CNN ranks the discovery of a diabetes gene as one of the top medical discoveries of 2008.  Learn to prevent diabetes while it is still prediabetes at treatprediabetes.com

Having a parent with type 2 diabetes ups your odds of developing the disease, but why do some sibs get it and others don’t? The answer lies somewhere in your genetic code, and this year brought scientific sleuths closer to cracking it. Research teams from the United States and Finland uncovered four new genetic variants linked to an increased risk of diabetes, which afflicts about 170 million people worldwide. Combined with the six variants scientists had discovered previously, it brings the total to 10. Eventually, these discoveries will aid experts in pinpointing those at greatest risk for developing type 2 diabetes.

What Is the Metabolic Syndrome?

If you have done any reading at all about diabetes, or even prediabetes, then you have probably come across the term metabolic syndrome. This set of conditions, hence the term “syndrome,” consists of several things that increases the possibility of getting diabetes.

The words metabolic syndrome refers to a set of conditions that is known to lead to an increased possibility of getting diabetes. This means that the metabolic syndrome should be eliminated before you risk getting prediabetes - if it is not too late already.

There are 5 conditions that make up the metabolic syndrome. The first one is being overweight. When there is an extra layer of fat around the middle, then this starts to lay the groundwork for possibly getting diabetes later on in life. It is part I of getting diabetes.

A second condition is high blood pressure. When this is added to the first condition, then the risks of getting the metabolic syndrome are also higher. This also increases your risk of… to read the rest click here

This article appeared in Science News.  Prediabetics need to understand and manage their disease.  But where can prediabetics turn for good information on their disease?  Learn 5 easy ways to improve prediabetes at www.treatprediabetes.com

ScienceDaily (Dec. 5, 2008) — A third of Americans with diabetes do not know that they have it, and many more who have prediabetic conditions are unaware that they are at risk.  A University of Missouri researcher has created a clinical tool to identify those at highest risk for having undetected hyperglycemia, impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and undiagnosed diabetes.

If these conditions are identified early, patients may benefit from preventative strategies that can minimize progression to diabetes, other diseases and mortality.

“Diabetic risk factors are not equal and assessing a combination of risk factors can be confusing,” said Richelle J. Koopman, assistant professor of family and community medicine in the MU School of Medicine. “A tool that weighs the relative contributions of multiple risk factors and creates an overall risk score will help clinicians decide which patients to screen for diabetes. The tool we have developed is easy to use and the screening can be done with pencil and paper. Patients can do it at a health fair or a physician’s office.”

The Tool to Assess Likelihood of Fasting Glucose Impairment (TAG-IT) is designed to use factors that are self-reported or easily measured. The six factors include: age, sex, BMI, family history resting heart rate and measured high blood pressure.

The average age of diagnosis for diabetes in the United States is 46 years old. However, patients are likely to develop prediabetic conditions at a younger age. In the United States, 57 million people have IFG. As type 2 diabetes becomes an increasing burden in younger populations, it’s important to have a screening tool that can assess undiagnosed diabetes and IFG in people as young as 20, Koopman said.

“There has been increasing evidence that prediabetic states are associated with diseases and other complications, and strategies that prevent diabetes in those with prediabetes are effective,” Koopman said. “The TAG-IT tool will help physicians assess patients’ risk levels. Hopefully, knowing their TAG-IT scores will encourage high-risk patients to use preventative strategies and make positive changes in their behaviors. The tool has potential as a Web-based screening tool that could improve awareness and encourage compliance with lifestyle changes recommended by physicians.”

This link goes to a good article on risk reduction activities or prediabetes.  Click here to see the article.

Topics of concern to prediabetics are:

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For great information on controlling prediabetes go to treatprediabetes.com

This headline appeared in USA today in July 2008.   The reason this is so important is that if reversed early, prediabetes can be stopped so that it does not become diabetes.  Go to treatprediabetes.com for a free report on 5 secrets your doctor may not know to reverse prediabetes.

