check the size of the ulcer.
With the help of this cast, doctors said the former football star should be back on his feet in no time.
Browner said, “It’s really starting to happen now and I’m really glad they have this technique now. In six weeks or so, I should be out of a cast and able to put on a shoe again.”
Doctors advise patients to check their feet for sores regularly.
A study of type 2 diabetics with depression confirms that depression has a negative impact on glycemic (blood sugar) control, researchers report, and “affirms the importance of depression management in diabetic patients in its potential to improve glycemic control.”
Researchers from Missouri treated 93 patients with type 2 diabetes and depression with the antidepressant bupropion (Wellbutrin).
“We selected bupropion because it is capable of reducing depression and weight simultaneously and hypothesized that these effects would be accompanied by improved glycemic control in diabetic patients with major depressive disorder,” the team explains in the journal Diabetes Care.
In support of their hypothesis, “antidepressant treatment produced benefits beyond just mood improvement,” first author Dr. Patrick J. Lustman from Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, told Reuters Health. “Patients also lost weight, improved self-management of their diabetes, and improved their glucose control (A1C levels).”
Of these short-term improvements, only depression improvement predicted maintenance of improved blood sugar control in the subsequent 6 months, the researchers found.
“This confirms our hypothesis that depressio? improvement can produce better glycemic control, independent of favorable changes in weight and diabetes self care,” Lustman noted. “Improvement in depression was the key to achieving longer term improvements in glucose control.”
Lustman concludes that the data “point to the importance of weight-independent physiological factors (insulin sensitivity, inflammation) that improve during depression relief and contribute to better long-term control of diabetes.”
SOURCE: Diabetes Care, March 2007.
It is well known that people with type 2 diabetes are at increased risk of pancreatic cancer, and now it seems that the risk extends to those with type 1 diabetes, researchers report. However, they point out that the risk is still very small.
Type 2 diabetes is associated with being overweight and is caused when the body becomes less responsive to the action of insulin, leading to high blood sugar levels. Type 1 diabetes arises, often in childhood, when the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas are damaged, usually by an aberrant immune reaction.
To assess the risk of pancreatic cancer in people with type 1 and young-onset diabetes, Dr. Richard J. Stevens and colleagues from the University of Oxford, UK, reviewed findings from nine population-based studies.
The likelihood of developing pancreatic cancer was twice as high in subjects with type 1 or young-onset diabetes as in people without diabetes, the team reports in the British Journal of Cancer.
This increased risk is similar in magnitude to that seen with type 2 diabetes.
There are many theories about the link between diabetes and pancreatic cancer, Stevens said in an interview with Reuters Health and “our results help narrow these.”
For example, he said, “they rule out a cancer-inducing role of the insulin-producing beta-cells in the pancreas, because in type 1 diabetes these cells have largely or entirely been destroyed.”
Stevens stressed that “people with type 1 diabetes should not be overly concerned about pancreatic cancer.” As he explained, “Pancreatic cancer is an extremely rare disease, and twice a tiny risk is still a tiny risk.”
People with diabetes “should remain focused on the common complications of diabetes such as heart disease, eye disease and kidney disease, and the many measures — including diet, exercise, and medication — that can be taken to avoid them,” Stevens concluded.
SOURCE: British Journal of Cancer, February 2007.
Children born to women who experience certain complications during pregnancy an? delivery are at increased risk for developing specific patterns of wheezing, according to a new report.
“This study adds weight to the epidemiological data which suggest that early development has significant consequences in disease risk not only in childhood (our study), but also throughout life,” Dr. Franca Rusconi told Reuters Health.
Rusconi from the University of Florence, Italy and colleagues in the SIDRIA Collaborative Group evaluated the associations between maternal medical complications and procedures during pregnancy and at delivery and the risks of various wheezing disorders — transient early wheezing, persistent wheezing and late-onset wheezing — in 15,609 children between 6 and 7 years old.
The team found that 9.5 percent of the children had transient early wheezing, 5.4 percent had persistent wheezing, and 6.1 percent had late-onset wheezing. Preeclampsia or high blood pressure requiring therapy was associated with an increased risk of all three wheezing types, the investigators report, increasing the odds by 40 percent, 59 percent, and 47 percent, respectively. Maternal diabetes was associated with a 72 percent increased risk of persistent wheezing.
Prescription of antibiotics for urinary tract infections and antibiotics administered at delivery were associated with early-onset transient and persistent wheeze, the results indicate. Prescription of antibiotics for respiratory infections was strongly associated with both persistent and late-onset wheezing, the researchers note.
Amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling, cesarean section, and weight gain during pregnancy were not significantly associated with childhood wheezing, the investigators report in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
Although a maternal history of asthma and/or allergy was also associated with wheezing in childhood, this history did not modify the association between maternal complications or procedures in pregnancy and at birth and wheezing phenotypes, the report indicates.
Most patients didn’t manage their symptoms before attack, study found.
Diabetes risk factors are still not well-controlled in patients, even though the disease increases their stroke risk, a new study finds.
