Dr. John's Health Matters
Welcome to Dr. John's Health Matters blog.
The articles posted here are from various sources who are duly acknowledged. I would appreciate being immediately notified, if any copywritten material needs to be removed. This blog is not intended to replace the qualified advice of a licensed health practitioner. Readers should exercise their own judgment. Enjoy, subscribe, participate and tell others :)
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Posts tagged "insulin"
Wednesday, Sep 2nd, 2009 ↓Blueberry juice displays weight management benefits: Mouse study →
Sept 2, 2009 (Foodnavigator.com)—Drinking a modified blueberry juice may reduce food intake and body weight, and offer weight management potential, suggest findings from a new study with mice.
Canadian researchers report that mice prone to obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes and hypertension drinking the blueberry juice were protected against the development of glucose intolerance and diabetes mellitus.
The blueberry juice used in the study was not standard juice but had undergone a transformation using the Serratia vaccinii bacterium.
“Results of this study clearly show that biotransformed blueberry juice has strong anti-obesity and anti-diabetic potential,” said lead researcher Pierre Haddad, from the Université de Montréal.
“Biotransformed blueberry juice may represent a novel therapeutic agent, since it decreases hyperglycemia in diabetic mice and can protect young pre-diabetic mice from developing obesity and diabetes.”
Blueberries, nature’s only ‘blue’ food, are a rich source of polyphenols, potent antioxidants that include phenolics acids, tannins, flavonols and anthocyanins.
For full article, see link above.
Tags: blueberry juice antioxidant weightloss weight management obesity carotenoid insulin diabetes hypertension serratia vaccinii bacterium cholesterol cancer alzheimer prevention
Snooze longer, you may live longer →
Brunch at 10? Make it 11. As if not having circles under your eyes weren’t a compelling enough reason to get enough sleep, here’s another: You’ll be less likely to age from diabetes, the makes-you-sick-and-tired disease that affects more than 2 million Canadians.
When researchers let people sleep just 5 1/2 hours a night for two weeks, they saw that the sleep-deprived folks had started to develop diabetes; they had increased insulin resistance and reduced glucose tolerance.
What does that mean? Basically, your body has mailmen that take energy from food and place it inside the mailbox in your cells. But with diabetes or insulin resistance, those mailmen can’t get the mail inside.
So glucose, like a posse of bored teenagers, hangs out in your bloodstream and causes all kinds of trouble. That’s dangerous to your arteries, your brain, your immune system and your kidneys.
Previous research saw the risk for developing diabetes go up with far less sleep, but these scientists decided to test a more realistic scenario of 5 1/2 hours (sound familiar?).
Too busy to get to bed earlier? No, you’re not, especially since your life depends on it!. Try inching up your bedtime by 10 little minutes a night. By this time next week, you may have dropped your risk of aging from diabetes.
For full article, see link above.
Tags: sleep duration prevention diabetes insulin resistance glucose arteries brain immune system kidney
Tags: supplement metabolic syndrome cardiovascular heart blood pressure extract root obesity cholesterol insulin isoflavone kudzu stroke disease
Insufficient Sleep May Be Linked To Increased Diabetes Risk →
Aug 10, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com)—Short sleep times, experienced by many individuals in Westernized societies, may contribute to the development of insulin resistance and reduced glucose tolerance, which in turn may increase the long-term risk of diabetes, according to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).
Sleep curtailment is an increasingly common aspect of the Western lifestyle, which is characterized by physical inactivity and overeating. Today, many Americans sleep fewer than six hours each night and individuals who report such short sleep times have in previous studies demonstrated an increased risk of developing diabetes. This new study examined whether reduced sleep duration itself may increase the risk of developing diabetes when combined with physical inactivity and overeating.
Researchers in this study subjected a group of healthy middle-aged men and women to two controlled 14-day periods of sedentary living with free access to food and 5.5 or 8.5 hour bedtimes. When the subjects had their bedtimes decreased from 8.5 hours to 5.5 hours they showed changes in their response to two common sugar tests, which were similar to those seen in people with an increased risk of developing diabetes.