Here is the article from USA today

There are now no solid guidelines for diagnosing and managing pre-diabetes, a condition in which a person’s blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be classified as diabetes.

If physicians do not recognize and treat pre-diabetes, diabetes will continue to inflate at great personal health and financial cost, says Daniel Einhorn, vice president of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. The group is meeting in Oxon Hill, Md., near Washington, D.C.  Read the rest here

This article is from the NY Times November 24, 2008.  Bot bottom lne is that diabetes can kill you in many ways.  It is best to stop it while it is still in the pre-diabetes stage.  To learn how to do this go to treatprediabetes.com

Elderly people with diabetes who took the controversial drug rosiglitazone, sold under the brand name Avandia, were more likely to develop congestive heart failure and more likely to die than those receiving a similar drug called pioglitazone, sold as Actos, researchers reported on Monday.

In a surprise finding, however, patients taking rosiglitazone did not suffer more heart attacks or strokes than those taking pioglitazone, researchers said.

Rosiglitazone has been the subject of considerable controversy since 2007, when an analysis of 42 published studies concluded that the drug may dramatically increase the risk of heart attacks and other cardiovascular events, compared to various other treatments.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School used a database of Medicare beneficiaries to track 28,361 patients for up to five years. About half were treated with rosiglitazone and half were taking pioglitazone.

Death rates were 15 percent higher among patients treated with rosiglitazone, compared to those taking pioglitazone, and the incidence of congestive heart failure was 13 percent higher, the researchers found.

“Rosiglitazone was associated with greater mortality,” said Dr. Wolfgang C. Winkelmayer, assistant professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School and first author of the study, published in The Archives of Internal Medicine.

The study published today is an observational study, and officials at GlaxoSmithKline, which manufactures rosiglitazone, dismissed the findings, saying they are inconsistent with evidence from more rigorous randomized clinical trials.

These include interim results reported from a six-year trial involving 4,447 patients, which company officials noted has found no significant increases in deaths from cardiovascular disease or other causes in patients taking rosiglitazone.

Although the current study also found no differences in heart attack and stroke rates, Dr. Winkelmayer suggested the higher death rates among patients taking rosiglitazone may be due to underlying cardiovascular disease that was never diagnosed in the elderly patients, whose average age was 78.

“In much older adults, it is possible if they do have a stroke or myocardial infarction, they might actually die immediately and never make it to the hospital for a diagnosis, so the excess cardiac events might show up as deaths,” Dr. Winkelmayer said.

Dr. John Buse, chief of endocrinology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and president of the American Diabetes Association, said the new study is important but limited.

“This is about the tenth report suggesting that rosiglitazone is associated with excess cardiovascular problems,” he said. “We don’t have proof yet.”

Both the American Diabetes Association and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes have removed rosiglitazone from lists of recommended treatments for type 2 diabetes.

The consumer watchdog group Public Citizen went further last month, calling on the Food and Drug Administration to ban the drug and claiming that it causes liver failure, vision impairment and other serious side effects, in addition to heart problems.

Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, said he hoped this study would be “the last nail in the coffin of this drug.”

“The big attraction of these drugs is that they are insulin-sensitizing drugs and forestall the time when someone would have to go on to insulin,” Dr. Wolfe added. “But with a 15 percent excess mortality over even pioglitazone, which itself is dangerous, that doesn’t seem like a very good tradeoff.”

A federal scientific advisory panel that reviewed rosiglitazone’s safety profile last year recommended that it remain on the market. Sales have plummeted, however.

About one million Americans still take the drug, which helps control blood sugar by increasing the body’s sensitivity to insulin, often as part of a regimen that includes other diabetes medications.

For more information about the 5 things your doctor may no know about treating pre diabetes visit our site at http://treatprediabetes.com

The information on this podcast tells you things you can do to reverse prediabetes and reduce the chances of it becoming diabetes.  You can get a copy of the FREE report entitled “5 Things your Doctor may noy know about Prediabetes”  by clicking here