I have “prediabetes” — what does this mean?

Posted June 13, 2013, 2:00 am

I recently had some blood tests done, and my doctor told me I have “prediabetes.” What does this mean? Do I have diabetes or not?

Diabetes doesn’t usually appear all of a sudden. Many people have a long, slow, invisible lead-in to it called prediabetes. During this period, blood sugar levels are higher than normal. However, they’re not high enough to cause symptoms or to be classified as diabetes. It’s still possible at this stage to prevent the slide into full-blown diabetes. Think of prediabetes as a wake-up call.

Type 2 diabetes is a chronic disease marked by high levels of sugar in the blood. During digestion, carbohydrates are broken down into simple sugars, primarily glucose. Glucose is an important source of energy for the body’s cells. But to provide energy to the cells, glucose needs to leave the blood and get inside the cells.

Insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas, signals the cells to extract glucose from the blood. When levels of glucose in the blood rise (for example, after a meal), the pancreas produces more insulin. That drives more glucose into the cells.

Type 2 diabetes occurs when your body’s cells do not react efficiently to insulin. As a result, not as much glucose is driven into the cells, and more stays in the blood. As glucose starts to build up in the blood, the pancreas makes extra insulin to maintain a normal blood sugar. The cycle escalates. Finally, the pancreas cannot keep up with the demand for more and more insulin. As a result, blood glucose levels remain elevated.

Diabetes increases the chances of having a heart attack, stroke or other form of cardiovascular disease. It can lead to blindness, kidney disease and loss of feeling in the legs.

Fortunately, you have the opportunity to make changes that could keep you from ever going down that road. I recommend this three-part strategy to help stave off diabetes:

Modest weight loss.Increased physical activity, such as walking 30 minutes a day. Even if it doesn’t help you to lose weight, the regular physical activity will reduce your risk of getting diabetes.Choosing a healthy, well-balanced diet that emphasizes fruit, vegetables, whole grains and lean protein.

Not everyone with prediabetes goes on to develop diabetes, but many do. You’ve gotten the warning. Now it’s up to you to respond. If you want to avoid getting diabetes, you can do more to protect yourself than your doctor can do for you. And the solutions are all “natural” — no medicines or medical procedures are necessary.

These lifestyle changes are healthy for everyone, but especially for people like you who are at high risk for getting diabetes. No, it’s not easy to make the changes, but it’s a lot easier than living with the complications of diabetes.

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Beer's Taste May Trigger Urge to Get Drunk

By Barbara Bronson Gray
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, April 15 (HealthDay News) -- Just as the smell of freshly brewed coffee may compel you to pour a steaming cup of java, a small taste of beer may activate part of your brain's reward system and trigger the urge for more, a new study suggests.

Researchers have discovered that sensory cues associated with drinking may stimulate certain parts of the brain and cause a craving for more alcohol. Giving people a very small amount of the brand of beer they most frequently consume produced a desire to drink that was correlated with the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain's reward-and-pleasure centers.

The study also showed that the amount of dopamine released was greater in those who had parents or siblings with alcoholism.

"This is the first human demonstration that a stimulus that is reliably associated with alcohol association -- that flavor alone, without any significant amount of alcohol -- is able to induce a dopamine response," said study author David Kareken, a professor at Indiana University School of Medicine.

The research, published in the April 15 issue of the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, validates some findings from earlier animal studies, making them more relevant to understanding what's happening in people, Kareken said. "We have a long history of developing alcohol-preferring rats and mice, and the last 20 years of research does show there are neurotransmitters that are distinguishable in [rats and mice] that prefer alcohol."

Kareken said the study also may help reduce the stigma of alcoholism. "This is really quite strong evidence that there are genetic factors that change the brain's chemistry and may act as risk factors for dependence," he explained.

For the study, 49 right-handed men in good physical and mental health, with a mean age of 25, underwent two brain scans. None of the participants had a history of significant drug or tobacco use, although all of them expressed a preference for drinking beer (as opposed to other alcoholic drinks). Women were excluded from the study because it was difficult to find potential participants who preferred beer and met the criteria for inclusion in the study.