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, analyzed data on nearly 50,000 stroke patients with diabetes.
They found that these patients had high rates of obesity, high blood pressure, cholesterol disorders, and poor control of blood sugar at the time of the stroke.
The data came from the American Stroke Association’s Get With the Guidelines - Stroke program. The findings are expected to be presented Wednesday at the American Stroke Association’s annual meeting, in San Francisco.
Patients with undiagnosed diabetes when their stroke occurred had poorer control of their diabetes risk factors than patients who’d been diagnosed with diabetes prior to their stroke, the researchers said.
Stroke patients with undiagnosed diabetes may be at greater risk of recurrent stroke and cardiovascular complications, the study authors warned.
“There are good evidence-based guidelines for diagnosing and treating risk factors for diabetes, but those guidelines have thus far not translated into better risk factor management,” Dr. Lee Schwamm, MGH’s vice chairman of neurology and director of acute stroke services, said in a prepared statement.
“These results show that more emphasis is needed on early diagnosis of diabetes and management of risk factors in people who have diabetes,” Schwamm said.
Most people know there are serious health risks related to being obese but a new study demonstrates yet another cause for concern.
Obesity is linked to type 2 diabetes and a report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information released Wednesday found that diabetes is a major risk factor for kidney failure, otherwise known as end-stage renal disease (ESRD).
Over a 10-year period the number of newly diagnosed kidney failure patients with diabetes increased by 114 per cent, the study said. That jump correlates with an increase in the incidence of diabetes in the Canadian
population overall, the study said.
Between 1995 and 2004 the number of kidney failure patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes more than tripled. More than 17,000 kidney failure patients were diagnosed with diabetes, the data showed.
Among kidney failure patients with type 2 diabetes, 30 per cent were determined to be obese.
“Diabetes is the fastest growing cause of end-stage renal disease,” Margaret Keresteci, CIHI’s manager of clinical registries, said in a news release.
“In fact, diabetes is now a factor in more than 40 per cent of all registered ESRD patients, up from 25 per cent 10 years ago. It’s important to note that the type of diabetes driving the increase is linked to obesity and lifestyle factors.”
Type 2 diabetes is often a preventable disease and preventing it could help reduce the risk of serious health consequences, including kidney failure, Keresteci said.
The study examined survival rates for dialysis patients with diabetes and found that diabetics did not fare as well as non-diabetics. The difference was more pronounced among younger patients, the CIHI report said.
Diabetic patients on dialysis between the ages of 18 and 65 had a 10 per cent lower five-year survival rate when compared to those without diabetes.
A smaller difference - six per cent - was seen between patients over 65. Kidney transplant recipients also had a lower chance of survival, the analysis showed. Non-diabetic recipients had 93 per cent five-year survival rates, compared to 82 per cent for those with type 2 diabetes.
The report, Treatment of End-Stage Organ Failure in Canada, 1995 to 2004, also provided data on other kinds of organ transplants. Among its highlights:
-The number of patients waiting for a liver transplant increased 348 per cent over the 10-year period
-Over the decade, 1,571 people had a heart transplant and 58 required a second one
-The number of adult lung transplants increased by 64 per cent
-On a yearly basis the number of living organ donors increased from 230 in 1995 to 476 in 2004
Most people know that diabetes means that the body cannot produce enough insulin. But what people may not know is how the disease can impact oral health. According to the American Diabetes Association, more than 14 million Americans currently suffer from the disease, while 6.2 million cases remain undiagnosed. And that number, say experts, may climb as high as 31 million by the year 2050. Most diabetics understand the risks and complications associated with the disease. But one condition that may not get much attention is xerostomia, or dry mouth, which is caused by the mouth not producing enough saliva. Saliva contains enzymes and proteins that help control the bacteria in our mouths to help prevent oral infections, dental decay and gum disease. But in diabetics, higher sugar levels in the blood and saliva encourage bacterial growth. “There is an increased risk for poor oral health in diabetics,” said Dr. Sol Silverman, professor of oral medicine at University of California, San Francisco, who emphasizes the importance of diet and blood sugar control, good oral hygiene and maintaining mouth moisture for comfort and control of oral disease. In addition, dental researchers say there may be a link between dry mouth and medications used to treat diabetics. According to recent studies, three-fourths of those who suffer from diabetes also have high blood pressure, and most drugs used to treat hypertension can cause the salivary glands to produce less saliva. Dryness can also be intensified by the use of other drugs, such as antidepressants and antihistamines. For diabetics, it is a vicious cycle. But help is available. Products have been developed to help protect a diabetic or dry mouth sufferer. Biotene dry mouth toothpaste, mouthwash, chewing gum and Oral Balance dry mouth moisturizing gel are especially made for these conditions. These antibacterial products contain salivary enzymes and proteins, which boost and replenish saliva’s defense system while inhibiting harmful bacteria growth, and fight the causes and effects of gingivitis, an inflammation of the gums. The products are alcohol-free so they won’t irritate an already sensitive dry mouth. Biotene and Oral Balance are both available over the counter.