Thursday, December 27, 2007

Can Diabetes Screening be Harmful?

I hope all of you are having a great Christmas season. I spent my Christmas here in Boston to avoid an expensive flight home to L.A. Oh well, I'm ready to kick off the new year anyway.

I was searching for some diabetes blogs when I came across this transcript of a radio broadcast on NHPR titled: "Diabetes Screening Isn’t Always Beneficial"

In the report, a researcher states that "one of her concerns about diabetes screening is the potential rush to medicate." Though I find myself agreeing that premature medicating is certainly a cause for concern, I was still rather upset with a previous statement that we should be pursuing these screenings only "on the basis of having good studies that show that we help them in terms of making them live longer or live better."

I think most would agree that detecting signs of diabetes early certainly wouldn't do any harm.

She does go on to say that "the symptoms themselves lead people to raise the issue with their doctors and get the condition identified in a timely manner." But I would contend that waiting for symptoms to become an issue big enough to bring up with your doctors is a bit too late. I know in the case of type 1 diabetes, those symptoms are NOT anything anyone would wish for. I would think that for type 2 diabetes, the long-term affects of long-term exposure to high blood glucose is definitely something people would also want to avoid.

The way I view this is that screening for diabetes will help raise awareness in those who don't have it yet. If and when they do develop diabetes, they will at least be more prepared than having no exposure to what diabetes is.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Stay Warm, Stay Happy

Smile, Space Heater, SmileWell, we've had a few snowstorms in the past week and Boston is freezing cold. As tempting as it is for a Southern Californian like me to naturally run out into the snow and make snow angels wearing nothing but a t-shirt and shorts, I've come to learn of the pain that the cold and wet brings afterwards.

So here's a few random articles and posts I found about staying warm and staying happy for someone living with diabetes in a cold environment.

Andy Bell from dLife's Blogabetes talks about how Exercising in Your PJs can help you stay warm and active during the days nobody ever leaves the house.

A link from My Fall From Grace's Denise talks about how bundling up in the cold actually makes a difference because "Chilling the feet lowers the immune system"!

...and I know all of you are wondering: the happy space heater above was found on Faces in Places.

Friday, December 14, 2007

A Simple Way to Explain What is Diabetes

I stumbled upon this explanation of diabetes management on Scott Hanselman's blog where he uses the airplane analogy. I thought it would be pretty helpful for people trying to understand the delicate balance of testing, eating, retesting, dosing insulin and testing again.

Scott has type 1 diabetes and is a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft, so it's understandable that he'd come up with a way to explain it quite thoroughly.

If you still don't get it, maybe this image I whipped up might help...

Diabetes Insulin Dosing Plane Analogywhat happens when taking too much insulin after a big meal
(source: dLife.com)

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

The 2007 NoNaBloPoMo Award

Failed NaBloPloMo 2007 Award
Yeah, I know I'm kinda late, and this is semi-lame...
...but I still couldn't resist!

E-mail me if you want one tailored for your own blog too.
Congrats to everyone who gets to sport the real deal!