Diabetes Health Tips

Top 10 Trip Items

Summer's here, school is almost out. Planning a big trip? Be sure you know what you need to keep diabetes a good travel companion. Here are 10 things you need for your next trip!

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Makeovers for Cookout Classics

We Americans love summertime picnics and cookouts. In parks, on beaches, at lakes and reservoirs -- even in our backyards, we picnic as long as the sun shines.

When Europeans picnic, they pull out some fruit, cheese, wine, and a fresh baguette. Here in the States, however, we tend to go big.

At our picnics, you're likely to see jumbo bags of chips, pretzels, and cheese curls. Two-liter bottles of soda. Potato salad, pasta salad, and sandwiches and burgers on big, doughy buns.

If you have diabetes and count carbs, these summer eating fests can be nothing more than a test of your willpower. This summer, take charge and give your high-carb picnic favorites a healthy makeover....

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Easy-to-Read Tip Sheets

These popular NDEP tip sheets have been updated to make them easier to read, with more descriptive pictures, larger font, and an enhanced focus on actionable items.

Help a Loved One with Diabetes: This tip sheet provides practical suggestions for helping loved ones with diabetes. It also lists organizations that can help. Click here to order or download your free copies.

Know Your Blood Sugar Numbers: This tip sheet discusses the importance of knowing your blood glucose (sugar) numbers and provides information on the A1C test, self-monitoring blood glucose, and working with a health care team to set blood glucose targets and reach them. Click here to order or download your free copies.

Tips to Help You Stay Healthy: This tip sheet helps people work with their health care team to make a successful diabetes action plan. Click here to order or download your free copies.

Living With Type 2 Diabetes Program

Have you or someone you love been recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes?

If so, the American Diabetes Association is here to offer help, hope and support through the new, Living With Type 2 Diabetes program.

Being diagnosed with diabetes can be overwhelming and many people don't know where to start.

That's why the Living With Type 2 Diabetes program offers people with diabetes an opportunity to learn more about diabetes and how to live well with diabetes over a 12-month period.

For more information or to enroll visit diabetes.org/living, available in English and Spanish.

Back to Basics: Carb-Counting Tips

30 top pointers from real people with diabetes

The idea isn't complex: Add up the carbohydrates in a meal, dose insulin based on that number (your health care provider will explain how), then test your blood glucose to see the result. Carb counting takes a bit of practice, but it's a great way to learn about eating well with diabetes. We've compiled a list of 30 tips that will help get you started. These aren't "rules"-they're just ideas from which you can pick and choose, straight from people who deal with diabetes every day.

For the rest of the story visit the American Diabetes Association website.

Decoding Your Lab Report

Lab reports are a routine but mysterious part of medical visits. Whether you are being diagnosed with diabetes for the first time or getting your A1C test for the hundredth time, you are likely going to need to undergo some kind of testing so that your doctor will know what's going on and recommend the proper course of treatment, if necessary. But when you see your test results, will you know what it means?

Read more at dlife.com or click here to download your printable PDF of this article.

Aspirin Recommended For People With Diabetes At High Risk

For more information see the article on diabetes.org.

Every Family Has Secrets!

There is a new article on the National Diabetes Education Program entitled, "Every Family Has Secrets! Could Diabetes Be One of Them?" Read article, authored by NDEP-NIH director Joanne Gallivan, M.S., R.D. The article focuses on the family risk of diabetes and provides tips on how to identify if a person is at risk and the steps you can take to prevent or delay the disease. For more tips to prevent or delay type 2 diabetes, read NDEP's GAME PLAN booklet.

A1C or Average Glucose: Take your pick

The results of the A1C-Derived Average Glucose study (ADAG), published in Diabetes Care this month, have affirmed the existence of a linear relationship between A1C and average blood glucose levels. Prior studies using limited numbers of meter glucose readings primarily in type 1 Caucasian populations had been used in the past to estimate average glucose. The international ADAG study clarified the very close linkage using about 2700 glucose readings per subject per A1C measurement, and verified that the relationship holds in people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, of all ages, of both genders, and across ethnic/racial groups. The "new numbers" are somewhat different than those in the old tables of A1C vs. average glucose.

In light of the study results, health care providers can confidently report A1C results to patients using the same units (mg/dl or mmol/l) that patients see routinely in blood glucose measurements. For more information about the ADAG study, a table of A1C and the corresponding estimated average glucose, an eAG calculator, and other materials, go to the estimated Average Glucose, eAG calculator

NEW! Online Videos Teach Type 2 Diabetes Basics

NDEP has partnered with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to bring you three online videos about type 2 diabetes. The videos are a great resource for people who might be at risk or have been recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

The videos feature informational interviews with people who live with type 2 diabetes and use graphics to explain the science behind the disease, such as how blood glucose operates in the body. The videos also address symptoms and risk factors for type 2 diabetes, emphasize the importance of physical activity and making healthy food choices, and point out how health care professionals can help people with diabetes manage their disease.

The videos can be viewed at www.healthcare411.org, and through the following links:

To learn more about type 2 diabetes, visit National Diabetes Education Program

New US Estimates Show Diabetes Affects 24 Million

New government estimates show that nearly 24 million people in the United States have diabetes, an increase of more than 3 million in two years. This means that nearly 8 percent of the U.S. population has diabetes, mostly the type-2 diabetes linked with obesity, poor diet and a lack of exercise, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday June 24, 2008.

Check Your Expiration Dates

If properly stored, unmixed glucagon and insulin are good until their expiration dates. So remember to check those expiration dates and replace medicine before it expires.

Here are some tips on storing glucagon and insulin:

Store away from heat and direct light
Store unopened insulin in a refrigerator( never in a freezer)
Although glucagon can be stored at room temperature, it is best kept in a refrigerator

Hypoglycemia
Insulin Storage