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The 66th session of the World Health Assembly (WHA), the world’s highest health policy-setting body, is coming up next week. From 20-28 May, health ministers from member states will convene in Geneva, marking the end of ongoing consultation processes and putting in place the strong foundations of a global NCD monitoring framework. IDF will be present at WHA, convening and participating in side events, observing official sessions, and leading advocacy on diabetes. We will be broadcasting regular updates on major decisions throughout the week. IDF will be distributing two brochures in Geneva on the  Global Monitoring Framework Post-2015 development goals Find out more information about WHA and how you can view the NCD Alliance side-event live,  here

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World Health Statistics 2013 contains WHO’s annual compilation of health-related data for its 194 Member States, and includes a summary of the progress made towards achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and associated targets.This year, it also includes highlight summaries on the topics of reducing the gaps between the world’s most-advantaged and least-advantaged countries, and on current trends in official development assistance (ODA) for health. Progress on the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Fact sheet N°290 English French Spanish English French

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TrialNet  is an important way people can participate with clinical trials to study Type 1 Diabetes (T1D). Previously participants needed to go to a participating facility. The recently the  National Institutes of Heath (NIH) announced expanded ways to participate . You can sign up online and have blood drawn at a Quest lab close to the participant, at no cost. TrialNet needs at least 20,000 relatives of T1D people each year to support research. So we all can play a part in finding better treatments and cures. The first step is to roll up our collective sleeves and participate. Now that is even easier.

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The clinical value of regular self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) in people with type 2 diabetes remains controversial. Some studies have found either no significant difference in A1C outcomes in groups performing or not performing SMBG1 or no evidence that SMBG confers benefits for outcomes other than A1C, such as mortality, long-term complications of diabetes, body weight, patient satisfaction, or quality of life.2 These studies2,3 have also indicated that there is “little indication that [patients are]

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This study isn’t going to reflect well on Subway restaurants, the largest fast food chain in the world. (That is correct, Subway passed hamburger giant McDonald’s as the fast food chain with the most stores on planet Earth last year.)  According to a Critical Public Health study No, that doesn’t look good for Subway at all, especially given its marketing campaigns promoting its low caloric menu. But the study is fairly clear: The number of Subways can be associated with the obesity rate in 26 separate economies and that includes in both genders. According to a news release from Critical Public Health The study’s authors — Roberto De Vogliab, Anne Kouvonenc, and David Gimenod — find blame in the “recent explosion” of fast food restaurants around the globe. The new release continues: “The authors suggest that the rapid global market integration and trade liberalisation promoted by organisations such as the World Trade Organization – which contribute to an increase in exports of domestic goods, imports of foreign products and the opening of markets to foreign investment – have also played a large part in expanding waistlines. The growth and power of transnational food companies, supermarkets and fast-food restaurants encouraged by such policies has had a dramatic impact on global diets.”

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Even though members of AACE generally treat more type 1s than type 2s, this treatment algorithm is designed specifically for type 2s. And the scope of this new version has expanded substantially. The algorithm goes beyond diabetes: At a press briefing, President of the AACE Dr. Alan Garber, who also served as the chair of the algorithm task force, told the less than half-dozen of us who were in attendance that the algorithm was a “comprehensive plan for management of obesity, pre-diabetes, diabetes, and cardiovascular health, so that nothing is lost in shipping.” There’s even a section with “guiding principles” on managing lifestyle

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Type 1 diabetes is a condition in which the body does not produce insulin and cannot convert sugar, starches and other food into energy. Generally diagnosed during childhood or adolescence, the disease requires lifelong access to medical care and intensive daily self-management.  As children with Type 1 diabetes grow into young adults, they must leave their pediatric health care providers for adult providers. But the timing of this process and its impact on the young people’s health had not been fully explored.  In a  new study  published in a recent issue of the journal  Pediatrics , UCLA researchers found that young people with type 1 diabetes who had transitioned from pediatric to adult care were 2.5 times more likely to have chronically high blood glucose levels, putting them at higher risk for heart attacks, strokes, blindness and kidney failure later in life.  The estimated median age of patients when this transition occurred was 20.1 years, the researchers said, and 77 percent had left pediatric care by age 21.  The findings suggest that young adults need additional support and guidance when leaving their pediatric providers to avoid the risk of poor diabetes control.  “The transition to adulthood can include changes in health care providers, insurance and often living situations as patients move from high school to college or work,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Debra Lotstein, an associate clinical professor of pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA. “These transitions can be challenging for anyone, but youth with a chronic health problem like diabetes are at risk of losing the support of their health care providers and their family that helps them stay healthy. When this transition goes poorly, it increases the risk of worse health outcomes in adulthood.” 