Right-handedness was required because most people have language capacity on the left side of the brain, and the researchers wanted to make sure that any differences between the men would not interfere with the study, Kareken explained. Data about ethnicity or social or economic level was not collected.

The participants were tested while tasting 15 milliliters (about half an ounce) of the beer they usually drank, and also while tasting Gatorade.

The beer flavor was mixed with a small amount of alcohol -- not enough to cause a pharmacological effect -- to help make sure the participants were experiencing something close to what they would sense when drinking beer, Kareken explained.

The researchers found that, compared to Gatorade, beer flavor significantly increased a man's self-reported desire to drink, and the scans showed that the alcohol-associated flavor induced the release of dopamine in the brain's striatum region. The association with dopamine release was greatest in those with parents and siblings who were alcoholics.

Family history of alcoholism is one of the best ways to assess genetic risk, explained Kareken. "Alcoholism isn't a simple autosomal dominant genetic mechanism." (If a disease is autosomal dominant, it means you only need to get the abnormal gene from one parent to inherit the disease.) "There are probably many, many genes that predispose people through different pathways to eventually have alcoholism."

Dr. Scott Krakower, medical director of the Mineola Community Treatment Center in Mineola, N.Y., said the research makes sense.

"It's one of the first pieces of research that tests whether the flavor of something affects behavior," he said. "People tell me they can't be around alcohol at all because it immediately triggers them to start drinking," Krakower added.

"The research may change some physicians' advice to patients if they're aware there's an exponential increase in drinking, just due to the flavor of the drink," Krakower said. "We really promote complete abstinence; otherwise it's a slippery slope for people with a history of alcoholism."

Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCES: David Kareken, Ph.D., professor and director, neuropsychology section, and deputy director, Indiana Alcohol Research Center, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis; Scott Krakower, D.O., medical director, Mineola Community Treatment Center, North Shore-LIJ Health System, Mineola, N.Y.; April 15, 2013, Neuropsychopharmacology

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How Carmelo Anthony Stays On the Ball

The NBA star scores points for his team and for young people following in his footsteps.

You wouldn't know it by watching him play, but basketball was not Carmelo "Melo" Anthony's first love. "That was baseball," says the 29-year-old star player with the New York Knicks. "But whatever season it was, that's what sport I played. I didn't have a real love for any one sport."

Then he grew up. Way up. In the summer between his sophomore and junior years of high school, Anthony added 5 inches to his frame to reach 6 feet, 7 inches. "That's when I really fell in love with basketball."

A Little Gratitude

By Tom Chiarella How to change the way the world sees you, one thank-you note at a time. I don't really care when people say thanks. Open a door. Thanks. Hand someone a stapler. Thanks. Push a button on an elevator. Thanks. That's just chatter. Meaningless interaction. Broadly speaking, hearing thanks five dozen times a day might be seen as an anthropological indicator of some sort of social ordering, like cryptic head tilts between sparrows on the lip of a gutter. It's often...

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No doubt his height helped him dominate on the courts, but he had always been a supremely able player. From the time he was a child, if he had a basketball in his hands, he could put it in the basket. "It was always something that I just knew how to do," says Anthony. "I was always able to score points."

That ability, coupled with a resolve born of his upbringing, has brought Anthony a long way.

Anthony was born in 1984 in New York City, in Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood, which, four years later, Life magazine described as "a community ruled by crack." His Puerto Rican father, Carmelo Iriarte, died of liver cancer when Anthony was 2. It was a tough beginning for the future superstar, and circumstances would only get harder.

When he was 8, Anthony and his mother, Mary Anthony, moved to one of Baltimore's toughest neighborhoods, the blighted, drug-ravaged landscape portrayed in HBO's The Wire. There, he surrounded himself with a tight circle of friends, and they hung together like a protective shield. Instead of getting caught up in the drugs and violence that marred their community, they earned money by scraping grime off the windshields of passing cars. They played sports together. They held each other up, Anthony says.

