2006 has definitely been a great year for us over here. Even without being launched yet, so much has happened and it is all materializing into reality which is a great thing.

We’ve had the plans and ideas to create SugarStats for literally a few years. I spent a while sitting on the idea and let it evolve in my thoughts until I finally decided to go after my goals and passions and get things started. That was about April 2006 so we’ve been in development for a good 9 months and have come quite a long way.

So soon within the next few weeks we’re hoping to get the private beta tester stage started and iterate/evolve SugarStats even more. We’re gonna try to kick off 2007 with a blast and hopefully provide something of value to the Diabetic community. Thanks to all those who have sent in feedback, their thoughts and suggestions. Its very much appreciated so keep it coming! info at sugarstats dot com

Stay tuned and take care.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to all. Take care of yourselves this holiday season and watch those sugars!

Following up from a previous story I saw a few weeks ago about some Canadian scientists who had cured Type 2 Diabetes in mice, we now have new updates. They have now posted news that they have cured both Type 1 and 2 in these mice.

“Diabetic mice became healthy virtually overnight after researchers injected a substance to counteract the effect of malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Dr. Michael Salter, a pain expert at the Hospital for Sick Children and one of the scientists. “Mice with diabetes suddenly didn’t have diabetes any more.”

The researchers caution they have yet to confirm their findings in people, but say they expect results from human studies within a year or so. Any treatment that may emerge to help at least some patients would likely be years away from hitting the market.”

They say that they injected neuropeptide “substance P” into the mice and their diabetes “disappeared instantly” and stayed absent for as long as 4 months. Good to hear, but how long before a human solution is formulated?

Get the full story here

We’re working real hard to get things ready for our private beta test so we’re looking for some talented programmers to help.

Who we’re looking for should or should have experience in:

• 1-2 years Ruby / Ruby on Rails programming skills, best practices and good coding standards
• Rails E-commerce integration
• Have already built/deployed 1-2 med-large scale projects
• Rails/Ruby code refactoring and optimization
• Rails/Ruby Performance benchmarking and optimization
• Some knowledge of or can use: MySQL, SVN, Ubuntu/Linux
• Understand and know the benefits of test driven development and writing tests

Of course being diabetic or knowing someone who is that is close to you is optional ;-).

If you or someone you know would be interested in the small projects we’d have for you feel free to send an email to info [at] sugarstats [dot] com. Please send in your resume, specific knowledge in rails, samples of / links to your work, availability (in the coming 1-2 months) and your rates (hourly/daily/weekly).

Updates

Things have been going quite nicely and we’ve been working very hard to get this app live and ready for testing. We’ve also made affiliations and relationships with Diabetes health clinics in Hawaii and abroad whom are also very excited about SugarStats and are interested in testing it out.

Private Beta-Testing

Seeing as we’re very close to finishing, within the next 1-2m months we’ll start our private beta test program for those who would like to be one of the first to try the system. We won’t be opening this up to the public, but will be contacting close affiliates and sending an invitation to the people who have already signed up for the mailing list to be notified.

So if you would like to get an invitation make sure you’re signed up to the mailing list to get notified. If you aren’t yet, simple sign up.

Our current list has grown quite big, but for our private test we will be limiting it to only a few hundred or so.

It seems the researchers at the University of Santa Cruz have developed an optical glucose sensor to detect your blood sugar. This is very interesting and could (depending on its accuracy) provide a nice alternative to traditional blood sugar level detection.

“Recently published studies showed that the sensor detects glucose under physiological conditions, giving a reversible fluorescent signal that changes intensity in response to changes in the concentration of glucose.”

“The optical glucose sensor consists of a fluorescent chemical complex immobilized in a ‘thin-film hydrogel.’ The hydrogel, a biocompatible polymer similar to that used to make soft contact lenses, is permeable to glucose.

The sensing system has two components: a fluorescent dye and a ‘quencher’ that is responsive to glucose. In the absence of glucose, the quencher binds to the dye and prevents fluorescence, while the interaction of glucose with the quencher leads to dissociation of the complex and an increase in fluorescence.”

