The Effects of Diabetes: Guest Blog

Coping with diabetes is a daily journey for millions of individuals and their families. If you have a family member or friend with type 1 diabetes, you may be familiar with the allergic reactions, irritation and rash that insulin injections can cause.

People with type 2 diabetes face different challenges, as doctors often prescribe them medications to help their cells use insulin more efficiently. Unfortunately, these patients and their families may be forced to deal with some serious side effects from these medications.

The Most Dangerous Diabetes Drug

Actos is the most popular drug prescribed to treat diabetes — and among the most dangerous.

Actos carries a black-box warning from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) because it can cause heart attacks. In 2011, Actos was shown to increase the risk of bladder cancer by 40 percent if a patient takes it for longer than a year.

Some other dangerous Actos side effects include macular edema, which is an eye disorder that causes blindness, and an increased risk of broken bones and liver failure. 

Patients have sued the maker of Actos, after suffering complications from taking the drug, creating thousands of Actos Lawsuits.

The Dangers of Metformin

Metformin is usually one of the first drugs doctors give to people with type 2 diabetes because it lowers blood-sugar levels quickly. Sadly, it also can have some serious side effects.

Metformin can cause heart or liver failure, or chronic metabolic acidosis — which occurs when extra amounts of acid fill the body. 

Safer Ways to Treat Diabetes

Diabetes is hard enough for patients and their families. No one needs a diabetes drug that can bring even more visits to the doctor or, in the worst-case scenario, a  terminal illness.

The good news for families and diabetes patients is that there are safer alternatives. Doctors can decide whether any of the following might be a good option:  non-sulfonylurea secretagogues, alpha-glucosidase inhibitors or sulfonylureas. These medications can lower blood sugar and carry less risk.

William Richards is a writer for Drugwatch.com. He uses his journalism background to investigate dangerous drugs and promote consumer awareness to better the community.

Today is World Diabetes Day

Today, November 14th 2011, is World Diabetes Day. November 14th was the birthday of Sir Frederick Banting, the Nobel Laureate who, in 1922, discovered insulin. If you have diabetes, I believe you would find the following articles interesting:

Paleolithic diet much better for diabetics than conventional ‘diabetes diet’

Vitamin D has potential to combat Type 2 diabetes

Conflicts of interest rife in those setting diabetes and cholesterol guidelines

If you take diabetes drug Avandia and missed Panorama's programme last Monday, I URGE you to watch it via iPlayer.

You can read in this BBC News report about the risks incurred by taking Avandia, a drug manufatcured by GlaxoSmithKline, but I urge you to watch the Panorama programme itself on iPlayer so that you have a fuller understanding of the seriousness of the risks to your health posed by taking this drug.

Drug companies are not in business for your health; they are in business for their profits. Their reassurances about the safety of their products cannot be trusted. They have a long, scandalous history of lies, evasions and corruption.

I have written about this drug before. If you click on the Avandia tag beneath this blogpost you will be able to read my earlier posts about it.

If you have already developed fluid retention/weight gain as a side-effect of taking Avandia or any other prescription drug, you can reduce this by seriously cutting down on salt and salty food.

If you take Avandia for type 2 diabetes, Panorama tonight has a programme about it (A Risk Worth Taking?) on BBC1

As BBC News reports, even though the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has said Avandia's use should be suspended, it is still available on the NHS. Avandia is linked to increased risk of heart attacks and heart failure.

"Prof [Edwin] Gale, who chairs the European Medicines Agency scientific advisory group on diabetes, said Avandia should be withdrawn entirely.

"How long do you wait? How important is it to be absolutely certain and at what point do you start saying - this game isn't worth it, people's lives may be at risk, something should be done about it?" he said.

Clinical pharmacologist Dr Yoon Loke, of the University of East Anglia, said his analysis of the class of drug showed that it doubled the risk of heart failure, regardless of whether or not the patients were considered at high risk before they took the drug."

Eat your greens!

Green vegetables have long been considered to be good for our health, and many people will remember as children being exhorted to: 'Eat your greens!' - The latest dietary suggestion is that eating about 4 ounces of green, leafy vegetables (cabbage, broccoli, spinach, cauliflower, etc) a day may significantly reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. See BBC News report.

IOM presses FDA to set new federal standards for the amount of salt that food manufacturers and restaurants be allowed to add to their products

This WebMD article reports that the Institute of Medicine is calling for the FDA to set mandatory standards for safe levels of sodium, using their existing authority to regulate salt as a food additive.

Not before time! Most people have surely encountered the message that lowering sodium intake can reduce high blood pressure, as well as reducing the risk of stroke, heart failure, heart attack, kidney failure, type 2 diabetes and many other degenerative diseases. Unfortunately most people do not know that lowering sodium intake, i.e. cutting down on salt and salty food, is also the fastest, safest and simplest way to lose excess weight.