"We'd all push each other. We'd get each other in the morning, walk to school, walk to practice, like a little breakfast club," he recalls. "I didn't have anyone to show me which steps to walk, which way to go. I didn't have that in my neighborhood. But I had my peers, and we pushed each other, we motivated each other."

When they weren't out trying to make a few bucks, they spent afternoons and weekends on the basketball courts at the Robert C. Marshall Recreation Center. The facility was a haven for Anthony, an escape from the streets. Then, when he was 13, the rec center closed. It was a bitter setback, Anthony says, but one that taught him a valuable lesson. "You have to survive on your own, and believe it or not, that closing kind of changed my nature. When they closed it down, I had to ask myself, 'What's next?'"

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Sarah Harding banned from driving for six months

Sarah Harding has been banned from driving for six months after she failed to stop for police, when she was seen talking on her mobile phone and behind the wheel.

The Girls Aloud star, 31, arrived at Highbury Magistrates court this morning.

She pleaded guilty to driving while talking on her mobile phone.

Her solicitor, Nick Freeman, told the judge that her celebrity status would make travelling on public transport a "massive inconvenience" if she were to be banned from driving.

But the judge told Harding: "Mr Freeman is asking the court to deal with you as opposed to a normal person.

"Well, you are a normal person."

The singer, who is looking to launch a solo career after the band split following their tenth anniversary tour, already had nine points on her licence and was disqualified from driving for the next six months as a result.

SOURCE: METRO

On 8 April 2013, we wrote...

Sarah Harding was arrested after failing to stop for police last week.

The Girls Aloud star was seen making a phone call while she was driving on Charing Cross Road in London on Thursday. When an officer attempted to flag her down, she allegedly refused to pull over.

She was stopped minutes later, arrested, and taken to Holborn Police Station.

Police later confirmed that Harding had been charged with two offences. She is expected to appear at Highbury Corner Magistrates Court on 16 April 2013.

She faces a minimum £1,000 fine and risks losing her license for using her phone while driving. Failing to stop for police when asked carries a further £5,000 fine

"Sarah was ­driving in a 4x4 when a policeman on a bicycle saw her and tried to make her stop," a source tols one British tabloid.

"He was trying to flag her down but she carried on a bit down the road where she was pulled over a couple of minutes later.

"She was talking to the police by the side of the road for a while before she was arrested.

"Apparently Sarah was very upset when she was arrested and charged. The offences are pretty serious."

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SARAH HARDING: "NADINE DID NOT TRY TO STOP GIRLS ALOUD SPLIT"

THE GIRLS ALOUD STYLE EVO

GIRLS ALOUD BEAUTY SECRETS

SOURCE: NME

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Olivia Palermo and Johannes Huebl at a screening in New York

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

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tummy fat. :(

I find it hard to lose my tummy fat. I've looked all over the net to try and find something to help, whether it be foods to avoid or exercise but everything seems to contradict itself. Can anyone let me know things that have helped them? Thank you! :)

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Household Chores May Ease Nighttime Menopausal Symptoms

SATURDAY, APRIL 13 (HealthDay News) -- For menopausal women who can't make it to the gym, higher levels of routine physical activity during the day may help relieve sleep problems caused by hot flashes or night sweats, a small new study suggests.

Exercise improves sleep for people in general, but studies in menopausal women have been inconclusive, said the researchers at the Pittsburgh site of the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation.

Their new study included 27 white and 25 black women, aged 54 to 63, with hot flashes and night sweats. The women kept sleep diaries and wore sleep monitors. They also provided information about their physical activity levels, including routine household and caregiving chores requiring light, moderate or vigorous effort, as well as sports and exercise in their leisure time.

The investigators found that women with higher levels of daytime activity reported fewer nighttime awakenings and better sleep. These benefits were mainly associated with household and caregiving chores, rather than sports or exercise, the study authors noted in a news release from the North American Menopause Society.

The positive effects of physical activity occurred mainly in white women who were not obese. Further research is needed to find out why black and obese women may not get the same sleep benefits from physical activity, the researchers said.

