Am I Eating My Way to Gestational Diabetes?

By Erica Kain

Throughout my last two pregnancies, it was a struggle to eat enough when so many foods repulsed me. This time my nausea has taken a vacation, and suddenly food tastes delicious. As a result, I’ve started to gain too much weight, too fast.Read More

For a Diabetic, Continuing Education Is a Must

By Sean Kelley

123rf/Health

When I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 1999, I went through a nutrition retraining session with a nurse educator. Like other newly diagnosed diabetics, I learned about portion size, how to count carbs, and how to identify foods that could cause my blood sugar to spike.
An enormous amount of information was imparted in the 45-minute private session and in two group meetings I attended. Too much information. I retained very little, beyond being able to identify how many carbs are in certain foods like small apples and cooked carrots.
The hard thing about managing type 2 diabetes isn’t taking medications or injecting insulin. It’s not even checking blood sugar (although that’s the thing we complain about the most). The hardest thing is changing lifestyle habits—particularly those around eating—that have been built up through decades of living before diabetes. Read More

Health Tip: Why You May Have Erectile Dysfunction

(HealthDay News) -- Erectile dysfunction occurs when a man can't achieve or maintain an erection during sex.

The American Academy of Family Physicians says the condition doesn't have to be a natural part of getting older. ED often is attributed to physical or psychological causes. Physical reasons may include:

• Having a side effect of surgery on the prostate or bladder, or radiation therapy to the testicles.
• Having low testosterone levels, kidney failure, liver failure, multiple sclerosis or Parkinson's disease.
• Having chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or hardening of the arteries.
• Having had a stroke or an injury to the brain or spinal cord.
• Using too much tobacco or alcohol.
• Being tired.

Obesity Surgery: Less Successful for Diabetics?

By Theresa Tamkins

A gastric bypass is a radical operation for desperate people. But a new study shows that this dramatic procedure—during which surgeons fashion a tiny new pouch that bypasses the old, larger stomach and part of the small intestine—isn’t always a weight-loss home run.

Certain patients—5% to 15%—lose some, but not all, of their excess weight after surgery. The new research, published today in Archives of Surgery, shows that people with type 2 diabetes diabetes are three times as likely as those without diabetes to fall into this group. Read More

Fat Cells in Obese People Are 'Sick'

(HealthDay News) -- Fat cells in obese people are "sick" compared to those in lean people, a new study shows.

Published in the September issue of Diabetes, a group of researchers from the Temple University School of Medicine analyzed fat samples from the upper thighs of six lean and six obese people.

They found significant differences in the fat cells of the obese participants compared with the lean participants.

"The fat cells we found in our obese patients were deficient in several areas," study author Guenther Boden, the Laura H. Carnell Professor of Medicine and chief of endocrinology, said in Temple press release.

Boden said that the obese people's fat cells showed stress on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), which helps cells synthesize proteins and monitor how they are folded. When the ER is stressed, Boden explained, it produces several proteins that ultimately lead to insulin resistance. Insulin resistance, in turn, plays a major role in the development of obesity-related conditions.

The differences in the fat cells between obese and lean people may help explain the link between obesity and a higher risk of diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, Boden theorized.

More information
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has more about overweight and obesity.