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Ingesting fructose could be making you hungry, concludes a study by Robert Sherwin, M.D., and colleagues at Yale University published in  the Journal of the American Medical Association The fMRIs showed that glucose-sweetened drinks reduced blood flow in the regions of the brain affecting a person’s feelings of satiety, while fructose produced less of a decline in blood flow in some of the same regions. In these satiety regions, reduced blood flow signals to the body a feeling of fullness, regulating food intake.

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New research shows that video gaming can improve the health of children. Game consoles such as Xbox-Kinect and Wii are active gaming systems that require the player to move to control the game. Physical inactivity and obesity among children in the United States is very high. Less than 50 percent of primary school-aged boys and 28 percent of school-aged girls meet the required amounts of physical activity to stay health.These game systems allow children to participate in “exergaming” with constant movement throughout the game. Xbox-Kinect and Wii games require players to use motions such as running, jumping and dancing.

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Half of EU citizens are overweight. Among these people, serious obesity is on the rise. It’s a heavy and expensive burden for national health care systems – and one the EU Commission hopes to stop. For decades, EU member states have seen obesity levels rise. The UN and World Health Organization (WHO) are now sounding the alarm. Obesity, their recent report says, is becoming an epidemic. Hungary leads the most recent European statistics, followed closely by Great Britain, Ireland and Malta. In these countries, roughly every fourth citizen is seriously overweight. Throughout Europe, obesity is putting huge strains on national health care systems. Chronic diseases such as hypertension, cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes and certain cancers are further exacerbated by obesity.

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Yes, it is absolutely true that some people eat well and exercise, and are heavy anyway. Yes, it is absolutely true that two people can eat and exercise the same, and one gets fat and the other stays thin due to variations in genetics and metabolism. Yes, it is absolutely true that some people gain weight very easily, and find it  shockingly hard to lose quality of calories But on the other hand, once we contend effectively with the fact that we eat way too many calories, that “junk” is perceived as a  legitimate food group on our backsides Which leads back to: We  can fix obesity As a culture obesity to drowning

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The Weight of the Nation for Kids documentary looks at the issue of childhood obesity. This three-part series of 30-minute films sheds light on solutions to the obesity problem at home and in school. With about 32% of children and teens ages 2 to 19 either overweight or obese1, the issue has never been more urgent.The Weight of the Nation for Kids is a fun, family-friendly companion to the 2012 four-part documentary, The Weight of the Nation™, which highlighted the causes of obesity, as well as practical solutions to improve the diets and physical activity of Americans. The Weight of the Nation for Kids focuses on what some kids are

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Schools that implement strong nutrition standards for snacks sold at school increase student meal participation and school revenue, according to a study by the Yale Rudd Center and the Harvard School of Public Health. The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, provides support for efforts to implement strong national nutrition standards for all food sold at school while promoting student participation in the National School Lunch Program.  Federal meal programs, including the National School Lunch Program, provide an opportunity to improve young people’s diets. Previous research shows that the sale of snacks in schools outside the school meal programs, known as competitive foods, have been linked with unhealthy diet and increased risk of obesity. In response, Congress passed The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which gives the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) authority to set nutrition standards for competitive foods sold throughout the school day for the first time ever. The USDA is still currently developing these standards.

