Diabetes Archive

Certain compounds in the brew are beneficial.

You may think of coffee as just a part of your morning routine. But it may be part of a longer, healthier life. A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that among older adults, those who drank coffee (caffeinated or decaf) had a lower risk of dying from diabetes, heart disease, respiratory disease, and other medical complications than non-coffee drinkers. "I think the evidence is pretty substantial now; it seems to be beneficial across the board," says Dr. Eric Rimm, associate professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.

What they found

Researchers looked at survey responses regarding the coffee habits of more than 400,000 older men and women. After adjusting for the effects of other risk factors such as alcohol consumption and smoking, scientists concluded that two or more cups of coffee per day equated to a 10% reduction in overall death for men and a 15% reduction in overall death for women, when compared with non-coffee drinkers. It's not a cause-and-effect relationship, but researchers say there is a strong association between drinking coffee and living longer.

People with higher-than-normal blood glucose levels but who do not have diabetes—a condition known as prediabetes—may be at a higher risk of stroke. A diagnosis of prediabetes should sound a warning to better manage weight, diet, and exercise, which may contribute to diabetes and stroke.

Breaking up periods of sitting by standing up every so often and walking or performing some other exercise for a few minutes can help prevent diabetes.

A biological mechanism that enabled our prehistoric ancestors to survive times of famine may explain why some people develop type II diabetes. It all has to do with the way our bodies store fat.

Researchers in California discovered that a protein called fibroblast growth factor-1 (FGF1) helps the body metabolize fat. The protein enables a body to hold fat in reserve and dole it out over time by regulating insulin to help maintain normal blood sugar levels. This ensures we have energy at all times, even when our food intake is irregular.

Exercise makes cells burn extra energy—that’s one way it helps control weight. It also generates a newly discovered hormone, called irisin, that transforms energy-storing white fat cells into energy-burning brown fat cells. Irisin also appears to help prevent or overcome cellular changes that lead to type 2 diabetes. The hormone does this by helping transform energy-storing white fat cells into energy-burning brown fat cells. White adipose tissue, more commonly known as body fat, is the tissue that dimples thighs, enlarges waists and derrieres, and pads internal organs. Each white fat cell stores a large droplet of fat. Brown fat, in comparison, is chock full of energy-burning mitochondria. Its main function is to generate body heat by burning fat. A team led by Dr. Bruce Spiegelman, professor of cell biology and medicine at Harvard Medical School, has identified irisin in mice and humans and showed how irisin transforms white fat cells into brown ones, at least in mice.

Q. I am a 47-year-old man with diabetes being treated with insulin and high blood pressure treated with lisinopril and low-dose hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ). I have read that HCTZ can actually cause diabetes. My physician says not to worry about it, but I do.

A. HCTZ can cause modest elevations in blood glucose levels. However, a low dose of HCTZ will have very little effect on your body's chemical balance, whether or not you have diabetes, or whether your diabetes is well controlled. The single most important thing you can do to prevent complications from diabetes is to control your blood pressure. This will lower your risk of kidney and heart disease, as well as stroke. Lisinopril is an ACE inhibitor, a class of drugs that lowers blood pressure and helps protect the kidneys. Adding a low dose of HCTZ to your lisinopril is a good idea, and I often use this combination in my own patients.

White rice is a staple food in some parts of the world, especially Asian cultures. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health evaluated whether the tasty grain is served with a side of risk for Type 2 diabetes. To conduct the study, they pooled data on the diet, lifestyle, and diabetes rates for some 352,000 people from China, Japan, the United States, and Australia.

Trends over 22 years of follow up showed that each daily serving of 5.6 ounces (about � cup) of cooked white rice is associated with an 11% higher risk of developing diabetes. People who ate the most white rice saw a 27% boost in risk, said a study in the British Medical Journal.

Lower resting heart rate may mean lower risk of diabetes.

People with diabetes are two to four times more likely to have a heart attack or stroke than those without diabetes, and cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and disability among people with diabetes. But there is a positive side to this predicament: any healthy change you make to address one condition will help the other.

The hemoglobin A1c reading is an important number for people with diabetes. It’s a measure of the average blood sugar level over the preceding three months. For years, the American Diabetes Association recommended that almost everyone with type 2 diabetes should aim for an HbA1c level less than 7%. Keeping blood sugar as low as possible, called “tight control,” was thought to limit the havoc caused by diabetes. New guidelines from the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and European Association for the Study of Diabetes recommend taking a more “patient-centered approach.” For people who are newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes but who are otherwise in good health, the ADA still suggests aiming for an HbA1C of 6.0% to 6.5%. For people who have had diabetes for a while, an HbA1c goal of 7.5% to 8.0%, or even higher, may be more appropriate.