There is a relationship between diabetes, high cholesterol and heart disease. Cholesterol is fatty substance that is in every cell in your body. There are two types of cholesterol. The LDL is known as the bad cholesterol. The HDL is the good cholesterol and also helps to remove other bad cholesterol from your body.

Everyone needs to lower their LDL by: staying physically active, stop smoking, keep your body weight in the normal range and eat low cholesterol diet.

It is very beneficial to raise you HDL by: adding olive oil and avocado oil to your diet, increase soluble fiber such as vegetables, legumes, fruits and oats.

As you can see the healthy diet or the diabetes meal plan is the key to treating type 2 diabetes.

In fact, diet is the most effective treatment for type 2 diabetes.

Below are guidelines to reduce your cholesterol: less than 7% of your calories should come from meat, milk and eggs, keep your cholesterol level to less than 200, add 20 to 30 grams of fiber, eat smaller more frequent meals.

Type 2 diabetes has grown at epidemic proportions therefore there are corporations that have released free diabetic meal plans to take the work out of eating right, bringing your blood sugar back to normal, lower your cholesterol and even lose 30 to 40 pounds.

Most people with diabetes have health problems such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol which will increase your risk of heart disease and stroke.

Take care of yourself and use this free online offer to take control and lose those extra pounds.

Combination therapy with fenofibrate and simvastatin does not provide additional protection against cardiovascular disease (CVD) in high-risk patients with Type 2 diabetes compared with simvastatin alone, according to findings from the ACCORD lipid trial.

Presenting the findings at the 59th Annual Scientific Session of the American College of Cardiology, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, Henry Ginsberg (Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, USA) said that the findings “provide physicians with important new information regarding the treatment of a common lipid abnormality affecting many of their patients with Type 2 diabetes”.

The findings were also simultaneously published online in the New England Journal of Medicine.

For the ACCORD (Action to Control CardiOvascular Risk in Diabetes) lipid trial, 5518 people who had Type 2 diabetes and either pre-existing CVD or at least two additional CV risk factors and who were already taking simvastatin were randomly assigned to additional treatment with fenofibrate 54??”160 mg/day or placebo.

At baseline, the average total cholesterol level was 175 mg/dl (4.5 mmol/l), and the average high-density lipoprotein (HDL), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and triglyceride levels were 101 mg/dl (2.6 mmol/l), 38 mg/dl (0.98 mmol/l), and 162 mg/dl (1.83 mol/l), respectively.

After a mean follow-up of 4.7 years, there was no significant difference between the two groups in the annual rate of the primary outcome (CV death, nonfatal heart attack, or nonfatal stroke) at 2.2% in patients taking fenofibrate and simvastatin and 2.4% in patients taking simvastatin and placebo. Annual rates of death were 1.5% in the fenofibrate group and 1.6% in the placebo group.

The researchers also compared rates of the primary outcome in 10 prespecified subgroups based on baseline characteristics. Of these, there appeared to be a difference between men and women taking combination therapy, “with the data for women suggesting potential harm and the data for men suggesting potential benefit,” Ginsberg reported. But the results did not reach statistical significance for either group.

There was also a trend toward benefit of fibrate treatment in a prespecified subgroup of patients with particularly high triglyceride levels of at least 204 mg/dl (2.30 mmol/l) and low HDL levels of 34 mg/dl (0.88 mmol/l). In these patients, the primary outcome rate was 12.4% in those taking fenofibrate plus simvastatin versus 17.3% in the simvastatin plus placebo arm. This compared with a rate of 10.1% in both study groups for all other participants.

“This dyslipidemia group outcome, which was prespecified, is concordant with several post hoc analyses from prior lipid trials,” Ginsberg noted.

He cited the Helsinki Heart Study (HHS) of gemfibrozil, which had a positive result for the primary outcome in the whole cohort and a greater benefit in a dyslipidemia subgroup, similar to that reported here. Other trials included the Bezafibrate Infarction Prevention (BIP) study and the Fenofibrate Intervention and Event Lowering in Diabetes (FIELD) study, which despite having negative results for the whole cohort showed significant findings for subgroups with severe dyslipidemia.