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Leaders from an Atlanta hospital were in Albany to help South Georgia health workers better deal with childhood obesity, Monday night. Around 35 Doctors, nurses and dietitians went to Phoebe Northwest to get training from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta experts on how to communicate better with families about the issue. The goal is to help families set realistic weight-loss goals and live healthier lifestyles. “It’s really difficult to have to explain to an 11-year-old about type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. That’s something their grandparents are suppose to have, not something their suppose to have. I think the long term health impact is what’s concerning to all of us,” said Dr. Stephanie Walsh with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

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Nevada kindergartners have a weighty problem, according to a statewide survey released Thursday of more than 8,000 families with children starting school. Almost a third of the state’s youngest students are overweight or obese, found the Nevada Institute for Children’s Research and Policy, based at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Local researchers and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agree that the 29.6 percent of Silver State kindergartners who are overweight reflects a national public health problem likely caused by increasingly sedentary lifestyles and a national rise in children with Type II diabetes. But the figure is a decrease in the percent of Nevada’s overweight kindergartners from 2008 to 2009.

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Exercise science is a fine and intellectually fascinating thing. But sometimes you just want someone to lay out guidelines for how to put the newest fitness research into practice. An  article in the May-June issue of the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal “There’s very good evidence” that high-intensity interval training provides “many of the fitness benefits of prolonged endurance training but in much less time,” says Chris Jordan, the director of exercise physiology at the Human Performance Institute in Orlando, Fla., and co-author of the new article. Work by scientists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and other institutions shows, for instance, that even a few minutes of training at an intensity approaching your maximum capacity produces molecular changes within muscles comparable to those of several hours of running or bike riding.

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Say you’re diabetic: Instead of having to inject yourself with insulin multiple times a day, imagine only having to do it once a week. Crazy, right? And instead of your syringe harboring glucose-regulating insulin, imagine it filled with nanoscopic particles you fire into your bloodstream — particles capable of detecting when your body’s blood sugar levels rise and releasing insulin accordingly. Thanks to research conducted at  North Carolina according to the American Diabetes Association “We’ve created a ‘smart’ system that is injected into the body and responds to changes in blood sugar by releasing insulin, effectively controlling blood-sugar levels,” says NC State University biomedical engineering assistant professor Dr. Zhen Gu, the lead author of a paper describing the work (via  NC State news

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UnitedHealthcare is working with nonprofit groups and Albertsons pharmacies to bring a nationally successful diabetes prevention program to the Denver area. Officials, including Denver Mayor  Michael Hancock Using grant money from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention As part of the program, people who are at risk of developing Type II Diabetes will be able to get lifestyle coaching on healthy eating, increased physical activity and other lifestyle choices. Also, select Denver-area Albertsons pharmacies will offer private, one-on-one consultation with pharmacists who provide education and support to help people who already suffer from diabetes to better control their condition and reduce the risk of developing complications.

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Research by the  University of Leeds According to the  Daily Mail After the story, the children were asked questions about the characters. The study found that the children thought the fat character – named Alfie or Alfina, depending on the gender – was less likely to win a race, do well in school, be happy with his looks, and get invited to parties. The children also said that fat Alfie was more likely to be naughty at school.

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PARIS: Using a simple smartphone application to photograph one’s meals is a useful slimming aid for the overweight, according to an experiment reported on Sunday.   The app, designed by British doctors, aims at promoting “food memory” so that people recall what they have eaten and are encouraged not to snack on high-calorie treats.   The app has three parts:   — before eating food or drinking a beverage, the user snaps a picture of what is about to be consumed.   — after finishing the meal or drink, the user then looks at the picture that was taken, and answers questions about the consumption experience: “Did you finish it all?” and “How full are you now?”   — before further meals, users also look back at the file of pictures that have been taken in the course of the day, and get a text message urging them to remind themselves of what they have already eaten.   The researchers recruited 12 overweight or obese men and women and monitored them over four weeks in a small-scale pilot study. The volunteers accessed the app more than five times a day on average, and recorded 2.7 daily “episodes” of eating and drinking.

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Children from deprived areas are almost twice as likely to be obese than those in affluent areas, according to a report. Professor Kevin Fenton from Public Health England, believes the problem is getting worse: “It suggests that we need to do more in terms of focusing on this public health problem by engaging the hearts and minds of families,” he says. “Schools and communities need to tackle this complex epidemic.” Deprived areas such as the London Borough of Newham regularly rank highly in the national obesity league tables. But one school in the borough says it is on track to break that trend.

