Diabetes Archive

About 96 million Americans have prediabetes, defined by elevated blood sugar levels that are not high enough to qualify as diabetes. Risk factors include overweight or obesity, family history, and inactivity. People with prediabetes may have more infections and frequent urination or blurry vision after big meals. Lifestyle changes such as maintaining a healthy weight, exercising, eating healthy foods, drinking alcohol moderately, and not smoking may prevent prediabetes from progressing to diabetes.

Several drugs originally developed to treat type 2 diabetes can help people shed as much as 20% of their body weight—far more than other anti-obesity drugs. Known as incretin mimetics, they also improve blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Up to half of all new-onset diabetes cases in this country are linked to obesity, a disease that now affects more than 40% of Americans. Both conditions are closely linked to cardiovascular disease.

Lifestyle changes like regular exercise, a healthy diet, and sufficient sleep are cornerstones of self-care for people with type 2 diabetes. But can mind-body practices help people manage or even treat type 2 diabetes? An analysis of multiple studies suggests they might.

A major theme of the 2023 American Diabetes Association Standards of Medical Care guide is healthy weight loss. The new guidelines also encourage collaboration on meaningful lifestyle changes that help with sleep and health metric targets.

A recent study suggests that following a low-carb diet may quickly reduce A1C levels in people with prediabetes. Such a rigorous approach to eating may not be realistic, but cutting even some carbs may lead to weight loss and lower blood sugar.

By age 40, one in five women has dealt with an eating disorder, twice the proportion of women known to be affected by age 21. Risks for anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating can rise at midlife due to job stressors, an empty nest, and dating again after divorce or widowhood. Health effects can include bone loss, heart problems, lung conditions, gastrointestinal issues, diabetes, and skin breakdown. Signs of an eating disorder include dramatic weight fluctuations, excessive exercising, and preoccupation with weight, calories, and body size and shape.

Gout strikes when too much uric acid builds up in the body and triggers severe pain, swelling, and redness in one or more joints, often in the big toe. New research suggests that an episode may increase the risk for a heart attack or stroke over the following two months.

A new study suggests that older adults who maintain an high level functional fitness have a lower their risk of heart attack, heart failure, and stroke compared with those who are not as fit.

Unhealthy lifestyle habits, chronic diseases, and genetic conditions can damage the kidneys and reduce their ability to do their many jobs. But many precautions can help protect the kidneys. Examples include controlling diabetes; lowering high blood pressure; moderating intake of salt, alcohol, and protein; limiting intake of oxalate-rich foods such as spinach, almonds, or cashews; losing weight; stopping smoking; exercising regularly; staying hydrated; limiting the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs); and getting annual kidney function tests.