“Our findings raise the possibility that when the unhealthy aspects of the Westernized lifestyle are combined with reduced sleep duration, this might contribute to the increased risk of many overweight and sedentary individuals developing diabetes,” said Plamen Penev, MD, PhD, of the University of Chicago and a senior author of the study. “If confirmed by future larger studies, these results would indicate that a healthy lifestyle should include not only healthy eating habits and adequate amounts of physical activity, but also obtaining a sufficient amount of sleep.”
For full article see link above.
Tags: sleep risk diabetes insulin glucose physical inactivity overeating food nutrition sugar lifestyle overweight
Tags: prevention metabolic syndrome insulin resistance breast cancer obesity hypertension glucose HDL nutrition diabetes heart disease cardiovascular
Cranberries offer promise for diabetics →
July 20, 2009 (Nutraingredients.com)—Sweetened dried cranberries with a reduced sugar and increased fibre content may benefit type-2 diabetics by delivering healthier glycemic and insulin responses, suggests a small study.
Consumption of the low-sugar high-fibre sweetened dried cranberries led to better glucose peaks and lower insulin peaks, with a peak insulin of 15, compared to 22 for both bread and sweetened cranberries, while raw cranberries produced a peak of 10.
Furthermore, blood sugar levels peaked at 158 minutes, compared to 175 minutes for both the bread and sweetened cranberries, and 127 minutes for raw cranberries.
The findings of the study, which involved only 13 diabetics, were reported earlier this year at the Experimental Biology conference by Ted Wilson from Winona State University. The meeting’s abstracts are published in the FASEB Journal.
The study was funded by cranberry giants Ocean Spray using the company’s new low-sugar sweetened cranberries,
Christina Khoo, PhD, Ocean Spray’s research sciences manager told NutraIngredients.com that the researchers are preparing a full paper for submission to a peer-reviewed journal. NutraIngredients.com has not seen the full data.
“The less sugar high fibre SDC was developed with the needs of the type-2 diabetic in mind,” said Khoo. This represents a large and growing market, with an estimated 19 million people affected by diabetes in the EU 25. This figure is projected to increase to 26 million by 2030.
For full article see link above.
Tags: obesity overweight weight citrus weighloss fruit diabetes 2 flavonoid liver triglyceride cholesterol appetite antioxidant naringenin insulin metabolic glucose
Eating High Levels Of Fructose Impairs Memory In Rats →
July 16, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com)—Researchers at Georgia State University have found that diets high in fructose — a type of sugar found in most processed foods and beverages — impaired the spatial memory of adult rats.
Amy Ross, a graduate student in the lab of Marise Parent, associate professor at Georgia State’s Neuroscience Institute and Department of Psychology, fed a group of Sprague-Dawley rats a diet where fructose represented 60 percent of calories ingested during the day.
She placed the rats in a pool of water to test their ability to learn to find a submerged platform, which allowed them to get out of the water. She then returned them to the pool two days later with no platform present to see if the rats could remember to swim to the platform’s location.
“What we discovered is that the fructose diet doesn’t affect their ability to learn,” Parent said. “But they can’t seem to remember as well where the platform was when you take it away. They swam more randomly than rats fed a control diet.”
For full article see link above.
Tags: diet nutrition additive fructose memory sugar risk liver triglyceride blood brain insulin
Tags: grapefruit metabolic syndrome extract supplement citrus flavonoid naringenin cholesterol insulin glucose metabolism diet fat weight gain obesity
Elevated Insulin Linked To Increased Breast Cancer Risk →
July 12, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com)—Elevated insulin levels in the blood appear to raise the risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women, according to researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. Their findings are published in the online version of the International Journal of Cancer. Geoffrey Kabat, Ph.D.Increased breast cancer risk for postmenopausal women has previously been linked to obesity and diabetes. Both conditions involve insulin resistance, which causes increases in circulating levels of insulin. Since insulin is known to promote cell division and enhance breast tumor growth in animal models, the Einstein scientists reasoned that relatively high insulin levels may contribute to breast cancer risk in women. “Up to now, only a few studies have directly investigated whether insulin levels are associated with breast cancer risk, and those studies have yielded conflicting results,” says Geoffrey Kabat, Ph.D., senior epidemiologist in the department of epidemiology and population health at Einstein and the lead author of the paper. “Those other studies were based on just a single baseline measurement of insulin, while our study involved analyzing repeated measurements of insulin taken over several years — which provides a more accurate picture of the possible association between insulin levels and breast cancer risk.” For full article see link above.