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My mother has Type 2 diabetes, but she won’t eat. My father gets up and snacks in the middle of the night. My mom’s A1c is almost 8 percent. Why won’t she use her glucometer? Dr. Medha Munshi, director of the geriatrics program at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, hears these and other gripes from her patients’ children all the time. And they’re right to worry about diabetes, which affects  nearly 27 percent of older adults But Dr. Munshi’s response often startles anxious relatives. “You can relax a little,” she often tells them. “Sometimes quality of life is more important than achieving a certain number.” Treatments and their risks and benefits play out differently in the elderly population, she noted in a recent interview. Diabetes is rarely the only ailment affecting people in their 70s and 80s; most must cope with several chronic conditions, along with their associated medications. That makes keeping blood sugar at reasonable levels a complicated business. Moreover, treating diabetes too aggressively can make seniors more prone to hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar. For frail older people with multiple conditions, the condition can be more dangerous than high blood glucose readings.

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What do you see when you look at this photo? Some d-parents look at it and see a victory, some defeat. For some families an 8.0 is hard-won. For some it brings up more questions than answers. Some d-moms sigh in relief because their hard work and sleepless nights have paid off. Some moms go home and cry because they feel that they have failed their child. Whatever your reaction to the number you see in this photo, I want you to remind yourself that you are doing the best you can. Sometimes it’s good enough, sometimes it falls short. But you can’t beat yourself up about it. I have a philosophy that blood sugars and A1c’s are not grades or judgements. They are information. You see a number, you deal with it, you move on. That simple.

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Published

May 16, 2013

A study conducted by Paresh Dandona has shown that insulin injections have a strong anti-inflammatory effect in patients with Type 1 diabetes. Photo: Douglas Levere
A small UB study has found for the first time that in Type 1
diabetics, insulin injections exert a strong anti-inflammatory
effect at the cellular and molecular level, while even small
amounts of glucose result

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Biologists have found a hormone in the liver that spurs the growth of insulin-secreting cells in the pancreas, a discovery they hope will lead to new treatments for diabetes. A team led by Douglas Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, identified the hormone, betatrophin, by inducing insulin resistance in mice using a peptide that binds to insulin receptors. That caused the animals’ insulin-secreting pancreatic β cells to proliferate. The researchers then searched for genes that showed increased activity, zeroing in on one that they were able to link to betatrophin production.  Further experiments showed that 8-week-old mice injected with betatrophin showed showed an average 17-fold rise in the replication of their insulin-secreting pancreatic β cells, the researchers report in Cell 1 “It’s rare that one discovers a new hormone, and this one is interesting because it’s so specific,” says Melton. “It works only on β cells and it’s so robust and so potent.”

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Josu Feijoo, Astronaut and International Diabetes Federation Blue Circle Champion

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On Monday 4 March, I took up my appointment as the Chief Executive Officer of  Diabetes Australia – Victoria I am a health economist by training and have spent my career so far predominantly working in the healthcare sector.  I started out as an academic (mainly teaching micro-economic and macro-economic theory!) and have since had the good fortune to work in both the public and private healthcare sectors in a number of Australian states, as well as overseas. I was the Chief Executive Officer of the  Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre I am committed to listening and responding to the needs and concerns of our members; supporting DA–Vic’s research agenda under the leadership of Professor Jane Speight and the  Australian Centre for Behavioural Research in Diabetes

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The issue of underweight school children is being missed because of an “obsession” with tackling obesity, a group of researchers has claimed. An Essex University study, presented at the European Congress on Obesity and involving 10,000 children aged nine to 16, found one in 17 was too thin. Researcher Dr Gavin Sandercock said weighing too little was more damaging to health than weighing too much. He warned that society was focused almost exclusively on obesity.

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Bacteria that live in the gut have been used to reverse obesity and Type-2 diabetes in animal studies. Research,  published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences It is thought to change the gut lining and the way food is absorbed. Similar tests now need to be take place in people to see if the same bacteria can be used to shed the pounds. The human body is teeming with bacteria – the tiny organisms outnumber human cells in the body 10 to one. And there is growing evidence that this collection of bacteria or “microbiome” affects health.

