Blood Pressure, Diabetes and the Metabolic Syndrome

This week I am again writing about blood pressure, diabetes and the metabolic syndrome. Each week I see patients who have recently been examined by their primary doctors and are told that have findings of high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar or both. They are ill advised to return for followup in 8 weeks for a second test.

I am not suggesting that it is wrong to followup when you have such findings. It is however foolish to make no management recommendations and expect a different outcome on a subsequent visit. Often on the next visit medication will be prescribed as now there is a trend and not just a single visit finding which may have been just coincidence. It is necessary to show a trend vs. a single visit reading to prescribe drug therapies unless hypertension is severe.

Blood and Sugar - Your Circulatory System, the Highway of LIFE

The glucose spike is just the tip of the iceberg of the sugar problem. When your sugar is off, your health is off. Sugars determine everything about your body including your blood type. Your LIFE is literally held in the four parts of your blood: red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and the plasma in which your life is suspended. Your circulatory system is controlled by sugars. Your OS is glycoproteins on the surface of your cells.

The highway of LIFE is literally your circulatory system made up of a vast network of pipe extending 50,000 to 70,000 miles. Your veins and arteries are the super highways and your capillaries are the back road vessels that take your blood and nutrients to the most remote regions of your body. Some lanes are so narrow that the blood cells must pass single file. The blood passes through your heart twice per cycle which takes about one minute to make the journey through your body.

Type 2 Diabetes - Does Weight Loss Affect Your Bones?

Being overweight or obese are often problems for most people who are diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. These diabetics are usually told weight loss intervention can help to control the disease as well as prevent damage to their heart and blood vessel disease.

Unfortunately, heart attacks are a prime cause of death in middle-aged people with Type 2 diabetes. Fatality rates are two to four times higher than those of middle-aged people without diabetes. Recent studies reveal between 35 and 50 percent of heart attack victims had abnormal blood sugar at the time of the attack. People with high blood pressure are also at a higher risk.

Researchers at the University of California in San Francisco, United States, however, who are concerned weight loss programs could have complications, undertook a study to ascertain what effects, if any, weight loss interventions could have on the bones of people with Type 2 diabetes.

Type 2 Diabetes - Does Lack of Exercise Affect Your Body?

A sedentary lifestyle has long been linked with an increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. Genetic inheritance causes Type 2 diabetes. However, factors such as obesity, lack of exercise, and sometimes the stress of surgery, interacts with your genetic risk to trigger this disease.

Not taking part in exercise or physical activity contributes to a lower quality of life and makes it more difficult for you to control both your weight and blood sugar. It is one factor that you can change immediately.

Researchers at the Centre for Exercise at the University of Bristol in the UK looked at sedentary time and periods of physical activity in relation to health factors in people diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

Glucose Metabolism, Leukemia and Diabetes

Let us examine the relationship between the sugar load in the human body and Leukemia and Diabetes. Different sugars, both the good sugars and harmful sugars affect blood chemistry that can mobilize a cascade of problems or benefits in human health.

The sugars we eat and the nutrients we get help determine our health. Why are the highest incidences of cancer in western nations? The lowest recorded incidences of cancer according to WHO appears to be in the developing countries of Northern Africa, Southern and Eastern Asia.

Some people eat very poorly and then consume what may in reality be a type of antidote that keeps the bad stuff from doing as much harm. Studies provide data supporting the French Paradox which indicates that proanthocyanidins and other flavonoids in red wines prevents cardiovascular diseases and diabetes although they have high-fat diets.

Type 2 Diabetes - Using An Eye Exam To Diagnose Diabetes and Diabetic Complications

We all know the importance of keeping our eyes healthy. But what many people don't realize is not only can the health of your eyes tell you a great deal about what is going on inside your body, but they also have the ability to spot the development of certain conditions... like Type 2 diabetes.

How can the eyes determine the likelihood of someone developing Type 2 diabetes? Because so much of a diabetic's health can be linked to their eyes. When blood sugar levels are allowed to run out of control, the eyes are one of the first places that experience complications.

Diabetes can cause damage to these parts of your eye:

1. Retina: The tissue in the back of the eye that transmits visual images to the brain via the optic nerve.

Type 2 Diabetes - Does This Diabetic Medication Help With Psoriasis As Well As Lower Blood Sugar?

Psoriasis is a skin condition seen more in diabetics than in non-diabetics. Controlling it can mean a lifetime of frustration. According to an article published in the journal Diabetes and Metabolism in January 2012, the diabetes drug exenatide (Byetta) could become one more addition to the armamentarium of drugs used to treat psoriasis.

A 61-year-old man with a body mass index of 25.5 and Type 2 diabetes treated with metformin and sulphonylureas for diabetes and steroids for psoriasis, had exenatide, or Byetta, added to his diabetic regimen. His weight and HbA1c levels went down and, unexpectedly, his psoriasis also improved dramatically.

One year later his psoriasis was still under control. When he stopped taking exenatide he gained weight, showed an increase in his HbA1c percentage, and had a psoriatic flare-up. After beginning exenatide or Byetta again, he once more found the psoriasis quickly improved.