People who have been diagnosed with diabetes should lead a healthy and an active life. Lack of physical activity can lead to obesity which can become a major health risk for them. The major risk factor of diabetes include, heart stroke, kidney problems, eye and vision problems and skin problems. Some of the risks can take severe forms due to neglect.

Diabetes is a condition that is diagnosed along with several other diseases like heart or kidney related conditions. In such cases diabetes problems may play more active role. A sedentary lifestyle can easily kill a person who is diabetic. Every person with this condition should find alternative methods to digest the food and keep the blood glucose levels stable. They can indulge in simple exercises like tread mill, walking, jogging and even yoga.

When a person gets involved in physical activity consistently, the body starts using insulin and when the body starts using it, it also starts producing it naturally. This is the best and natural cure for diabetes. Also, for people who are obese daily exercise naturally helps them to control weight gain and burn excess fat in the body.

All the factors that work against diabetes can be easily solved through exercise. Furthermore, a daily regime of exercise works along with the diet and compliments the overall health of the person. On the other hand a person with sedentary life style and with a condition like diabetes has more pains in store in the form of severe health problems. That is why diabetes is also referred to as a self inflicted disease.

Being diagnosed with diabetes is not the end of the world. It is true that you need to be more careful and pay more attention to what you eat, but you can still eat a wonderful, varied, and delicious diet. Once diagnosed with diabetes, managing your illness is the key to living a long and fulfilling life. With some forethought and planning, you can devise a diabetes menu that is exciting, tasty and good for you.

The great thing about a diabetes diet is that it’s basically the same with a non-diabetic diet if it were a healthy one. The difference is that diabetics consume fewer carbohydrates to ensure optimal blood sugar levels.

Carbohydrates are foods which break down into sugars during digestion. Carbs have, by far, the greatest impact on your blood sugar. Fat plays only a minor role in short-term blood sugar levels. Protein takes several hours to show up as blood sugar, so it also plays a very minor role in short-term blood sugar control. Diabetics must pay close attention to their dietary intake, portion sizes, and meal frequency. What you eat, or more specifically, the carbohydrates in the food you eat are the body’s main source of glucose.

To overcome the specific challenges your body experiences because of the disease, you should talk to your doctor or health care provider. Discuss your needs and wants with a professional. A registered dietitian or nutritionist should be able to help you come up or devise a diabetes menu plan that fits your preferences and lifestyle.

Japanese patients with Type 2 diabetes treated with 7.5 mg a day of pioglitazone show good glycemic control after 12 weeks, study findings show.

Notably the patients displayed none of the adverse metabolic side effects previously noted in some individuals on higher doses, typically between 15-45 mg/day, say Yoshimasa Aso (Koshigaya Hospital, Dokkyo Medical University, Saitama, Japan) and colleagues.

The researchers nevertheless caution that pioglitazone acts on glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) in a dose dependent manner and thus may not be effective in Caucasian patients who have on average a higher body weight and body mass index (BMI) than their Asian counterparts.

Pioglitazone is currently approved worldwide for the treatment of hyperglycemia in patients with Type 2 diabetes. It is thought to sensitize cells to insulin resulting in decreased HbA1c, triglycerides, and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol as well as increased levels of adiponectin - a natural insulin sensitizer.

However, fluid retention is a common and serious adverse effect of the drug and can lead to weight gain, peripheral edema, and potentially progress to congestive heart failure.

For the current study the researchers recruited 14 male and 16 female patients with Type 2 diabetes who had poor glycemic control (HbA1c ?7.0%) and were being treated with sulfonylureas.

Each patient was given 7.5 mg/day of pioglitazone and assessed every month for fasting serum markers for a total of 12 weeks.

All 30 patients displayed a significant decrease in HbA1c after 12 weeks of treatment with pioglitazone, from a group average of 8.2% at baseline to 7.4% on completion of the study.

Serum triglycerides also decreased significantly by 12 weeks, as did hematocrit, while serum high molecular weight adiponectin increased markedly from 5.2 mg/ml at baseline to 9.8 mg/ml.

Neither bodyweight nor BMI increased significantly in any of the patients after 12 weeks of treatment with pioglitazone.

Discussing their findings in the journal Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice, Aso et al say that low-dose pioglitazone therapy represents “another option for glycemic control” among diabetic patients who do not tolerate the standard dose.

MedWire (www.medwire-news.md) is an independent clinical news service provided by Current Medicine Group, a part of Springer Science+Business Media. © Current Medicine Group Ltd; 2009

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