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In the fight against childhood obesity, the weapons have been many. Schools have tried exercise and education, and the government has mandated healthier school lunches. Now a school district in Virginia is believed to be the first in the country to try something radical — redesigning the school building, itself “It’s not completely out of thin air,” said public health expert Terry Huang, who helped spearhead the project. “It is rooted in a long history of reinventing school designs to promote learning and mental well-being. We simply took that one step further.” The result is a new elementary school for 970 kindergarteners through fifth graders that opened this school year in rural Buckingham County, Va. From the ground up, the school is designed to promote activity and healthy eating. Just walk into the cafeteria and you can see this is no ordinary elementary school. “One of the most striking differences is the openness of the eating space,” said pediatrician Dr. Matthew Trowbridge, who also consulted on the project.

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When it comes to  insulin pumps  vs.  shots , a lot of message board space on the web is being taken up discussing choice. Is it better to pump or not to pump? But that’s not the real question. Well, not if you’re an insurance company or the federal government, anyway. The real question is: Are pumps better than shots? Do they make people healthier? As it turns out, I’m not sure that anyone knows. Now before we get started, I have a disclosure: I currently wear an insulin pump. (We pumpers generally say that we “wear” the  pump, rather than we “use” the pump.) Of course, like most type 1s, I started off my diabetic career taking shots. Lots of them. In the beginning, I used heroin-addict-style-syringes; later, insulin pens. This therapy is called multiple daily injection, or MDI. MDI requires 4 shots a day at a minimum, and you might need as many as eight shots. Oh. And lots and lots of fingersticks, too. Later I moved to wearing an insulin pump. Then, when my insurance changed, I found myself unable to afford to use my pump and was forced to go back to shots. You see, not only is the pump expensive, but the daily supplies are, too. They’re covered in a hidden part of your health insurance policy called Durable Medical Goods—ironic, as these things are thrown away every three days. Some policies cover these supplies very poorly, so even though you are “covered” you may not earn enough money to stay healthy  and  keep the lights on.

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Developers of a pill bottle that wirelessly transmits data, measures medication and sends patient reminders have emerged as grand prize winners in the Healthcare Innovation World Cup, the international diabetes innovation challenge funded by Boehringer Ingelheim and organized by HITLAB.

Winning team members Josh Stein , John Langhauser and Mike Morena of Team AdhereTech from 

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San Antonio Mayor  Julián Castro Felix Ortiz Castro and Ortiz will address a summit hosted by Salud America!, a San Antonio-based national network of stakeholders seeking environmental and policy solutions to Latino obesity. The first of six new research packages, each focusing on a specific topic relevant to Latino childhood obesity, will be unveiled at the fourth annual summit.

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Amy Baxter’s  “ah-ha!” moment came on her way home, after an all-night shift, while driving a car badly in need of a wheel alignment. Her invention, Buzzy®, a small vibrating plastic bee cum ice pack, combines kid-friendly packaging, vibration, and cold to give patients and their caregivers control over a common fear of needles, and the pain that goes along with injections. Think aspirin-like relief, but applied before shots, not after.

Baxter, a pediatric emergency room physician, now doubles as CEO of MMJ Labs Inc. Her product, Buzzy®, came from her frustration with the way our medical system addresses pain. Dr. Baxter isn’t just a CEO and an inventor – she’s also a mom. And her dual roles led her to create a solution to “address the problem of patient disempowerment.” All because of a vibrating steering wheel.

She Hasn’t Got Time For The Pain

Dr. Amy Baxter

Dr. Baxter is quite passionate about the importance of making patients feel comfortable with therapy, and her research over the past 10 years has focused on alleviating pain. She admits that the healthcare system has evolved to ignore pain alleviation. “As physicians,” she says, “we are predisposed to not concern ourselves with the pain part [of needles]. We don’t go into medicine if shots bother us and we get used to causing pain. We tell ourselves that some pain is inevitable for a cure.”

The inspiration for Buzzy® stemmed from a recent traumautic experience: her then 4-year-old’s fear of a routine childhood shot. Dr. Baxter saw firsthand the effect of pain, not from a medical point of view, but from a mom’s.  The problem her child and she experienced has a label: needlephobia.

Needlephobia isn’t a small-bore problem. Studies show that 63% of all children and 23% of adults fear needles. And the fear can have a major effect on public health. Needlephobia is a primary reason that 25% of Americans don’t get a flu shot, and 10% of adults do not see a doctor – at all.