The trouble is that there are many vested interests seeking to keep consumers salt intake high. It suits food manufacturers to add more salt than is healthy for a number of reasons. Among these reasons: salt is a very cheap ingredient, and it is an ingredient that allows more water to be added (thus adding salt and water to ham enables salt and water to be sold at the same price as ham). Salt is also addictive for many people and so this keeps up the sales of salty products. And in the case of fast food restaurants, high salt levels produce increased thirst and therefore increased sale of drinks and enhanced profits.

Until mandatory salt restriction in foodstuffs comes about, we need to police our own intake of added salt and avoid it as far as we can.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, boost your lung function and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it!

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Sodium in foods

Fat retention and fat excretion: the importance of getting enough calcium.

I can be contacted from my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Study finds dramatic rise in type-two diabetes limb amputations in England

BBC News reports that the "number of people in England having a limb amputated because of type-two diabetes has risen dramatically." Obviously this is related to the continuing rise in the number of people developing type 2 diabetes and also with the illness developing when people are younger than previously.

Type 2 diabetes occurs mostly in people who are overweight/obese, and it is one of the very serious side-effects of the many prescription drugs, e.g. corticosteroids, that weaken blood vessel walls, resulting in fluid retention/sodium retention/obesity/raised blood pressure and many other health problems.

To lower your risk of developing obesity, type 2 diabetes, etc. in the first place, it would be prudent to avoid prescription drugs unless they are really necessary, and make a serious effort to minimise your intake of salt/sodium and salty food. - Avoiding salty food entails avoiding the highly-salted processed foods like bacon, sausages, bread, cheese, cornflakes etc. See Sodium in foods

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

What steps can you take to reduce the risk of your pet dog or cat getting diabetes?

What steps can you take to reduce the risk of your dog or cat getting diabetes? – Well the main one is to avoid feeding your pet with salty food. Salt/sodium is not good for your pet. So if your pet is begging for a titbit from your plate, and if what is on your plate is a meal that contains added salt, you’d best not give in to that request.

Salty food is even more harmful for dogs and cats (and rabbits) than it is for people. Salt and salty food can cause damaging fluid retention/oedema/water retention/obesity in vulnerable groups. And obesity often leads on to type 2 diabetes.

If for some reason your pet is being treated with steroids, then it is IMPERATIVE that you provide food low in salt/sodium, because most steroids cause salt sensitivity and your pet will gain even more weight and suffer even more fluid retention and feel very tired (and also very hungry because of having to carry all that extra weight/fluid around all the time).

If you want your pets to have a healthy, happy, long life, protect them from salty food. – Don’t give them part of your salt-laden takeaway! – And if you have to give them a pill, don’t wrap it in a slice of ham or hide it in a lump of cheese! – Ham and cheese are high in salt!

See Sodium in Foods

Vitamin D supplements may help to prevent type 2 diabetes

A New Zealand study has found that South Asian women with insulin resistance improved markedly after taking vitamin D supplements. Nutrition researcher Pamela von Hurst of the Institute of Food, Nutrition and Human Health at Albany, said while diet and exercise played a major part in the onset of type-2 diabetes, her findings reinforced the importance of vitamin D from the sun and supplements to prevent type-2 diabetes.
Read article at pharmacynews.com.au (Australia)

Today is World Diabetes Day

Today is World Diabetes Day. - The most common type of diabetes is type 2 diabetes. If you want to avoid developing type 2 diabetes you need to avoid becoming obese, because obesity is very strongly linked to type 2 diabetes. To avoid becoming obese you need to reduce your intake of salt and salty food, because salt/sodium increases fluid retention/weight gain in people who are vulnerable/sensitive to salt.

See Vulnerable Groups and
Lose Weight and
Children and Obesity

Warning about risk of hypo attacks experienced by people with type 2 diabetes.

BBC News reports about risk of hypo attacks experienced by people with type 2 diabetes.

You can reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes by cutting down on salt and salty food.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver damage and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk

The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Vulnerable groups

Sodium in foods

Doubts are being raised about the safety of Glaxo's Avandia drug

See Wall Street Journal article with news about this diabetes drug.

There is a completely safe, effective, drug-free way to reduce diabetes problems. - If you avoid salt and salty food you will lose some excess weight and lower your high blood pressure. It is also good for your heart to eat less salt/sodium and it will lower your cholesterol level.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, angina, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See also FAT RETENTION

Cases of children with insulin-dependent diabetes are forecast to rise by 70% by 2020

Cases of children with insulin-dependent (type 1) diabetes are forecast to rise by 70% by 2020.
See Telegraph article

Like type 2 diabetes, often called late-onset diabetes, type 2 diabetes is increasingly being found in young children. Both forms of diabetes are believed to be linked to obesity, and breastfeeding is helpful in reducing the risk of both types of diabetes.