Ginsberg concluded: “ACCORD lipid does not support use of the combination of fenofibrate and simvastatin compared to simvastatin alone, to reduce CV events in the majority of patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus who are at high risk for CVD.”

He added: “Subgroup analyses suggesting heterogeneity in response to combination therapy by gender or by the presence of significant dyslipidemia require further investigation.”

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 full text

Adhering to a low-fat or low-carbohydrate diet for a year induces similar weight loss and has a similar effect on glycemic control for individuals with Type 2 diabetes, report researchers.

The team observed no effects of either diet on blood pressure, but the low-carbohydrate diet produced greater increases in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol level than the low-fat diet.

Nichola Davis (Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, Bronx, New York, USA) and colleagues recruited 105 overweight (mean body mass index 36 kg/m²) adults with Type 2 diabetes to take part in a 1-year dietary intervention study.

The participants were randomly assigned to a low-carbohydrate (n=55) or low-fat (n=50) diet.

The low-carbohydrate diet was based on the Atkins diet and started with a 2-week period of extreme carbohydrate restriction to 20??”25 g per day, followed by a gradual increase of around 5 g per week depending on weight loss. The low-fat diet was modeled on that used in the Diabetes Prevention Program, with a fat gram goal of 25% of energy requirement based on baseline weight.

Both groups received written guidance on the fat and carbohydrate content of foods and instructions on self-monitoring.

Davis and co-workers found that, although the low-carbohydrate group initially had a faster rate of weight loss, this was not maintained and at 1-year both groups had lost around 3.4% of their initial weight amounting to approximately 3 kg.

Of note, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) did not significantly improve in either group. The authors suggest this may be due to insufficient weight loss as previous studies have demonstrated that, on average, a 6-kg weight loss is required for a 0.55% reduction in HbA1c.

No significant alterations in blood pressure were seen in either group after a year; however, at 12 months, HDL cholesterol was increased by 0.16 mmol/l (6.19 mg/dl) versus an increase of 0.06 mmol/l (2.32 mg/dl) in the low-fat diet group.

“Our study demonstrates that among overweight patients with Type 2 diabetes, there was no significant difference in the weight or HbA1c change in participants after a low-carbohydrate compared with a low-fat diet for 12 months,” conclude the authors in the journal Diabetes Care.

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

Free abstract

According to a recent study, consuming fish two times a week can lower the risk of kidney disease among people who have diabetes. Although there are still no definitive results of the effects of eating fish on diabetes, studies indicate that diabetics who eat fish may lower the their triglyceride level and increase their HDL (the good cholesterol) level.

?

It is significant, though, that eating fish can lower fat and protein in the blood, and blood pressure too. What makes this significant? When the urine contains protein, it is an indication of kidney disease.

?

However, diabetics are warned against taking fish oil supplements because no scientific proof exists to show that doing so can help them. In fact, fish oil supplements can cause adverse effects in diabetics who are on other medications.

?

On the other hand, diabetics are encouraged to eat baked fish at least two times a week as doing so can help lower their blood pressure and lessen their chances of developing kidney disease.

?

Some studies also suggest that fish can positively affect a diabetic’s insulin resistance. Furthermore, the Omega 3 fatty acids present in fish may lower the risk of developing heart disease and arrhythmia among diabetics. Overall, diabetics can benefit from a diet that includes fish and in combination with a regular exercise routine.

?

Lastly, the American Diabetes Association recommends that diabetes patients avoid saturated fats and consume monounsaturated fats instead. Monounsaturated fats have been found to lower triglyceride levels. This is why a diet that includes Omega 3 fatty acids is important. The Omega 3 fatty acids in fish oils have been found to significantly lower the risk of coronary heart disease among women.