Like Parent, Like Child
More than half of children diagnosed with type 2 diabetes have a parent or sibling with the same disorder. In many cases, however, the parent’s disease is detected as a result of the child’s diagnosis.

Although it’s known that certain individuals and ethnic groups (African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, Asian/South Pacific Islanders) have an increased risk, diabetes also runs in families because of shared behavior: unrestrained eating combined with a sedentary lifestyle.
[SOURCE: American Diabetes Association, “Type 2 Diabetes in Children and Adolescents,” Diabetes Care, March, 2000]

Is That Giant Soft Drink Good Value?
A super-size soft drink might seem like an excellent value compared to an 8- or 10-ounce version of the same drink, but what are the costs in terms of health?

The giant soft drink could very well add at least 400 to 500 calories to a child’s (or an adult’s) daily diet that could result in a 40- or 50-pound weight gain over a year’s time. Being obese or overweight accounts for about 300,000 deaths a year in the United States and health care costs of more than $100 billion.
[SOURCE: “Alarming Increase in Children with Type 2 Diabetes Is a Wake-Up Call,” Diabetes Week, July 8, 2002; Iris Rosendahl, “Type 2 Diabetes: Why Are Growing Numbers of Young People Developing It?” Medical Laboratory Observer, May, 2001]

Childhood Diabetes Take Heavy Toll
Type 2 diabetes takes a heavy toll on children and adolescents. Tracking all type 2 diabetes patients diagnosed before age 18 in Manitoba and northwestern Ontario since 1986, Heather Dean, M.D. of the University of Manitoba reported that nine percent have died, 6.3 percent are on dialysis and 38 percent have suffered miscarriages or stillbirths.
[SOURCE: “Alarming Increase in Children with Type 2 Diabetes Is a Wake-Up Call,” Diabetes Week, July 8, 2002]

Diabetics Don’t Need Supplements
Diabetes patients generally don’t need vitamin or mineral supplements, according to the most recent dietary guidelines of the American Diabetes Association.

With the exception of folate for women to prevent birth defects and calcium to head off bone disease in older persons, vitamins and minerals needed by diabetics can best be obtained from food. “There is no clear evidence of benefit from vitamin or mineral supplementation in people with diabetes who do not have underlying deficiencies,” the guidelines state.
[SOURCE: American Diabetes Association, “Evidence-Based Nutrition Principles and Recommendations for the Treatment and Prevention of Diabetes and Related Complications,” Clinical Diabetes, Spring, 2002]

What Can You Do To Protect Yourself from Type 2 Diabetes?
If you have a parent or close relative with type 2 diabetes, you probably know that you have a risk of developing the disorder yourself. If you want to protect yourself, you have three proven strategies: 1) lose weight, 2) exercise and 3) eat more fiber.

Several studies conducted in the United States and Finland suggest strongly that even moderate, but sustained, weight loss reduces the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Other research has found that regular exercise–either moderate or vigorous–can delay the onset of disease. The case for fiber was made in a study of 35,988 women. Those who ate the most fiber were 36 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes compared to those who consumed the least fiber.
[SOURCE: American Diabetes Association, “Evidence-Based Nutrition Principles and Recommendations for the Treatment and Prevention of Diabetes and Related Complications,” Clinical Diabetes, Spring, 2002; The Johns Hopkins White Papers, Diabetes, 2002]

Expert Guidelines for Epilepsy Treatment
New Expert Consensus Guidelines for the treatment of epilepsy were issued in November of 2001. The guidelines recommend that treatment begin with a low dose of a single drug (monotherapy) followed by two or three trials with other single drugs before resorting to combination drug therapy, an approach that carries a greater risk of side effects and drug interactions.

The guidelines also offered specific recommendations for the treatment of women and children. Some antiepileptic drugs can cause infertility in women and increase the risk of birth defects in children of women who do become pregnant.
[SOURCE: Epilepsy and Behavior, November/December, 2001]

Non-Drug Therapies Don’t Reduce Seizures
Researchers at the 2002 meeting of the American Academy of Neurology reported disappointing results from a worldwide, systematic review of non-drug treatments for epilepsy. Treatments studied included cognitive-behavioral therapy, EEG biofeedback, relaxation therapy and education.