So what happens if someone has needlephobia and diabetes, a disease that requires regular pokes and sticks?  All too often, it’s insufficient treatment and resulting complications. A recent survey conducted among family care physicians attending a national conference reported that more than 60% of them hesitated to prescribe insulin, or didn’t do so, because they believed that patients wouldn’t comply with injection therapy, or would find it a significant burden.  When you realize that three-quarters of diabetes care is dispensed by family doctors, not specialists, such a mindset represents a truly staggering challenge.

Peace On A Potential Battleground

Studies show that 63% of kids are afraid of shots, as are a quarter of adults. This isn’t just inconvenient – it’s a big public health problem.

Parents with Type 1 children don’t neglect their child because of the fear and pain frequent finger sticks and ether shots or infusion site changes might cause, but it can turn every day into a battle, and no one wants to see their child cry. Still, it is what it is.

“When it comes to diabetes, endrocrinologists just expect that patients have to get used to the needles,” says Baxter. “Yet it is a really big deal for patients, especially when they are first diagnosed. Over the course of a diabetic patient’s lifetime there can be resentment even when that patient has gotten used to the sticks. It assaults their quality of life.”

So Dr. Baxter went to work researching. She learned the physiology of pain. She learned about how to alter pain immediately. Because, as she explains, “I knew that anything that took a long time or required the physicians or healthcare system to intervene wasn’t going to happen. It had to be something that the invested party – the patients – could do themselves.”

Thus, Buzzy®.

Although her research showed that ice could dull pain, she was looking for something more. On the fateful early morning when she pulled into her driveway after a journey filled with vibration, she realized that the shaky steering wheel of her car had had a numbing effect on her hands. The “eureka” moment struck: ice and vibration made the perfect combination for immediate pain relief.

A Basement Headquarters

So, in the basement of her home, Baxter went to work, creating the first prototype: a small striped vibrating device with a slot for a miniature ice pack. That prototype eventually became Buzzy®, now available as a bee, as a ladybug, and as a plain black style with stickers to personalize the device. Although she says that any vibrating device and ice pack can help, the product’s concave design cups the body better and transmits the most ice and vibration to the skin. Since the nerve pathways are spread out, it was important to cover more area for the product to be more successful. The ice pack that works with Buzzy® invokes “descending inhibitory control” — you can tolerate more pain because of how much processing bandwidth that cold sensation takes up in your brain.

Buzzy® is available in 2 versions – one for home use and one for hospitals. Currently, the home Buzzy® is sold on Amazon and on the company’s website (Buzzy4Shots.com) for $39.95.  She, and a group of equally dedicated moms who work with her, recently moved production back to the United States. They still work out of Baxter’s basement, hoping to keep overall costs down even though making the product in the U.S. costs more than doing it overseas. “It was important to all of us not to raise the price when we moved production,” she says. “It’s a little tougher on us, but it’s still pennies per poke.”

Baxter’s corporate HQ is in her basement. Shown here letting off some steam after a long night of work are (l-r) Kelly Mann, Baxter, and Wendy Leonard. MMJ is a mom-powered business.

Research and feedback from patients has guided both the product’s development and its marketing. Because the device has proven to make phlebotomy – drawing blood from a vein for tests – more successful the first time around, Baxter and her team created a highly durable and cleanable hospital-version. So far, they have sold it to more than 700 hospitals and clinics nationwide. MMJ Labs also created distraction cards to be used with Buzzy, after researching the best ways to engage and distract patients having blood drawn.

It’s Not Just For Kids

Buzzy® was designed as a product for children.  Baxter never intended to target adults. But it certainly has proven to fill a need that doesn’t go away, for many, as they age. “A problem with our society is that everyone allows children to have a fear of needles, but there is no tolerance for adults who don’t like them,” Baxter says. “Our product has really been embraced by adults.  Until now, there hasn’t been a way for them to comfortably bring up fear of needles with their physicians. They might be embarrassed, or feel they’d just be ignored.”

