Diabetes Archive

Some data suggest that people with diabetes who get COVID-19 are more likely to have serious complications or to die. If you have diabetes, you need to take steps to reduce your risk of getting sick.

Most people with type 2 diabetes also have obesity. Weight-loss surgery has a positive impact on risk factors for heart disease, and a recent study found that this surgery significantly reduced the risk of death in people with obesity and diabetes.

In the journals

Older adults with a healthy weight but a large waistline could have a higher risk of developing dementia, according to a recent study.

Weight gain and obesity are known risk factors for dementia, and body mass index (BMI) is often used to estimate excess body fat. (BMI is a measure that takes into account both weight and height.)

Lifestyle changes have been shown to reduce the risk of a cardiovascular event, but can they also help those with diabetes? A recent study found a positive association between healthy lifestyle choices and reduced cardiovascular risk for those with type 2 diabetes.

A recent study suggested that eating red or processed meats won't necessarily harm your health. What is the truth?

The news headlines were everywhere: "It's Okay to Eat Red Meat." The source for this statement was a study published online Oct. 1, 2019, in Annals of Internal Medicine.

An international team of researchers conducted five systematic reviews that looked at the effects of red meat and processed meat on multiple health issues, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and premature death.

Over seven million people have diabetic retinopathy, the most common form of vision loss in working-age adults with diabetes. It’s recommended that people with diabetes should work to keep blood pressure in the normal range and their A1c level below 7% to avoid complications such as diabetic retinopathy.

Research we're watching

Replacing just one sugary drink each day with water may reduce your risk of developing diabetes, according to a study published online Oct. 3, 2019, by Diabetes Care. Researchers from Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health looked at more than two decades' worth of data collected in three long-term studies, involving more than 192,000 adults. By tracking beverage intake over time, they found that people who increased their consumption of sugary drinks (including 100% fruit juice) by more than 4 ounces a day over four years had a 16% increase in diabetes risk over the next four years. Turning to "diet" versions might not help, either: an 18% jump in diabetes risk occurred in people who increased their intake of artificially sweetened drinks by more than 4 ounces a day over the same period, although some of that risk could have reflected other factors, said researchers.

The bottom line: If you want to reduce diabetes risk, it's better to skip sweet drinks and stick to unsweetened tea, coffee, or water. When people drank one of those beverages once a day instead of a sweetened drink, diabetes risk dropped by 2% to 10%.

A higher-than-normal blood sugar level puts you at risk for developing diabetes and heart disease.

If you're hoping to avoid heart disease, you probably pay close attention to your blood cholesterol levels. But you also should keep an eye on your blood sugar, because an elevated blood sugar level is an early warning sign of diabetes, one of the main risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

A fasting blood sugar level of 100 to 125 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) means you may have a common precursor to diabetes, called prediabetes. (Normal blood sugar values range from 70 to 99 mg/dL.) An estimated one in three American adults has prediabetes, although most of them don't know it.

People at high risk of heart disease get the most benefit from these costly drugs.

If you're a woman with diabetes, your risk of developing heart disease is four times that of a woman without diabetes. That means protecting your heart health should be a top priority. It starts with adopting heart-healthy lifestyle changes. But if you have a history of heart attack or stroke or are high risk for other reasons, your doctor may suggest a diabetes medication with extra benefits.

Women and their doctors can choose from a crop of new drugs that may reduce diabetes-related heart risks. "Today we're starting to try to customize or personalize an individual's preventive medicine. We take certain subgroups of patients — such as those with a past history of stroke, heart attack, or heart failure — and steer them toward specific drugs based on new data," says Dr. David Nathan, director of the Diabetes Center and Clinical Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Research we're watching

While eating more foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids may lower the risk of heart attack, that doesn't seem to reduce the risk of developing diabetes, according to a study published Aug. 24 in The BMJ. Prompted by past findings that this type of healthy fat might reduce diabetes risk and improve blood sugar (glucose) control, researchers decided to look further into the issue. They reviewed 83 randomized trials involving more than 120,000 people, both with and without diabetes. Each trial went on for six months or longer. These trials looked at whether increasing consumption of omega-3 fats (derived from fish or plants), omega-6 fats (such as those in soybean or corn oil), or total polyunsaturated fats could help lower blood glucose or reduce the risk of developing diabetes. They found that increasing the amount of omega-3, omega-6, or total polyunsaturated fats in the diet over an average study period of nearly three years didn't seem to have any effect on glucose metabolism or diabetes risk. It didn't matter whether the additional healthy fats came from supplements, enriched foods, or foods that were naturally rich in these fats.

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