Diabetes Restaurant Month is a program that strives to educate people with diabetes about the importance of making more informed dietary choices when eating out.

Diners are encouraged to visit local restaurants in select cities to try featured diabetes-friendly dishes during the month designated as Diabetes Restaurant Month for that city. Earl will visit each city participating in Diabetes Restaurant Month to sample diabetes-friendly dishes with a lucky local fan and a certified diabetes educator during an educational discussion about diabetes.

Restaurants participating in Diabetes Restaurant Month have created delicious diabetes-friendly dishes with the help of a registered dietician and an endocrinologist.Restaurants in Denver, Raleigh, Chicago, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Detroit, Cleveland, Phoenix, Orlando, Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale/ Miami/ West Palm Beach. To check out which specific restaurants are participating, click here.

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Once Pascoe is fully trained, he will be give to a family with a diabetic child. There he will service as a diabetic alert dog, warning the family and child of errant blood sugar levels.

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Approximately 105 million people in the United States have diabetes or pre-diabetes, according to figured from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). An estimated 26 million Americans have diabetes, which is a 10% increase from 2008. The vast majority of those people – 90% to 95% — have Type 2 diabetes. The remaining 79 million have pre-diabetes, a condition characterized by elevated blood sugar levels that don’t rise to the level of being Type 2 diabetes. Pre-diabetes more than one in three adults in the U.S. 

The CDC says diabetes costs $174 billion each year. However, late last year UnitedHealth Group projected diabetes will cost the country $3.35 trillion over the next ten years. Most adults with diabetes – 84% — take pills or insulin. The disease is the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States, a ranking some say is misleading because it often doesn’t factor in deaths from stroke or heart attack, both complications stemming from diabetes. 

If current trends are any indication, the diabetes market should grow by leaps and bounds In 2009, that market expanded to $14.9 billion, a 17% increase from the year before, according to statistics from IMS Health. Stock-tracker Morningstar expects the worldwide diabetes market to grow to more than $55 billion by 2019. That figured excludes insulin, which is required by all people with Type 1 diabetes and some people with Type 2.

Currently, Actos from Takeda Pharmaceuticals is the top-selling drug in the U.S., bringing in $1.8 billion during the first six months of 2010. Long-acting insulin analogue Lantus from Sanofi-Aventis came in second with $1.5 billion, while Januvia from Merck had $854 million in sales. Those are followed by Novolog from Novo-Nordisk and Humalog from Eli Lilly, both insulin analogues.

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Zamarripa was previously a firefighter in North Carolina, but when he moved back to Texas, he had to take a physical. That’s when he found out his blood sugar levels was two points higher than the normal range. He says that cost him his job. He went to his own doctor, who said he was fit to work. The department asked him to complete a performance test, which he did, but WBAMC still didn’t clear him for work.

Zamarripa says he is being unfairly singled out because others in the department haven’t completed the agility test, but are still working.

Last year we reported that another Texas firefighter, Raul Gonzalez, was removed from duty because of his Type 2 diabetes. Gonzalez has returned to duty, but is currently suing the Army for discriminating against him. Zamarripa and Gonzalez had the same doctor. (See: Firefighter With Diabetes Fighting for Job)

Zamarripa has been told to shed some pounds and recently underwent bariatric surgery. He lost 41 pounds so far. However, he has not been given his job back yet. The department released a statement saying that the job involves hazardous duties and that all firefighters must be in top physical condition to help avoid extra risk to all firefighters.

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Researchers found that 10% of young people with Type 1 diabetes and 16% with Type 2 diabetes currently use some form of tobacco product: cigarettes, cigars or smokeless tobacco. Less than half said they had been counseled by their healthcare provider to not smoke or stop smoking. The study looked at 3,466 children and young adults with diabetes across various races and ethnicities in the U.S. All study participants were between the ages of 10 and 22 years old.

Among Type 1 diabetics aged 10 to 14 years old, 1.3% said they smoke cigarettes. In the 15-19 year old age bracket, 14.9% smoke, while 27% of those 20 years of age and older smoke. For Type 2 diabetics, 4.4% of those 10 to 14-years old said they smoke cigarettes. Among 15-19 year olds, 12.9% are cigarette smokers and 37.3% of those in the study 20 years and older are cigarette smokers.

Children and young adults with diabetes are already at an elevated risk of developing heart disease before taking up smoking, but few studies have examined the association between cigarette smoking and heart disease risk factors in youth with diabetes. The study found early signs of heart disease among those using cigarette products. Youth who were past and current smokers had a higher prevalence of high triglyceride levels, high LDL cholesterol levels, low HDL cholesterol levels and more physical inactivity than non-smokers.

“We found a substantial proportion of youth with diabetes are current cigarette smokers, which greatly adds to their already elevated risk for heart disease,” said study lead author Kristi Reynolds, PhD, MPH, a research scientist and epidemiologist at the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation. “Smoking is preventable, so aggressive smoking prevention and cessation programs are needed to prevent or delay heart disease in youth with diabetes.”

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Researchers say that there has been a consistent link, found across many studies, between glucose levels in the blood and aggression. Furthermore, they found that states in the U.S. with higher rates of diabetes also had higher rates of violent crime. The researchers say that these findings take poverty rates into account.

The study looked at data from three previous studies. The first study compared people who drank lemonade sweetened with sugar versus those drinking lemonade with an artificial sweetener. The researchers found that those who drank the sugary lemonade were less likely to act in an aggressive manor towards a stranger just a few minutes later. The second study looked at the brain’s need for glucose and its importance in self-control and in curbing violent impulses. The final study looked at diabetes rates in certain states and compared that with violent crimes.