The study, by Maya Lambiase and Rebecca Thurston, was released online recently in the journal Menopause in advance of publication in the September print issue of the journal.

-- Robert Preidt
Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCE: North American Menopause Society, news release, March 27, 2013

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Weighing out Canned Veggies?

Hi there! I'm new to all this healthy eating stuff, and I'm a little lost on the subject of canned veggies.

I'm weighing my food to teach myself what a proper portion size looks like, and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to weigh the contents before or after draining? Not sure if they calculate the servings per container size with or without the 'juice'.

Thanks!

~A

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Health Highlights: April 15, 2013

Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:

FDA Announces Safety Reassessment of Diabetes Drug Avandia

A safety reassessment of the diabetes drug Avandia announced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration comes three years after the agency limited the drug's sales due to cardiovascular risks.

In a notice published in the Federal Register on Friday, the FDA said it plans to hold a two-day hearing of outside medical advisers in June to discuss the results of Duke University scientists' re-evaluation of earlier research on Avandia, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The FDA did not say why it scheduled the hearing and said it is too early to know what options it will be considering.

This rare move by the FDA is not expected to make Avandia more widely available to patients, according to WSJ. GlaxoSmithKline, which makes the drug, is not seeking to ease restrictions on sales of Avandia, according to a company spokeswoman. She noted that the company commissioned the Duke team's re-evaluation at the request of the FDA.

-----

La. Company Expands Meat Recall

A recall of meat products due to possible bacterial contamination has been expanded by a Louisiana-based meat packing company, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says.

The recall by the Manda Packing Company now includes 468,000 pounds of roast beef, ham, turkey breast, tasso pork, ham shanks, hog headcheese, corned beef and pastrami, the Associated Press reported.

The products, which were recalled due to possible contamination with Listeria monocytogenes, were shipped to Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

No illnesses have been reported, according to the AP.

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Meningitis Case Causes Concern in L.A. Gay Community

Health officials in Los Angeles County are urging people to watch for any symptoms of a potentially deadly strain of meningitis that has left one man brain dead.

Early signs of the disease -- a bacterial infection of the membrane surrounding the brain and spinal cord -- include a severe headache and stiff neck. If treated early, it can be effectively treated with antibiotics.

Only one case has been confirmed in the Los Angeles area but it follows an outbreak of deadly meningitis among gay men in New York City. Since 2010, at least 22 men have contracted the disease and 7 have died, The New York Times reported.

So far, no link between the New York outbreak and the Los Angeles case has been made. However, the disease similarities have led to fears about outbreaks in both locations.

"The lesson we learned 30 years ago in the early days of HIV and AIDS is that people were not alerted to what was going on and a lot of infections occurred that didn't need to occur," John Duran, a West Hollywood city councilman and one of the few openly HIV-positive elected officials in the United States, told The Times. "So even with an isolated case here, we need to sound the alarms, especially given the cases in New York."

Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

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Colic May Be Linked to Childhood Migraine, Study Says

Expert suspects disrupted sleep cycles might play a role in both disorders

By Serena Gordon

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, April 16 (HealthDay News) -- Although colic has always been considered a gastrointestinal illness, new research suggests that migraines might be to blame.

The study, published April 17 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found the odds were nearly seven times higher that children with migraine were colicky babies than were not.

"It is already known that migraine can show with intestinal pain in childhood," said study senior author Dr. Luigi Titomanlio, head of the pediatric migraine and neurovascular diseases clinic at APHP Hospital Robert Debre in Paris, France. That is termed abdominal migraine.

"Our results suggest that infantile colic could represent a form of migraine with age-specific expression," Titomanlio said.

As a colicky child gets older, be aware that he or she may be more likely to have migraine headaches, he added. "By extrapolation [from the study's findings], having had colic could be a risk factor of migraine in teens with recurrent headaches," said Titomanlio.

Colic affects as many as one in five infants, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Babies with colic cry for more than three hours a day, usually at the same time each day, at least three days a week. The exact cause of infant colic is unknown, but it usually gets better by 12 weeks of age.