Some therapies helped patients adjust to and manage their epilepsy. A combination of relaxation therapy and behavior modification reduced anxiety. One study found that cognitive-behavioral therapy reduced depression. Educational interventions improved compliance with taking medication and social well being. None of the therapies changed seizure frequency, however.
[SOURCE: Bruce Jancin, “Researchers Give CBT for Epilepsy No-Confidence Vote,” Clinical Psychiatry News, August, 2002]

Lung Cancer Soars in Women
Since the 1950s smoking rates among women soared with a corresponding increase in deaths from lung cancer and heart disease. Over the past 50 years the lung cancer death rate for women increased by a staggering 600 percent.

Heart disease, the leading cause of death among women, is six times more likely to occur in women who smoke than their sisters who do not.
[SOURCE: “Women Who Smoke Take Big Chances,” Women’s Health Weekly, January 10, 2002]

A Pack of Addiction
After a smoker inhales, it takes only seven seconds for nicotine to reach the brain, faster even than heroin. The chemicals released create a feeling of both relaxation and alertness for up to half an hour. Then the craving returns.

According to Dr. Michael Cummings of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY, the reason that cigarettes are sold in convenient packs of 20 is that a pack supplies the needs of a smoker’s nicotine addiction for a day.
[SOURCE: Karen Fanning, “Killer smoke,” Scholastic Choices, February, 2002]

Smoking Is Bad for Your Back
Patients who are treated for back problems tend to have more severe symptoms and higher rates of depression if they smoke. A study of 25,500 patients treated for spinal problems at 23 U.S. health care centers found that smokers (who comprised about 17 percent of the group) had poorer physical and mental health and were also less likely to benefit from surgery.
[SOURCE: “Smoking Linked to More Severe Spinal Symptoms,” Pain and Central Nervous System Week, April 15, 2002]

Smoking Is a Slippery Slope
It seems harmless enough–just an occasional cigarette at parties or the bar. But statistics show that more than 90 percent of people who start smoking, even if it’s just occasionally, go on to become daily smokers. Young people are particularly vulnerable. Most smokers start before the age of 18.
[SOURCE: Sheldon Gottlieb, “Smokin’ Diabetes Blues,” Diabetes Forecast, March, 2002]

Exercise: How It Helps
Studying more than 235 published reports dating to 1986, an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association [October 2, 2002] confirmed that exercise is not only helpful in prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes but plays an important role in heading off the long-term complications that contribute to heart attack and stroke.

Dr. Kerry J. Stewart, an exercise physiologist at Johns Hopkins University, found evidence that exercise can improve or reverse damage to the heart’s pumping chamber (left ventricular diastolic dysfunction) that is often a result of diabetes or hypertension. Exercise also improves the dilation of blood vessels, thus allowing better blood flow during stress.

The study confirms the benefit of existing recommendations for exercise–aerobic exercise such as walking, running, swimming or biking at least three days a week coupled with at least two days a week of resistance training. All patients should consult their doctors first, however, about their individual needs and limitations.
[SOURCE: Kerry J. Stewart, JAMA, October 2, 2002; “Exercise May Cut Heart Risks of Diabetes, High BP,” Reuters Health, October 2, 2002]

Incidence of Diabetes Escalating
Many people with type 2 diabetes don’t know they have it. Nevertheless, the number of Americans diagnosed continues to escalate in what some term an epidemic.

Incidence of type 2 diabetes has tripled since 1958, and most authorities attribute the increase to changes in lifestyle and more overweight Americans.

During the 1990s the percentage of Americans classified as obese rose by 57 percent while the percentage diagnosed with type 2 diabetes increased by 38 percent.
[SOURCE: “On the Rise: Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes,” Johns Hopkins White Papers, Diabetes, 2002]

On a Diet? Don’t Skip Breakfast
If you’re starting a diet, you may be tempted to skip breakfast. Don’t. Among persons on the Weight Control Registry–3,000 Americans who have lost at least 30 pounds and kept them off for at least a year–only 4 percent say they regularly skip breakfast.

Nutrition experts say that eating a healthful breakfast is likely to get you started right, motivated to exercise and less likely to snack on high calorie foods through the day. Other factors associated with successful weight loss: exercise and regular monitoring of both weight and food intake.
[SOURCE: Breakfast: The Meal of Weight Loss Champions,” Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter, October, 2002]