Since daily blood checks and insulin injections become routine, some Buzzy® users only use the product when changing pump infusion sites. “For some people who switch over to a pump – when you only have to deal with it every few days – the dread builds up. Because a pump change is more painful and less frequent, it can build up more anxiety. We’ve learned that Buzzy® helps by empowering people to make that dread go away,” Baxter says.  She hopes to release a smaller, more powerful Buzzy® specifically designed for areas like the stomach, thigh, and buttocks by June 2013. A Buzzy® designed specifically for fingersticks is in the works for 2014.

But it is the patient testimonials and the personal stories that most resonate for Baxter and her basement buddies at MMJ Labs. She recalls a moment in the early stages of developing Buzzy® that showed how this small device could have a huge impact. “One of the daughters of our designer was terrified of needles. One day, her father called me and said, ‘We just got told by her pediatrician that her glucose is 536 [mg/dL]. What does this mean?’ And I had to tell him, ‘This means that she has diabetes. Starting now everything changes.’ And because of her terror of needles we immediately got her a Buzzy® prototype. It was the only thing that made her fear of needles better. “

Two months later, Baxter asked how the young patient was doing, and her father replied, somewhat sheepishly, “well, actually she’s doing great, but she doesn’t really need Buzzy® anymore,” Baxter recalls that he looked at that as something embarrassing — that “Buzzy® wasn’t working the way I wanted it to. And I looked at that as the absolute success. To have something that cushions the needle part and make it not that big a deal, when everything else associated with the diagnosis is so huge and overwhelming…I truly see that as a big win.”

Buzzy® is a true labor of love. And one that deserves the buzz it’s creating.

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A group of researchers claim the public’s “obsession” with the obesity epidemic has caused many to overlook the issue of underweight school-aged children, BBC News reported. In a new report presented at the European Congress on Obesity, lead author Dr. Gavin Sandercock of Essex University in Colchester, England, made the argument that weighing too little was more damaging to an individual’s health than weighing too much. “The fact is the UK is obsessed with overweight and obesity – yet it is now accepted that underweight may pose a much greater risk to health,” the researchers said. For the study, Sandercock and his team examined the height, weight, age and gender of 10,000 children in England between the ages of 9 and 16. Overall, 6 percent of the children were underweight, and the condition was more common in girls (6.4 percent) than in boys (5.5 percent).

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Medtronic Inc. has entered into a partnership with the National Institute of Hospital Administration (NIHA), a think-tank linked with China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission. Together, Medtronic and the NIHA plan to carry out a series of research projects focused on building an integrated care pathway for patients with Type 1 diabetes. Medtronic and the NIHA will establish pilot sites for the proposed system at as many as a dozen regional children’s hospitals and general hospitals across China. The goal is to gather insight that can support a national system in China for improving the treatment of Type 1 diabetes. “Type 1 diabetes is a disease of long course, which demands sophisticated treatment and care both in and outside the hospitals,” says  Liang Huiming

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Excerpt:  The teens were allowed to select their own main menu items and sides. Lesser and his team then determined the mean nutrition content for the meals purchased at each restaurant. The results were published in the article “Adolescent Purchasing Behavior at McDonald’s and Subway,” published online in the May 6   Journal of Adolescent Health . “After determining the mean nutritional content of the meals selected, we found no statistical difference between the calories in the meals selected at the two restaurants, though there were other small differences,” Lesser said. At McDonald’s, the teens ate 1,038 calories a meal. At Subway, they ate 955 calories per meal. There were 45 grams of fat in the McDonald’s meal and 42 grams of fat in the Subway meal. The Subway meal also had a whopping 2,149 mg of sodium (the recommended amount for a full day’s food intake is 2,300). The McDonald’s meal had 1,829 mg of sodium. But that meal made up for the relatively lower amount of salt by packing 54 grams of sugar (recommended daily intake is about 25-35 grams). Subway did a little better with 36 grams of sugar.

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The nation’s largest cardiovascular health organization has a new message for Americans: Owning a dog may protect you from heart disease. The unusual message was contained in a scientific statement published on Thursday by the American Heart Association, which convened a panel of experts to review years of data on the cardiovascular benefits of owning a pet. The group concluded that owning a dog, in particular, was “probably associated” with a reduced risk of heart disease. People who own dogs certainly have more reason to get outside and take walks, and studies show that most owners form such close bonds with their pets that being in their presence blunts the owners’ reactions to stress and lowers their heart rate, said Dr. Glenn N. Levine, the head of the committee that wrote the statement. But most of the evidence is observational, which makes it impossible to rule out the prospect that people who are healthier and more active in the first place are simply more likely to bring a dog or cat into their home. “We didn’t want to make this too strong of a statement,” said Dr. Levine, a professor at the Baylor College of Medicine. “But there are plausible psychological, sociological and physiological reasons to believe that pet ownership might actually have a causal role in decreasing cardiovascular risk.”

