Another Thanksgiving come and gone, lots of food happily consumed and delicious beverages had by all. I hope everyone had a safe and responsible Thanksgiving with friends and family.

It is usually a tough thing for a diabetic to be completely in control on Thanksgiving day, so much temptation! But thats what we Bolus for right?

In fact, I think maybe Thanksgiving should also carry a second name, maybe “Super Bolus Day” or “Happy Fast Acting Insulin Day”?

In any case, we though it might be cool to get some aggregated stats and see how all the SugarStats users did on Thanksgiving (or at least from those who remembered to record ).

Overall, the stats community stats were fairly good:

Sugar Average: 142 mg/dL
Lowest: 52 mg/dL
Highest: 469 mg/dL

In the end I hope the day was enjoyable (and delicious) for all and that no one ended up in the ER for hyperglycemia.

I woke up to this piece of news today. Very promising!

“Two teams of scientists have independently discovered a way to turn ordinary human skin cells into stem cells with the same characteristics as those derived from human embryos, a breakthrough that could open the door for advanced medical therapies.”

Read more: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16470482

If you want to discuss this news with others, visit: http://www.tudiabetes.com/forum/topic/show?id=583967%3ATopic%3A71467

For those of you out there still wishing for an better inhaled insulin solution there just might be hope yet. Or at least as long as Alfred E. Mann can help it. He believes in it so much he is going to invest $966 Million of his own money.

“I believe this is one of the most valuable products in history in the drug industry, and I’m willing to back it up with my estate,”

NYT has a great article/interview in whch they talk to Mr. Mann about it, discuss Pfizer’s 2.8 billion dollar Exubera inhaled insulin failure and what things are to come.

The product, called Technosphere Insulin (They made the inhaler slightly larger than a cell phone), holds promise they say:

“The distinguishing feature of Technosphere Insulin is that it goes to work faster than any other insulin on the market, even so-called fast-acting injected insulins. That could be better at helping control the spike in blood sugar levels that occurs after a meal.

Technosphere Insulin also finishes its work of helping the body use glucose in two or three hours, faster than other products. That might reduce the risk of dangerously low glucose levels several hours after a meal – a big concern for diabetics.”

It certainly sounds interesting, something I might even use if they put it in a portable, easy to use device that doesn’t look like a gigantic bong. But I think Mann has identified that as one of the huge mistakes that Pfizer made and has learned from it He says Pfizer’s Exubera was:

“an expensive way to fairly inconveniently deliver insulin in a manner which has no clinical advantage.”

Like many of the other drugs there still has to be a ton of testing done before its available. But it might be something to look out for in the future.

Read the full article at the New York Times: Betting an Estate on Inhaled Insulin

Thats right, its Nov 14th and that means its world diabetes day. A day that we all unite, across the world, to bring attention and awareness to diabetes.

Last year we wrote about it too, there were some great events they had lined up. This year they got some even cooler things going on.

And though there are many out there struggling with diabetes daily and hate it, I think today is also a day to be grateful that we’re still alive. That we still have the gift of life and the opportunity to manage it the best we can. The opportunity to live deliberately and with joy.

Diabetes in Children

This is the 2nd annual WDD campaign and it is themed around Diabetes in Children and Adolescents. From worlddiabetesday.org:

“The theme of this year’s World Diabetes Day campaign is Diabetes in Children and Adolescents.Diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases of childhood. It can strike children at any age, including pre-school children and even toddlers. Yet diabetes in children is often diagnosed late, when the child has diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), or it is misdiagnosed completely.”

Find a Blue Monument near you!

Another cool thing is that over 200 monuments around the world are lighting up in the world diabetes day color (Pantone 279). See them all on a map

If you have a blue monument near you, take a video and upload it to the WDD site
Learn more about World Diabetes Day at http://www.worlddiabetesday.org

If you do then please take 5 minutes to fill out this survey about why you think, as a person with diabetes, technology is important and should be better supported in the diabetes world.

As Amy from DiabetesMine.com writes:

“The information gathered will be compiled and sent to insurance companies and government bodies in the form of an ad hoc research report.”

And as Kelly from CloseConcerns.com notes:

“Our hope is that a groundswell of support for diabetes technology will just be one more sign to the policymakers in Washington, DC, that they shouldn’t try to be cheap with patients with diabetes. We have all seen the warning signals.””

Even though the survey is primarily about hardware devices such as pumps, glucose meters and CGMS’s we feel this will also extend to all the great projects and services which also aim to improve diabetes management.

Using SugarStats ourselves and receiving dozens of great feedback weekly on how much it has helped people become conscious and better control this disease gives me great hope for the future.