When babies with colic are crying, their abdomens often appear swollen and they may draw their legs up to their bellies. These symptoms appear to originate in the digestive tract, but treatments aimed at easing digestive system symptoms aren't very effective at making babies with colic calm down.

Migraine is a common cause of headaches in children, according to the study. Another type of headache in children is a tension-type headache, and children who have tension-type headaches are believed to have increased pain sensitivity. Links between these and other types of headaches and colic have been suggested, but they haven't been well-studied, the researchers noted.

This latest research includes more than 200 children 6 to 18 years old who were diagnosed with migraine headaches. The study also included 120 children who had tension-type headaches, and 471 control children who were treated for minor traumas.

The researchers found that nearly 73 percent of children who had migraines also had colic as babies, while just 26.5 percent of those without migraine reported colic. Slightly more children who had migraine without aura (without visual and other sensory disturbances) reported having had colic than those who had migraine with aura. Overall, the odds that someone with a migraine had colic as a child were 6.6 times higher than the odds they didn't have colic, the study found.

The researchers didn't find an association between tension-type headaches and colic.

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Sleep Apnea May Boost Risk of Sudden Cardiac Death

Study findings bolster suspected link between sleep disorder and heart-related death

By Kathleen Doheny

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, June 11 (HealthDay News) -- Sleep apnea raises the risk of sudden cardiac death, according to a long-term study that strengthens a link doctors have suspected.

"The presence and severity of sleep apnea are associated with a significantly increased risk of sudden cardiac death," said study leader Dr. Apoor Gami, a cardiac electrophysiologist at Midwest Heart Specialists-Advocate Medical Group in Elmhurst, Ill.

The new research is published online June 11 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Sleep apnea -- in which a person stops breathing frequently during sleep -- affects about 12 million American adults, although many are not diagnosed. The diagnosis is made after sleep tests determine that a person stops breathing for 10 seconds or more at least five times hourly while sleeping.

Some research suggests that sleep apnea is on the rise, in part because of the current obesity epidemic.

Sudden cardiac death kills 450,000 people a year in the United States, according to study background information. It occurs when the heart unexpectedly and suddenly stops beating due to problems with the heart's electrical system. Those problems cause irregular heartbeats. The condition must be treated within minutes if the person is to survive.

Electrophysiologists are cardiologists who treat these heart rhythm problems.

In earlier research, Gami and his team had found that patients with sleep apnea who suffered sudden cardiac death often did so at night, a completely opposite pattern than found in others without sleep apnea who had sudden cardiac death.

"That was the first direct link [found] between sudden cardiac death and sleep apnea," Gami said.

In the new study, the researchers tracked more than 10,000 men and women, average age 53, who were referred for sleep studies at the Mayo Clinic Sleep Disorders Center, mostly due to suspected sleep apnea, from 1987 through 2003. After sleep tests, 78 percent were found to have sleep apnea.

During the follow-up of up to 15 years, they found that 142 had sudden cardiac arrest, either fatal or resuscitated.

Three measures strongly predicted the risk of sudden cardiac death, Gami said. These include being 60 or older, having 20 apnea episodes an hour or having low blood levels of oxygen.

This "oxygen saturation" drops when air doesn't flow into the lungs. "If the lowest oxygen saturation was 78 percent, or less, their risk of [sudden cardiac death] increased by 80 percent," Gami said. In a healthy person, 95 percent to 100 percent is normal.

Having 20 events an hour would be termed moderate sleep apnea, Gami said.

Gami found a link, not a cause-and-effect relationship, between sleep apnea and sudden cardiac death. He can't explain the connection with certainty, but said there are several possible explanations. For example, sleep apnea is related to the type of heart rhythm problem that causes sudden cardiac death, he said.

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Health Highlights: April 15, 2013

A recall of meat products due to possible bacterial contamination has been expanded by a Louisiana-based meat packing company, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says.

The recall by the Manda Packing Company now includes 468,000 pounds of roast beef, ham, turkey breast, tasso pork, ham shanks, hog headcheese, corned beef and pastrami, the Associated Press reported.

The products, which were recalled due to possible contamination with Listeria monocytogenes, were shipped to Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

No illnesses have been reported, according to the AP.