However, it is unclear whether the study actually provided statistics linking individuals with diabetes that commit violent crime and comparing those stats against the general population.

“When most people think about diabetes and people with trouble metabolizing glucose, they think of it as only harming the individual,” says study co-author Brad Bushman, a professor at Ohio State University. “But this research shows it can also harm society.” Bushman says those who metabolize sugar efficiently are able to better control their emotions and suppress their violent impulses. He also notes they are less likely to “seek revenge on people who’ve wronged us, and to forgive them.”

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Also, for additional photos from last year, check out the following post: Monuments Go Blue for World Diabetes Day

Adelaide Entertainment Centre, Adelaide, Australia

Assembly House, Kolkata, India

West Bengal Assembly

Torre da TV Cabralia, Itabuna, Bahia, Brazil

Sun Trust Building in Tampa Bay

Sao Jose Catherdal – Itabuna, Brazil

Qatar Diabetes Association in Doha

Millennium Stadium in Wales

Martyr’s Monument, Mirpur, Azad Kashmir, Pakistan

Castle, Bragança, Portugal

Catedral Antigua, Guatemala

Lake Pavilion of Taichung, Taiwan

Lake Pavilion of Taichung, Taiwan

City Hall, Oradea, Romania

166 Chayssee de la Hulpe – B-1770 Brussels, Belgium

Hopewell Centre in Hong Kong

I was traveling for business in Europe four years ago. I was traveling, alone. While in Nice it appeared that I was bitten by an insect. Above my eyebrow, this “bite” began to itch and by the time I arrived in Rome three days later, had morphed into an unpleasant burning, tingling bump. Three dermatologists misdiagnosed it as an insect bite and pumped me full of cortisone; orally, by injection and with a topical cream.  Turns out I had shingles. 

By the time I returned to the US, it also turned out, I was told, that the large amount of cortisone had activated a gene for Type 2 diabetes. Who knew that when people said my father had high blood sugar, they actually meant he was a diabetic. He didn’t seem to know and no one passed this tidbit on to me! Nevertheless my glucose was 213. It had been 90. So, diabetes is a sneaky disease, I learned.

Having been a sugar-hound my entire life, the idea of giving it up became surprisingly easy. For me it was about, and continues to be about, creative visualization. A month after my diagnosis and still really angry about this turn of events, I went for a pedicure. While in my seat I noticed a middle-aged, overweight, woman come into the salon, using a cane. She looked to be a little older than me, but really looked “older.” 

The pedicurist was taking special care with her, seating her carefully and then bent down to remove the woman’s shoes and socks. I thought “wow, how sweet they’re being to her,” until I saw her feet! At first I wasn’t sure of what I was seeing, but as my eyes adjusted I realized the woman only had two toes on one foot and three on the other.  It was difficult to look at. 

In great deference to anyone reading this who has suffered a similar fate, I want to say I am truly sorry. But please know that this woman was such an inspiration in my life. I looked at her disfigured feet, assumed, and perhaps incorrectly, that this woman had diabetes. I knew about some of the more extreme potential consequences of the disease, which includes amputations of extremities. It scared me.

I promised myself that the next time I was tempted to eat something sweet, I would remember this. Four years later my AIC is usually between 5.8 and 6.2, my glucose between 90 and 130. 

People, celebrating with birthday cakes, often say to me “one bite won’t hurt you,” but they don’t realize that it might. One bite, with no consequences, could lead to several bites with consequences. I don’t want to risk getting derailed from my healthy eating routine. I say no. For me, this works.

I have also made sure to take care of my feet. I avoid tight-fitting shoes that might cause blisters and I see a podiatrist once a year. I also use a line of creams designed for diabetic concerns from Triderma.

The company provides free sample packs to anyone who is curious about the products. To get one, click here. If you like it, the site has agreed to offer a discount to customers of Diabetes News Hound until the end of the year. 

(Diabetes News Hound does not have a business relationship with TriDerma, nor does it receive any form of compensation from the company.)

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The researchers examined 15 of the social network’s 15 largest diabetes-related communities, which averaged 9,289 participants. They found that 27% of the comments on the pages were first-person testimonials of promotional in nature for items that are not approved by the FDA. There are many people that swear by natural remedies, or methods that are not approved by the FDA. Its important to note that just because a method is not FDA-approved doesn’t necessarily make it bad. However,  it is also unregulated and is more likely to be a scam.

However, there were positive findings as well. Two-thirds (66%) of the posts were written by individuals relating personal experiences managing diabetes. Meanwhile, 29% of the posts provided some sort of emotional support.

William Shrank, the study’s author says that such sites do provide a benefit, but that visitors should be aware that it’s “really the Wild West out there.” He said the sites lack quality control and suggested that policymakers should take note of what is happening on the sites.

For full disclosure, Diabetes News Hound was not a part of this study and both www.diabetesnewshound.com and the publication’s Facebook Fan Page is actively monitored and vetted. 

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Pre Diabetes, which used to be called borderline blood sugars or impaired fasting glucose, is a condition in which an individual experiences some insulin resistance, resulting in higher blood sugar levels than normal, but those levels are not elevated high enough to be considered Type 2 diabetes. If left unchecked, the individual stands a good chance of developing full-blown diabetes.

Current diabetes predictions are staggering. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) predicts that as many as 1 in 3 could have Type 2 diabetes by 2050. Two out of every three minority children are on pace to get diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association.

However, doctors are increasingly realizing the best time to treat diabetes is before the patient actually gets the disease. Risk for diabetes include obesity, a sedentary lifestyle, high blood pressure and, in women, gestational diabetes (during pregnancy).

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