What could be learned from this?

What can the USA learn from this? Could the ADA and the AACE do something like this? I want everyone to know that a group of diabetes experts in the UK and Scotland have taken some groundbreaking actions.

Granted this action is only by over 100 diabetes experts and not an official diabetes association or organization. This action should receive attention in the USA and the appropriate associations need to step forward and initiate action. I hope you will agree after you read this article from May 20, 2010 in Diabetes Org, UK.

Can our diabetes experts be this bold? I won't hold my breath.

Foods for People with Diabetes - Not

When I received my WebMD newsletter, dated May 12, 2010. One of the topics was about the “Best and worst foods for diabetics”. At first, I wondered how I was going to write about this very disturbing article that does nothing but promote eating carbs to the upper limit advocated by the ADA.

While searching for diabetic foods, I came across a blog by David Spero dated May 19, 2010. He covered the topic very well.  Thank you David!  This is as far as I will take this.

Parents of T1 Children – What to do?

I know families with type 1 children, and two are home schooling, and one has theirs in public school. Several people on dLife Diabetes Forum are posting about home schooling their children. Mostly this is being done because the public school system in the USA is short of funds and cannot maintain nurses on their payroll – which is required under ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) as a 504 plan. The American Diabetes Association and JDRF have programs to get help with enforcing the 504 plan. The deceptions that the public school system uses to keep children with disabilities (and diabetes is classified as a disability) out the public school system is very much against the law, but they are getting away with it.


Only nurses can inject insulin. It is against the law for teachers to do so, except for their own children. They are allowed to watch and verify that the child does it correctly, but that is all.

This article shows that what we are experiencing in our school system is also happening to a different degree in the United Kingdom. See this article from the Telegraph dated May 17, 2010. 

International Diabetes Federation (IDF)

Diabetes Health Newsletter published a release from the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) dated May 18, 2010.

The IDF has kicked off its World Diabetes Day (NOV 14 each year) campaign under the slogan "Let's take control of diabetes. Now."

Quote “This year's slogan is in line with the campaign's five-year focus (2009-2013) on Diabetes Education and Prevention. For World Diabetes Day 2010, the campaign will build on the achievements of last year by strengthening global awareness of diabetes and empowering people to get active and take control of their health to prevent the disease and its complications.” Unquote

While I doubt I will do anything to support IDF other that publish this, I will be trying to assist my local diabetes organization where I am able.

For those that like the social sites and other sites, the World Diabetes Day campaign can be followed online at WorldDiabetesDay.org, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

Probiotic Health

Probiotic health is a problem for people with diabetes and for normal people. Most of the time we tend not to think about it. But let a round of antibiotics happen, and the concern should be amplified as the antibiotics kill off the good bacteria as well as the bad bacteria in our digestive system.

There are lots of articles about this on the internet so I am limiting this somewhat.

First, I must refer you to a fellow blogger, Denny Barnes. He makes some solid points too often left out of other discussions. That the life of many probiotics is limited and many are killed in the stomach and thus do not reach the intestines where they are needed. He has seven articles on probiotics – go to the right column and down to find topics.

The first one is from a source that has many other articles, but a search will give them to you.  Just use the search engine in The Baseline of Health Foundation and type in probiotic health.

The following are also sources. Item one, item two, item three, and item four.

Longer Working Insulin

Good news from the Mayo Clinic. Scientist there have developed a new molecule that can block the breakdown of insulin. This should lead to the development of a new class of drugs to help treat diabetes.


The molecule inhibits an insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE) from destroying insulin and keeping it in circulation longer. Since insulin is involved in a wide range of important processes, including memory and cognition, IDE inhibitors may turn out to have multiple uses. They may well be valuable tools for basic research.

The above is from DiabetesHealth and is dated May 10, 2010.

Pig Islets Producing Insulin in Human

This in one of the more interesting topics for me. While this is presently about and for people with type 1 diabetes, studies are near the end or concluded in New Zealand. More and more information is finding its way to the news.


Pancreatic cells taken from pigs have been encapsulated and successfully transplanted into humans. The positive thing is that these cells do not trigger an immune system attack on the transplanted cells and they quickly get down to the business of producing insulin for the host.


Among the people to write about this in July 2007 was David Mendosa. This article gives a lot of the background on what is happening today in New Zealand.


Three articles (or more) are now in existence.


Article 1 dated April 1, 2010.


Article 2 dated May 6, 2010.


Article 3 dated May 13, 2010.


As I find or become aware of more articles, I will be adding them to the above list.  Added 5/19/10. There are lots of articles from 1997 through 2009, so I will keep this to the recent (2010) articles.

Article 4 dated April 27, 2010.

Article 5 dated May 3, 2010.

Article 6 dated April 12, 2010.