October 8, 2008

There's a new research in town that found gestational diabetes could be diagnosed earlier. How? It's by looking at the level of adiponectin in pregnant women nine weeks or so of pregnancy. What is adiponectin? It is the hormone that is sensitive to insulin.

Apparently, researchers found that the reduced level of the hormone sensitive to insulin could be a signal that gestational diabetes is on the horizon. This is so much earlier than the diagnosis that at present is 20 to 22 weeks. This so important they published the findings on these warning signs in the "Clinical Endocrinology."

How did they come up with this finding? Dr. Kristine Lain of the University of Kentucky and her team compared two sets of pregnant women: 30 who developed gestational diabetes later during the period of pregnancy and 29 women who did not develop the condition.

The researchers measured the levels of adiponectin from the samples of blood taken from the first three months of pregnancy. They grouped these levels and used the highest group as a reference. Both groups of women were screened for gestational diabetes 24-28 weeks of pregnancy.

They then used logistic regression analysis to evaluate the chance of developing the condition on the basis of the adiponectin measurements. Guess you know by now where this report is leading. Those with lower levels of this particular hormone developed the condition.

I won't bore you with the statistics but suffice it to say that those with lower adiponectic measurement had ten times more chance of developing gestational diabetes. Between the two groups, no difference was detected regarding race, age of the mothers, birth weight and BMI.

So, what does this tell us? Adiponectin has some properties that protect against metabolic disorder and if at reduced level could lead to type 2 diabetes in healthy patients who are not pregnant. This is the first time that this type of study was conducted for pregnant women.

Diabetes Medical News Nuggets

Not Enough Diabetes Doctors in Portage

October 7, 2008

I like the good news that you shared. Yes, diabetes complications can be prevented and that they are imparting this knowledge to people the same way they're doing it all over the country so despite the shortage of endocrinologists, the show goes on.

October 1, 2008

The Journal of General Internal Medicine published in their October 2008 issue the findings on the causes of the death of the elderly with diabetes as associated with depression. The findings were from a study that lasted for two years.

Previously, Dr. Wayne Katon who is the lead author of the study and University of Washington's professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, said that diabetes and depression were a deadly mix in the young and middle-aged group. This newer study indicates that the same is true for the elderly with diabetes.

The participants of this study were 10,704 elderly with diabetes who were also registered in Florida's disease management program in Florida. What the researchers did was track these people whose mean age was 75.6 years, by first surveying the group using a health assessment questionnaire.

They found proof of depression from the diagnosis of physicians, the participants' responses to a short screening test and the reports of taking an antidepressant the year before the study was conducted. The researchers tracked these people's cause of death for two years through checking with Medicare twice a month and phone calls to the patients' families.

What did they find? They found that those with both depression and diabetes had a higher risk of about 36 to 38% of dying from any cause during the next two years. Among the participants, 12.1% who had the two conditions died while those without depression 10.4% died during the two-year period.

Those who were treated with antidepressant had a 24% higher risk to die. For the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events, there was no difference when the data from those treated with antidepressant and those who had no depression were analyzed.

The authors think that the reason for the higher mortality rated for those with depression and diabetes were due to insufficient self-care and unhealthy habits like overeating and smoking. That said, depression is also linked to problems in the nervous and endocrine systems.

The study had some limitations. The subjects came only from one geographic area and the follow-up period was short. Also, depression defined from the doctor diagnosis and treatment may have been for those with more serious illnesses. In addition, the study did not take into consideration the income, weight, physical activity and compliance in taking treatment of the participants.