Superfoods seems to be one of the new “buzz” words… so what exactly does it mean? According to Wikipedia: “superfood” is a term sometimes used to describe food with high phytonutrient content that may confer health benefits as a result…”. In other words, superfoods are a group of wholesome foods that have health giving properties that really pack a nutritious punch!

So let’s look at how several “superfoods” can help improve the quality of your life as a diabetic:

Colorful Vegetables: Free radicals are the age accelerators of your body… they affect your heart, blood vessels, brain and cell membranes. Unfortunately, this destructive process operates at an increased rate in people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. Antioxidants block this destruction… the richest source of these antioxidants are found in colorful fruits and vegetables. So, here are a few of the fruits and vegetables your should eat:

• spinach
• collard greens
• broccoli
• tomatoes… the darker the red of the tomato the higher the antioxidant content
• grapes… red grapes are more beneficial than white ones
• raspberries and boysenberries
• strawberries
• green leafy vegetables
• olives

Mix up a bowl of colorful salad vegetables, keep it covered in your refrigerator. Eat a bowl of these at most of your meals.

Grapefruit: Grapefruit is one of the best of all fruits for avoiding sharp rises in your blood sugar level. It also comes to your rescue where heart disease and cholesterol buildup in your arteries is concerned. Dr James Cerda, a professor at the University of Florida found that fiber in grapefruit can definitely lower cholesterol in humans. Grapefruit can interfere with several prescription medications… check with your health care provider if you are on medications.

Garlic: Garlic was first mentioned as a medicine about 6000 years ago and is used extensively in medicines throughout the world today. Garlic may be valuable for helping to reverse both diabetes and its many complications. The debate continues as to the active ingredients but, however it comes: aged, fresh, cooked or in supplement form, it is a healthy addition to your nutrition plan.

Beans: The high amount of soluble fiber in beans is a big help to your blood sugar. If your have insulin resistance or unstable blood sugar levels, beans helps to balance your blood sugar while giving you plenty of slow-burning energy. And the fiber in beans stops your blood sugar from rising too quickly after your meal.

Oats: The benefit of oats on blood sugar levels was first reported way back in 1913… the same soluble fiber that reduces your cholesterol level also benefits people with type 2 diabetes. So if you eat oatmeal, or oat bran rich foods, you will find you have lower and less blood sugar spikes. Soluble fiber slows down the rate at which food leaves your stomach and so delays the absorption of glucose into your bloodstream following your meal.

While there is no cure for type 2 diabetes, these “superfoods” are known to improve blood sugar regulation, insulin activity and slow down the complications of type 2 diabetes.

Add-on treatment with liraglutide improves glycemic control without causing major hypoglycemia or weight gain, a trial in patients with Type 2 diabetes has found.

The study suggests that liraglutide, a new once-daily human analogue of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), may be a useful new treatment in patients who are suboptimally controlled on sulfonylurea monotherapy.

Liraglutide mimics the glucoregulatory actions of endogenous GLP-1 by targeting the incretin system, and has been shown to bring about sustained improvements in glycemic control, beta-cell function, and weight, with a low risk for hypoglycemia.

The present study evaluated the safety and efficacy of liraglutide in 264 Japanese patients with a mean body mass index of 24.9 kg/m² and mean glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) level of 8.4%. They were randomly assigned to take liraglutide 0.6 mg/day, liraglutide 0.9 mg/day, or placebo, each added to sulfonylurea monotherapy, for 24 weeks.

At the end of the study period, HbA1c had fallen by 1.56%, 1.46%, and 0.40% in the liraglutide 0.9 mg/day, 0.6 mg/day, and placebo groups, respectively. The differences between active treatment and placebo were statistically significant.

Furthermore, a significantly greater proportion of patients in the liraglutide treatment groups had achieved target HbA1c levels of less than 7.0% (46.5% with lower-dose and 71.3% with higher-dose liraglutide versus 14.8% with placebo).

Liraglutide treatment was also associated with significant reductions in fasting plasma glucose and postprandial plasma glucose.

Finally, overall safety was comparable among the three groups. There were no major hypoglycemic episodes in any group and body weight was unchanged in both liraglutide groups, whereas mean weight fell by 1.12 kg in the placebo group.

Writing in the journal Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism, Kohei Kaku (Kawasaki Medical School, Okayama, Japan) and fellow investigators say that liraglutide provides “superior glycemic control” compared with placebo, offering sustained and significant reductions in HbA1c in a dose-dependent manner.

They conclude: “In Japanese subjects with Type 2 diabetes, once-daily liraglutide administered at 0.9 mg/day is both effective and well-tolerated in combination with sulfonylurea agents, demonstrating significantly greater glycemic control than sulfonylurea monotherapy, without causing adverse weight gain or loss.”

A 28-week follow-up study of the study participants is ongoing and will provide long-term safety and efficacy data.

MedWire (www.medwire-news.md) is an independent clinical news service provided by Current Medicine Group, a trading division of Springer Healthcare Limited. © Springer Healthcare Ltd; 2010

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Exposure to metformin may inadvertently cause worsening of peripheral neuropathy in patients with Type 2 diabetes, say researchers.

“Long-term use of metformin is associated with malabsorption of vitamin B12 (cobalamin [Cbl]), and elevated homocysteine (Hcy) and methylmalonic acid (MMA) levels, which may have deleterious effects on peripheral nerves,” explain Daryl Wile and Cory Toth from the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.

To clarify the effect of long-term metformin treatment on the symptoms of diabetic peripheral neuropathy, the team carried out a prospective case-control study involving 59 Type 2 diabetic patients with peripheral neuropathy who had been treated with metformin for over 6 months and 63 similar patients who had not been treated with metformin (controls).

The authors used the Toronto Clinical Scoring System and Neuropathy Impairment Score (TCSS), as well as electrophysiological measures to assess the degree of neuropathy. They also measured concentrations of Cbl, Hcy, and MMA to assess their potential impact.

Writing in the journal Diabetes Care, Wile and Toth report that the metformin-treated patients had significantly lower concentrations of Cbl than controls, at a median of 231 versus 486 pmol/l.

In contrast, median Hcy and MMA were significantly higher in the metformin-treated group compared with controls, at 11.6 versus 8.4 µmol/l and 0.18 versus 0.11 µmol/l, respectively.

The TCSS and electrophysiological measures used to assess the degree of neuropathy showed that metformin-treated patients had significantly more severe peripheral neuropathy than controls (TCSS score of 10 vs 5).

The authors note that “the cumulative metformin dose correlated strongly with these clinical and paraclinical group differences.”

They conclude: “The current findings suggest an association among metformin, elevated Cbl metabolites, and exacerbation of diabetic peripheral neuropathy, but further work is needed to prove a direct causal relationship and its mechanism.”

The researchers add: “Recognition of this readily identifiable and potentially treatable component of disease might improve quality of life for this large population of diabetic patients.”

MedWire (www.medwire-news.md) is an independent clinical news service provided by Current Medicine Group, a trading division of Springer Healthcare Limited. © Springer Healthcare Ltd; 2010

Free abstract