Obesity is caused by salt sensitivity/fluid retention/oedema and can be easily and safely reduced by cutting down on salt/sodium and salty food.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it!

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Sodium in foods

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Professor Malcolm Law is advocating mass medication to reduce blood pressure and the risk of stroke

Professor Malcolm Law is advocating mass medication - blood pressure drugs for ALL the over 55s for the rest of their lives - to reduce blood pressure and the risk of stroke. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8057850.stm

A bit extreme, don'tya think? - A bit OTT? - A bit daft? - I agree with you. - Makes you wonder whether it was a drug company that funded the research, doesn't it?

Here are the two safe, easy, rapid, drug-free ways to reduce your blood pressure and your risk of stroke and risk of a load of other illnesses too, as well as lowering your weight if you are overweight:

1. Avoid taking prescription drugs unless they are really necessary, because many of them actually CAUSE high blood pressure and risk of stroke and heart attack and type 2 diabetes, etc.

2. Cut down on salt/sodium and salty food.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it!

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Obese children with weight-related diabetes should be given gastric band surgery from age 15, says expert paediatrician Prof Julian Shield

Fat children should be given gastric bands to tackle diabetes says expert
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Rates of type 2 diabetes - a condition linked with obesity - have soared across all age groups in a decade as Britain struggles to control its weight problem. Seventeen per cent of British children - 900,000 in total - are classed obese or so fat that their health is in danger. Around 1,400 of these have type 2 diabetes, with around 100 new cases a year. The condition is usually diagnosed in those over 40 but rates in children are rising.

Gastric banding for obese children under 18 has been available on the NHS since 2006 but only in extremely rare cases. Such surgery has a less than one per cent risk of fatality although up to 10 per cent of patients can suffer complications."

That's a helluva high percentage of patients that can suffer complications! - It's a crying shame that people are not given the vitally important information that child obesity is caused by the high sodium content of much of the food that children eat. The fluid retention at the heart of all obesity is not reduced by calorie reduction or by exercise, so dieting is inappropriate, unnecessary and ineffective. - Here is what it says about child obesity on my website:

When children become fat it is essentially because they are eating salty food. Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume and other fluid retention results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food.

Because children have much smaller bodies than adults it would be best if they had no more than half as much salt as adults. Most children, however, have much more than this because they eat so many snacks and instant foods. Just one cheeseburger, for instance, contains almost double the recommended daily salt maximum for children. There are high amounts of salt in packet soups, instant noodles, ketchup and sauces, sausages, burgers and savoury snacks. Fat children will lose weight fast if they eat less salt. And even faster still if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and unsalted vegetables, because these are rich in potassium, which helps to displace sodium from the body. Overweight children should not be put on a diet; dieting is harmful and unnecessary and does not usually result in weight loss. Once children start dieting it is often the beginning of a lifetime of yo-yo dieting and increasing weight and ill-health.

Unfortunately bread contains a lot of salt and most families eat quite a lot of bread because of using it for sandwiches in packed lunches, and for toast, etc. Because of its high salt content bread is not a healthy food for little children or for anyone who is overweight. Some bread manufacturers have lowered the salt content of certain loaves, but most bread still usually contains 0.5g or more of sodium per 100g. This is too much. - Always check on the packet; look for the lowest sodium content.

Cheese is often recommended as being good for children because it contains calcium, but cheese is not really good for children because it has a high salt content. So don't give them a lot of it. Children can get plenty of calcium by drinking milk and by eating yogurt (but avoid the sort of yogurt that has lots of chemical additives).

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Visitor/s from the British Heart Foundation have been reading my blog and my webpages because of my critical blog entry about them yesterday.

I see I've had someone from the British Heart Foundation visiting the blogpost I made about them yesterday. They've also visited my website. They appear to have spent a lot of time reading my stuff.

Hopefully they will now consider altering the misinformation about obesity on their website.

I've also noticed they don't mention cutting down on salt/sodium in their advice about how to lower high cholesterol on this page http://www.bhf.org.uk/keeping_your_heart_healthy/preventing_heart_disease/cholesterol.aspx, and yet this is probably the most effective dietary adjustment you could make to lower your cholesterol level as it will simultaneously reduce high cholesterol, reduce excess weight, reduce high blood pressure and reduce any fat retention.

