That's Fit

Carrying an excess amount of belly fat increases a person's risk of developing type 2 diabetes. And though frequent high blood sugars alone can be detrimental to someone's health, it's oftentimes the associated complications of type 2 diabetes that take quite a toll on people's lives.

A recent study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine revealed that diabetes (both type 1 and type 2) complications can take up to eight years off a person's life. In particular, people with diabetes face an elevated risk of cardiovascular disease, according to the study. Researchers found that women with diabetes developed cardiovascular disease 8.4 years sooner than women without diabetes. Consequently, women aged 50 and older with diabetes lived 8.2 fewer years than people without the disease.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that results in the permanent destruction of the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas, an occurrence that happens for reasons unrelated to diet, exercise, or any other known factor. Type 2 diabetes, however, can many times be prevented or controlled with proper diet and regular exercise.

People with type 1 diabetes are usually diagnosed when they are children, after their pancreatic beta cells stop producing insulin. This cessation has nothing to do with weight, diet, or even blood sugar fluctuations at its onset. It simply happens, and it does so for reasons unknown.

To raise awareness about type 1 diabetes, thousands of people from around the blogosphere are participating today in the Raise Your Voice campaign. It's incredibly inspiring to see so many people, from so many walks of life, banding together in efforts to help bring this lesser-known and oft-overlooked type of diabetes to the fore.

Help spread the word by telling everyone you know to Raise Their Voices, too!!!

Using a special "drug cocktail," researchers from Harvard University have stopped the destruction of insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells in mice, and have also regenerated cells.

Translation? They've found a potential cure for type 1 diabetes.

Previously, this same team of Harvard researchers were only able to stop the destruction of the cells. However, with the addition of one more ingredient to the drug cocktail -- an enzyme called alpha 1 anti-trypsin -- a significant rise in the number of beta cells occurred.

Incredibly, the diabetic mice started producing their own insulin after taking this new drug mixture. Researchers hope to start human trials in the very near future.

More than 300 people took time out of their work day Thursday to spin on stationary bikes in Washington, D.C. for an event that raised nearly $90,000 for diabetes research.

The event was the second annual Spin to Win put on by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Capitol Chapter. Fox 5 News and Sport & Health were top sponsors and news broadcasters joined teams of riders from local businesses in a little friendly competition. A few riders were pretty serious, showing up in racing garb and breaking 40 mph during their ride.

In the end, it was about bringing hope for a cure for type 1 diabetes. Donations are still being accepted. To donate, click here.

A favorite snack food of mine are pumpkin seeds. Along with peanuts, walnuts and sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds are tasty and nutritious as well. Try adding them to a trail mix someday -- they are great!

They are more than tasty, though; recent research out of China points to pumpkin seeds as a way to help halt type 1 diabetes. The study, of course, was performed on rats (aren't all the good ones?).

The study concluded that Asian pumpkin extract may help protect pancreatic cells from being destroyed by the ravages of type 1 diabetes. Although these results are preliminary, I hope they prove true. You couldn't ask for a better way to help the body defend itself from diabetes.

Diabulimia, or insulin omission, is the practice of minimizing or skipping insulin treatments altogether to lose weight. A risky and potentially deadly way to lose weight, diabulimia is most commonly seen in teenage girls and young women. One expert estimates that 450,000 people with Type 1 diabetes have skipped insulin treatments in the name of weight loss. Studies show that women with Type 1 diabetes are twice as likely to develop an eating disorder.

Omitting insulin treatments puts people with Type 1 diabetes at risk of organ damage, coma, and even death. According to a Joslin Diabetes Center doctor, patients who skip insulin treatments will wind up with severe complications much earlier. Insulin, a natural substance that Type 1 diabetics don't produce enough of, is necessary for carrying glucose from the blood stream to the cells. Warning signs of diabulimia include a change in eating patterns (such as eating more but losing weight) and frequent urination.

According to the American Diabetes Association, insulin omission has been known for years as a dangerous practice, but the term "diabulimia" is new.

Today, most insulin that's used to treat type 1 and 2 diabetes is created by genetically engineered bacteria grown in tanks (in a lab, I presume.) But Argentine scientists have come up with a way to clone genetically engineered cows, and may have revolutionized the way insulin is produced.

By splicing a human gene into that of a calf fetus, the scientists have created cloned animals that will start producing human insulin when they are adults. The milk from these animals will be purified and processed, and the insulin will be extracted. Here's what stunned me -- 25 cows should be able to produce enough insulin to treat the 1.5 million diabetics in Argentina. In addition, it'll cost about 30% less to manufacture.

If this process becomes the norm, hopefully 200 million patients with diabetes worldwide will see those reduced prices reflected in their monthly prescription bill.

A tentative new study is offering hope for those with Type I diabetes and has some researchers even using the words "possible cure." Scientists in Brazil and the United States used stem cells to treat 15 patients, ages 14 to 31, who recently had been diagnosed. After suppressing the patients' immune systems, the researchers gave each participant a chemical that excited the stem cells in the bone marrow. These stem cells were filtered from their blood and re-injected into each person. All but one of the study participants showed some level of freedom from injectable insulin, and one person has been free from all insulin shots for nearly three years.

Experts caution that this was a very small test and that there was no control group to compare test subjects to. In addition, researchers don't really know for sure that it was the stem cells that fostered the change or if it was suppressing the immune system that did the trick. In type I diabetes, cells made in the pancreas are attacked by a person's own immune system, causing difficulty in managing blood sugar levels.

So even though it's not clear whether researchers have truly found an answer, it is a glimmer of hope for people around the world who deal with the disease and the pokes and jabs of the needle on a daily basis.