This article gives an excellent example of progress, healing and hope through the story of a man named Dario Wolfish who narrowly escaped a multitute of health complications through willpower, diet and exercise..

But in short it gives hope to people so they know it can be done and people are doing it every day. He took control of his life and did what he needed to do to remove himself from these dangers and now has a much healthier and fulfilling life.

“Nearly five years ago, his doctor told him that tests showed he was at risk of dying prematurely from a long list of medical conditions, including diabetes. The doctor warned him that all of these conditions would get worse quickly unless he lost weight — a lot of weight.

That was Wolfish’s “a-ha moment.” After a lifetime of gaining pounds at an alarming rate, he changed course decisively, though not all at once.

Today, the San Carlos resident weighs about 170 pounds and is in excellent health.

Wolfish narrowly escaped becoming one of more than 20 million Americans with diabetes, a number that has tripled in the last 30 years. Experts confirm what Dario discovered on his own — diabetes can be averted through lifestyle changes.”

That is a great article that not only tells this mans story but also provides explanations, tips and even food recipes. Here is the full article titled Dodging Diabetes.

To some, this may seem like common sense. But to others who are really caught up in the fast lane of their lives and “getting things done”, they might after a moment of self reflection see how this may relate to them.

Ivanhoe’s has an article about this shows a few trends regarding this along with things to consider. There is some new research from the University of Chicago which indicates under their conditions how much better the Diabetic patients blood glucose levels were when well rested and given more sleep.

“Researchers found, on average, the 161 black patients in the study got very little sleep and had poor glucose control. The average length of sleep was six hours a night. Only 6 percent said they got eight hours of sleep on weeknights; 22 percent said they got at least seven hours. The median HbA1c score was high—at 8.3 percent.”

It seems that the study was some what lacking as they don’t show the progress of those who started to get better sleep, but it gives indications of the trends and patterns. Personally I find deprived sleep definitely affects my blood sugar as does excess stress. Of course deprived sleep can definitely contribute to added stress.

“Researchers report lack of sleep or poor quality sleep is closely associated with higher HbA1c scores. Patients with sleep problems and at least one complication of diabetes—nerve pain, kidney damage or coronary artery disease—are more likely to see their HbA1c go up.

Researchers report the trend of more people burning the candle at both ends may play a big role in the diabetes epidemic we now have. They conclude one way to slow down the epidemic may be to avoid building a chronic sleep debt.”

Here is the complete store on how a Lack of Sleep Affects Health of Diabetics

Tim over at TechAddress did a quick interview with me regarding SugarStats.com, what its about, progress in development etc.

“We had the opportunity to speak with Marston Alfred, the founder of SugarStats.com. To say the least, they have some extremely exciting endeavors going on and we were thrilled to have the opportunity to speak with Mr. Alfred and learn more about SugarStats.”

The exposure is definitely welcome as is the chance to tell even more people what we’re about.

Check it out here: Interview with Marston Alfred of SugarStats.com

I guess we’re on a roll with all these cure… No but seriously, it seems like over the past few years I can’t even count how many different promising drugs or vaccines I’ve heard about that never went anywhere. But it is progress, there is always something to be learned… What do you all think?

With all that aside, I came across some more news regarding a large study done on Type-2 Diabetes. They say this is the largest Diabetes prevention study every conducted. Here are some quotes:

“The drug, rosiglitazone or Avandia, taken for three years, reduced the risk of getting diabetes by 62 percent, according to a report published Friday. Rosiglitazone is a drug from the thiazolidinediones family and is currently used to treat diabetes once it is diagnosed.”

and

“The study enrolled 5,269 participants aged 30 or older, recruited from 191 sites in 21 countries. All had “pre-diabetes” or blood sugar abnormalities that indicated half of them would develop Type 2 diabetes within three years.”

and

“Participants took rosiglitazone while taking lifestyle advice. Over a period of three years, only 12 percent of those taking rosiglitazone developed diabetes, compared with 26 percent who became diabetic while taking the placebo. Rosiglitazone was also found to return glucose levels to normal in 51 percent of participants versus 30 percent of those taking a placebo.”

The Questions

Interesting results, I’m wondering though what exactly their “lifestyle advice” to the patients was and how these peoples diets and lifestyles were standardized or regulated. Its shown that, especially with Type 2 Diabetics, one of the main causes is by prolonged abuse of the body with poor diets and dangerous lifestyle habits. Were these people just given the pill and left to go eat at McDonalds every night? Or maybe they said “Take two of these and don’t eat McDonalds in the morning.”?

The “Placebo” Effect

Even though they make it look like the “placebo” was a failure, it still shows it worked in some capacity. At least working with the variables and lifestyles for those people. I think personally it just goes to show that we should never underestimate the natural power of the body to heal itself. I will be keeping an eye on this as well. You can find the article about a pill to cure type 2 diabetes here

I came across a very interesting article with some news on Diabetes vaccine research being done in UCLA.

“A new vaccine being tested in a human clinical trial holds a great deal of promise for treating type 1 diabetes, a disease that newly afflicts 35,000 children each year. The research that established the foundation for this vaccine was conducted in UCLA research laboratories. The drug is still being tested and is not likely to be available for at least a few years.”

The actual treatment is quite interesting and the research being done involves brain patterns and specific enzymes in the body. They are in Phase 2 of the research now and have been doing tests in all over including 8 Hospitals in Sweden.

The vaccine is of course many years of but if they reach Phase 3 it only means they are making that much more progress. I will definitely be keeping and eye on this.

You can find the full article on the scienceblog.com

Type-1 Diabetes:

“Type I diabetes — also known as insulin-dependent diabetes or juvenile diabetes (because it usually begins in childhood or adolescence) — afflicts more than 1 million Americans. It is characterized by a failure of the body to produce insulin because the immune system attacks and destroys the body’s insulin-producing cells of the pancreas.”

It seems the word has been spreading about SugarStats.com and we’ve been getting a lot of great new traffic and visitors interested in what’s going on here from blogs and various tech news websites. First I wanted to welcome all the new people coming over here ( HEYA! ), subscribing to the RSS feed ( HOWDY! ) and subscribing to the mailing list( ALOHA! ). We definitely want to get the word out and welcome

As for a little intro to me, I’m Marston Alfred and am the creator and main developer of SugarStats as well as a 16+ year Type 1 Diabetic. If you keep up with the blog here or RSS feed you’ll find that I’ll be the main one posting 80% of the time though I’m sure the rest of the team will have things to add. We’ll be posting things regarding SugarStats, development, Diabetes News, Diabetes Health and management and other related news.

As for a quick update to all the RSS subscribers, we had to make a slight modification to it and as a result might have unsubscribed a few of you. If you find that you no longer see the latest news feeds in your RSS reader but see new entries on the blog, simply re-subscribe and it should fix things for good.

Also for a small update on progress, things are going very well. We’re polishing off the interface and working hard to integrate some core features. Then when we feel its ready we’ll open it up to private and the public beta testing which we’ll announce here and on the mailing list. So stay tuned!