Yes, I know they mention lowering salt intake elsewhere on their website, but they do not give it the importance it merits. Indeed they've only been mentioning salt intake at all for a relatively few years, because I certainly remember some years ago visiting one of their charity shops and picking up one of their leaflets there which had no mention whatsoever of salt intake. I decided against donating anything to them as their advice was so flawed.

And this is their page about diabetes - http://www.bhf.org.uk/keeping_your_heart_healthy/preventing_heart_disease/diabetes.aspx - Here again, no mention is made of the importance of low salt intake in preventing type 2 diabetes and managing diabetes.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free. I am not a doctor or a dietician or a nutritionist. My website does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

New cases of diabetes have risen by 74 % in just six years, increasing at a faster pace than in America as obesity takes its toll, researchers warn.

New cases of diabetes up by three quarters as obesity rises, researchers find
article in the telegraph

Extract:

"In the ten years up until 2005, 42,642 people were diagnosed with either Type 1 diabetes which affects younger people who are a healthy weight, or Type 2 diabetes which normally develops later due to being overweight or obese.

While new cases of Type 1 diabetes have remained constant there has been a 69 per cent increase in Type 2, the researchers from the Spanish Centre for Pharmoepidemiological Research (CIEFE), in Madrid, Spain found.

In 1996, 38 per cent of people newly diagnosed with Type 2 disease were overweight and 46 per cent were obese but in 2005, 32 per cent of people newly diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes were overweight and 56 per cent were obese, respectively.

The researchers writing online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health said the pace of the rise in diabetes cases has quickened in recent years increasing by 74 per cent between 1997 and 2003 alone.

Lead author Ms Elvira Massó González, said: "Our results suggest that, although the incidence of diabetes remains lower in the UK than in the USA or Canada, it appears to be increasing at a faster pace.""

Obesity will continue inexorably to increase unless and until people are told the truth, namely that it is a problem of fluid retention, not a problem of overeating, and that it can be reduced easily on an individual basis by giving up dieting and instead concentrating on avoiding salt and salty food. - It is vital for the general public however, as opposed to the individual patient, that doctors' monumentally high prescribing of drugs be curbed by law, in order to prevent the nation's health from going to Hell in an accelerating handcart!

I can't find an email address for Sir Michael Marmot, but if you are easily able to contact him, do, please, direct him to my website.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free. I am not a doctor or a dietician or a nutritionist. My website does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Today, November 14th, is World Diabetes Day.

Type 2 Diabetes is the type that is on the increase, and, ominously, younger and younger people, even children, are now becoming diabetic, where previously type 2 diabetes was an illness of older people.

Type 2 diabetes is strongly associated with obesity and overweight. - Tragically doctors and other advisers about obesity have for decades routinely been giving false information and advice about how to reduce/prevent obesity. - They have been telling people that obesity is caused by eating too much: they call this 'overeating'. And they have been telling overweight people to eat less/cut down on calories and to take more exercise. - These measures do not reduce obesity and are frequently harmful.

Obesity is actually caused not by overeating, but by fluid retention in people who are sensitive to salt. Many prescription drugs cause salt sensitivity/fluid retention/obesity so it is best to avoid prescription drugs if you can.

To lose excess weight it is necessary to reduce the fluid retention that is causing it, and that mainly means avoiding salt and salty food, since it is salt/sodium that holds the excess fluid/water in the body and thus causes the excess weight. IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO AVOID DIETING! - If you take my advice then not only will you avoid/reduce excess weight, you will avoid/reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and many other chronic degenerative illnesses.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

See Sodium in foods

vulnerable groups

See amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

Public Citizen Petitions FDA To Ban Glaxo’s Avandia

The consumer group wants the agency to have the diabetes pill yanked over deaths from liver failures and other life-threatening risks. In a statement, Public Citizen calls Avandia, which is used to treat Type Diabetes 2, “unacceptably dangerous,” and cites new research to justify its petition. The move comes after the American Diabetes Association and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes last week both advised against using Avandia (look here and here).
Read article at pharmalot.com

More Kids Are Taking More Meds Than Ever Before. - This is very risky...

There follows another cut and paste from the Dr Rath Foundation newsletter complete with the newsletter's Comment:

More American children are taking pills for diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol than ever before, reflecting a rise in chronic diseases related to obesity. The use of drugs for type-2 diabetes, in particular, doubled in children ages 5 to 19 and statins rose by 15 percent between 2002 and 2005, according to a study published in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Read article at pharmalot.com
Comment: Not content with already having made death by medicine the leading cause of death and injury in the United States, the American medical system is increasingly trying to turn the youngest, most vulnerable, people in the country into lifelong drug-users.

A major cause of ill-health in children is, of course, eating salt and salty food. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html