Tags: insulin breast cancer risk blood circulatory women postmenopasusal obesity diabetes tumor growth
Critical Link Between Obesity And Diabetes Discovered →
July 9, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com)—A Monash University study has proven a critical link between obesity and the onset of Type 2 diabetes, a discovery which could lead to the design of a drug to prevent the disease.
The findings were published July 8 in the journal Cell Metabolism.
The team, led by Associate Professor Matthew Watt, discovered that fat cells release a novel protein called PEDF (pigment epithelium-derived factor), which triggers a chain of events and interactions that lead to development of Type 2 diabetes.
“When PEDF is released into the bloodstream, it causes the muscle and liver to become desensitised to insulin. The pancreas then produces more insulin to counteract these negative effects, ” Associate Professor Watt said.
This insulin release causes the pancreas to become overworked, eventually slowing or stopping insulin release from the pancreas, leading to Type 2 diabetes.”
“It appears that the more fat tissue a person has the less sensitive they become to insulin. Therefore a greater amount of insulin is required to maintain the body’s regulation of blood-glucose,” Associate Professor Watt said.
“Our research was able to show that increasing PEDF not only causes Type 2 diabetes like complications but that blocking PEDF reverses these effects. The body again returned to being insulin-sensitive and therefore did not need excess insulin to remain regulated.”
For full article see link above.
Tags: obesity fat tissue insulin diabetes type 2 prevention PEDF protein trigger development pancreas liver desensitised overweight
Study Links a Protein With Diabetes Risk →
July 8, 2009 (Medscape.com)—Higher levels of a protein made by fat cells is linked to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.
A new review of research shows people with higher levels of the protein adiponectin consistently have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Adiponectin is a protein produced by fat cells that has anti-inflammatory properties. It also makes the body more sensitive to insulin. Reduced insulin sensitivity is a key factor in the development of type 2 diabetes.
Researchers say the finding may help explain why obesity alone does not completely explain diabetes risk. The results are also in line with previous research that showed obese mice with high adiponectin levels were more sensitive to insulin than other obese mice and had lower odds of developing type 2 diabetes.
Adiponectin levels can be increased through medication and lifestyle interventions. Researchers say targeting people with low adiponectin levels may help stem the current epidemic of type 2 diabetes in the U.S. and other countries.
For full medical article see link above.
Coronary Mortality Not Increased in Diabetics With Good Glycemic Control →
July 7, 2009 (Medscape.com)—New research shows that poor long-term glycemic control is associated with a substantial increase in the risk of death from ischemic heart disease (IHD) in patients with diabetes. However, with reasonably good glycemic control, the risk of death from IHD is comparable to that seen in people without diabetes.
“Due to these findings, good glycemic control in persons with newly diagnosed diabetes should be recommended,” Dr. Ane C. Dale, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, told Reuters Health. “In addition, it is necessary to control other cardiovascular risk factors properly.”
For full medical article see link above.
Tags: diabetes risk glycemic control insulin circulatory heart blood disease cardiovascular
Exercise Fights Fatty Liver Disease →
July 7, 2009 (Mercola.com)—Counseling patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease on how to increase physical activity leads to health benefits that are independent of changes in weight.
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is the most common form of chronic liver disease in developed countries. It is associated with obesity, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, and is characterized by elevated liver enzymes.
Currently, patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease are encouraged to alter their lifestyles, but the focus has been on weight loss through dietary changes. But when patients were encouraged to be active for at least 150 minutes per week, they showed improvements in liver enzymes and other metabolic indices which were not connected to weight loss.
Sources:
Eurekalert July 1, 2009Tags: fatty liver damage disease prevention diet nutrition activity nonalcoholic diabetes insulin enzyme lifestyle obesity exercise