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Injectable Nano-Network for Glucose-Mediated Insulin Delivery

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The fact that the NHS is not providing insulin pumps to enough people with Type 1 diabetes – compared to much higher access rates in other European nations – may be exposing them to greater risk of serious health complications, according to two diabetes charities. Diabetes UK and JDRF expressed concerns as the UK’s first ever audit of insulin pump use, published today, revealed that just seven per cent of the estimated 247,500 UK people with Type 1 diabetes use a pump. Usage in the UK is thought to have gone up over the last five years. But the report highlights that the seven per cent figure is still much lower than in countries such as Germany and Norway, where over 15 per cent of those with Type 1 diabetes use a pump. In the US, use of insulin pumps is even more widespread, with some 40 per cent of people with Type 1 having one.

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Ever-growing waistlines could result in a big increase in the number of people who develop dementia in the future, researchers have warned. Previous studies have shown that being overweight in middle age increases the odds of developing the mental disorder Data presented at the European Congress on Obesity suggests stemming the rise in obesity will cut dementia. The Alzheimer’s Society charity said regular exercise and a healthy weight were important for reducing risk. Piling on too many pounds is known to be bad for the body, but there is growing evidence that it is also bad for the mind.

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To keep your body functioning, glucose must always be present in your blood. It’s as important as oxygen in the air you breathe. The brain can only function for a few minutes without either before it stops working altogether. To achieve this level of control is not easy. Some days you might eat a banquet. Other times you might eat nothing at all. Yet through it all, glucose levels will normally fluctuate only very slightly. This is achieved thanks to an elaborate system of checks and balances that carefully regulate how much glucose is going into the blood and how much is going out. Diabetes is the state in which this balance fails and glucose levels rise. As sugars are digested and absorbed from your diet, they trigger the release of hormones, the most important of which is insulin, which is made and released by the beta cells of the pancreas.

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For U.S. workers, exercising fewer than three days a week is more closely linked being obese — defined as having a Body Mass Index of 30 or higher– than any of 26 other behavioral and emotional factors, including healthy eating and having health insurance. This Gallup analysis of the correlates of obesity is based on interviews with more than 139,000 American workers. It also finds that not eating healthy, not having enough money to buy food, not having a safe place to exercise, having a history of depression, and not visiting a dentist annually are all linked to U.S. workers being obese.

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Paul and Aimee Koenig from the Kiln had been struggling with weight gain for the past ten years, and they finally decided to try a new approach to weight loss. They turned to Garden Park Medical Center’s weight loss surgeons for help. It has been just over six months since the two opted for gastric sleeve bypass surgery. Since then they’ve lost a combined 152 pounds. “I lost 80 pounds in seven months; and there has been a lot of shopping for new clothes,” Aimee said. The weight loss has made a dramatic difference not only in their appearance, but more importantly in the way they feel. Paul says he feels so much younger. “I’m a whole different person. I feel better than I have in 25 years.” Those words are music to the ears of weight loss surgeon Dr. Don Balder, who performed the surgery at Garden Park on Aimee in October, and Paul in December. “It’s the most rewarding job. I get to watch the metamorphosis. They look younger, feel younger, and their health problems have melted away with their excess weight,” Dr. Balder said.

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Entrepreneurs selling employee wellness programs are having their day in the sun. And why not? Employees spend most of their waking hours at work and the workplace has a huge impact on an employee’s health and risk of obesity. Who could possibly be opposed to promoting wellness? But the problem is that many, if not most, employee wellness programs have no evidence that they actually improve employee health and save money. A recent analysis in  Health Affairs No doubt some employers really have the best interests of their employees at heart and have developed employee wellness programs that will do more good than harm. Others are not doing so well against this standard — either their motives are all about the money or they’ve been duped by puffery from people selling these programs.

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