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Pushing the boundaries?

Hi, I'm a 16 year old girl, 120 pounds, 5 feet 9 inches tall. I realize that for my age, weight, and height I am close to being under weight but after dieting and exercising for 2 1/2 months I'm still not happy with my body. I still have the small ribbon of fat around my middle and the ugly fat deposits right on the inner thighs. In the time that I was dieting I would consume amounts of calories that were far too low to allow my body to function properly and on top of that I would put myself through 30 min. of spot training and 30 min. of light cardio. I avoided high calorie foods, even the ones that are proven to help burn fat like avocadoes and almonds, thinking that would help me lose weight. During this time I lost about 2-3 pounds a week and dropped 20 pounds a little too quickly. I am now regretting it, I am worried that I am pushing myself too far and being unhealthy. At this point I need advice as to how I can tone up my body in a healthy way and get the body I want without putting myself in danger.

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'Mobility Shoes' May Help Those With Arthritic Knees: Study

FRIDAY, April 12 (HealthDay News) -- Special "mobility shoes" might ease the strain on the knees of people with knee arthritis, a small study has found.

This type of flat, flexible footwear is designed to mimic the biomechanics of walking barefoot, researchers from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago explained.

The study was funded by the Arthritis Foundation and included 16 people with knee osteoarthritis who wore specially made mobility shoes six hours per day, six days a week. The patients were evaluated after six weeks, three months and six months.

According to the researchers, long-term use of mobility shoes helped the patients adapt their gait (how they walk), which led to a reduction in what's known as "knee loading" -- the force placed on knees during daily activities.

This reduction in knee loading continued even after the patients stopped wearing the mobility shoes, according to the study published in the April 10 online edition of the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism.

Arthritis experts were encouraged by the findings.

"The data show convincing improvements in the 'knee adduction moment,' which is a measure of how the knee moves to the side as the foot strikes the ground," said Dr. Jose Rodriguez, chief of reconstruction arthroplasty at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "By diminishing these forces, the potential is a reduction in the progression of arthritis in the knee."

He added that "the impressive part of the study was the fact that the biomechanical changes in gait pattern were also present using normal shoe wear at the end of the study, indicating a training effect."

Another expert noted that getting the foot and knee to a more "natural" state is often productive.

"Obviously the bare foot is the ultimate shock absorber and mobility footwear allows the foot to absorb the forces during ambulation in a much more natural fashion than other modes of footwear," explained Dr. Richard Iorio, professor and chief of adult reconstruction surgery at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.

"There have been similar findings in the 'new running' movement, where distance runners are even going barefoot to avoid the injuries associated with shoes," Iorio added. "Anything that mechanically improves foot and ankle mechanics to minimize load on the knee will help an arthritic knee patient."

Study author Dr. Najia Shakoor agreed. "Our investigation provides evidence that footwear choice may be an important consideration in managing knee osteoarthritis," she said in a journal news release.

"There is much interest in biomechanical interventions, such as orthotic inserts, knee braces and footwear that aim to improve pain and delay osteoarthritis progression by decreasing impact on joints," Shakoor noted.

Rodriguez did have a couple caveats to offer, however.

Further study is needed to see if the benefits persist long-term after people switch back to normal footwear, and while the study "represents excellent science," it "needs to be repeated at a lab not associated with the design of the shoe," he said.

Osteoarthritis, a painful swelling and stiffness in joints (including the hands, feet, knees or hips), affects over 27 million Americans over the age of 25, according to the American College of Rheumatology. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 16 percent of Americans aged 45 and older develop symptomatic knee osteoarthritis, which is often due to injury or "wear and tear" on the joint.

-- Robert Preidt
Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCES: Richard Iorio, M.D., professor and chief of adult reconstruction surgery, department of orthopaedic surgery, NYU Langone Medical Center, New York City; Jose A. Rodriguez M.D., chief, reconstruction arthroplasty, and director, Arthroplasty Fellowship Program, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City; Arthritis & Rheumatism, news release, April 10, 2013

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