From what I understand this is not “new” so-to-speak though they’ve made progression in the research over the past few years. Thought I didn’t see a release date or list prices, I can only assume this might be a costly alternative. They have to also get it approved and through the FDA. In any case, if you’re used to contact lenses and can’t stand the sight of blood or poking your fingers, this might be a solution for you.

You can find the complete article at Medical News Today: Optical glucose sensor holds promise for diabetics and intensive care patients

I wasn’t fully aware until recently, but today is World Diabetes Day (November 14th).

From the website:

“World Diabetes Day, organized by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and supported by the World Health Organization (WHO) is the primary global awareness campaign of the diabetes world. It was first introduced in 1991 in response to concern over the escalating incidence of diabetes around the world. Since then, it has grown in popularity and now unites more than 350 million people worldwide including opinion leaders, health-care professionals, carers, people with diabetes, and the general public.”

Why November 14th? Well it was chosen based on the birthday of Frederick Banting who along with Charles Best first conceived the ideas which lead to the discovery of insulin.

There appears to be a nice list of places to celebrate:

• Radio and television programmes
• Sports events
• Free screenings for diabetes and its complications
• Public information meetings
• Poster and leaflet campaigns
• Diabetes workshops and exhibitions
• Press conferences
• Newspaper and magazine articles
• Events for children and adolescents

To find out whats happening in your country, contact your local/national association.

Just wanted to wish a happy Halloween to all of you out there. Of course don’t go overboard with all the sugar and try to make smart substitutions where you can. Keep those stats in check!

We don’t need any emergency ambulance calls for sugar over doses. So have a fun one and have a safe one and hopefully your body will thank you for it

Well its about time, its hard to even remember all the various “Diabetes Cure” drugs or treatments I’ve seen around. Its at the point where my spam box has a hardtime deleting them all!

Well now the FTC and FDA are trying to help warn people and educate them about these many many scams and “false hope” drugs out there that claim to aid or cure Diabetics. They are doing it with their Glucobate campaign. If you’ve ever seen most of the scams and fake websites out there, this should look familiar to you. If looks and acts just like one, then when you go to buy they explain how it could easily be a real scam and happen to you.

Some of their tips for spotting real scams include:

• A promise that a product can cure diabetes is a tip-off to a rip-off. There’s no pill, patch, tea, herb, or other “miracle” treatment that can make diabetes go away forever.

• Ads that promise too much generally deliver nothing. Don’t buy any product that claims it can do it all — stabilize your blood sugar, end your need for insulin, regenerate your pancreas, reduce your cholesterol, and cause easy weight loss.

• A product that claims to be a “scientific breakthrough” may be a bust. Researchers around the world are racing to find better treatments for diabetes, so genuine scientific discoveries make front-page news. If the first you hear about a new treatment is an ad on the Internet, be suspicious.
  

Take a look at their complete “Things to look out for” FAQ page here: http://www.wemarket4u.net/glucobate/faqs.htm

Its good to see the government taking a part to help solve this. According to the FTC:

Using the results of the Internet sweep, FTC sent warning letters for deceptive ads to 84 domestic and 7 Canadian Web sites targeting U.S. consumers, and referred an additional 21 sites to other foreign governments. About a quarter of the firms have already changed their claims or removed their pages from the Internet, and several others are in contact with FTC.

Today, FDA announced it has issued warning letters to 24 firms marketing dietary supplement products with claims to treat, cure, prevent or mitigate diabetes (see link to Warning Letters at http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/dialist.html). The FDA letters warn firms that failure to promptly correct the violations may result in enforcement action without further notice, which may include seizure of violative products and/or injunctions against the manufacturers and distributors.

Many of you may say “Yeah sure, I’d never fall for that!” But you may be surprised. Check out the Glucobate site and really see how convincing it is to you. If you have doubts you should definitely do some more research and educate yourself.