Say Two Cheese slice a day can beat Diabeties,an illness Triggered by being overweight.

Two slices of cheese a day can keep diabetes at bay!
A new research has claimed that cheese can prevent diabetes, an illness often triggered by being overweight, even as the current health guidelines advise cutting back on dairy products.
British and Dutch researchers found that eating just two slices of cheese a day cuts the risk of type 2 diabetes by 12 per cent, the 'Daily Mail' reported.
Diabetes can cause heart attacks, strokes, blindness and nerve problems, without yet having been diagnosed.
The researchers looked at the diets of 16,800 healthy adults and 12,400 patients with type 2 diabetes from eight European countries, including the UK.
The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that those who ate at least 55 grams of cheese a day -around two slices were 12 per cent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes.
The risk fell by the same amount for those who ate 55 grams of yoghurt a day.
For years National Health Survey guidelines in the UK have advised against eating too much dairy, cake or red meat as they are high in saturated fat. This is thought to increase cholesterol and raise the risk of diabetes.
Researchers including academics from the Medical Research Council, Cambridge said that not all saturated fats are as harmful as others, and some may even be beneficial.
One theory is that the so-called probiotic bacteria in cheese and yoghurt can lower cholesterol and produce certain vitamins which prevent diabetes.
And cheese, milk and yoghurt are also high in vitamin D, calcium and magnesium, which may help protect against the condition.
 “We recommend a healthy balanced diet, rich in fruit and vegetables and low in salt and fat. This study gives us no reason to believe that people should change their dairy intake in an attempt to avoid the condition,” Dr Iain Frame, director of research at a UK-based charity, said.

Discovery of Chemical That Affects Biological Clock Offers New Way to Treat Diabetes

Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered a chemical that offers a completely new and promising direction for the development of drugs to treat metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes -- a major public health concern in the United States due to the current obesity epidemic. (Credit: Image by Peter Allen, UC Santa Barbara

ScienceDaily (July 12, 2012) — Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered a chemical that offers a completely new and promising direction for the development of drugs to treat metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes -- a major public health concern in the United States due to the current obesity epidemic.

Their discovery, detailed in a paper published July 13,2012 in an advance online issue of the journal Science, initially came as a surprise because the chemical they isolated does not directly control glucose production in the liver, but instead affects the activity of a key protein that regulates the internal mechanisms of our daily night and day activities, which scientists call our circadian rhythm or biological clock.
Scientists had long suspected that diabetes and obesity could be linked to problems in the biological clock. Laboratory mice with altered biological clocks, for example, often become obese and develop diabetes. Two years ago, a team headed by Steve Kay, dean of the Division of Biological Sciences at UC San Diego, discovered the first biochemical link between the biological clock and diabetes. It found that a key protein, cryptochrome, that regulates the biological clocks of plants, insects and mammals also regulates glucose production in the liver and that altering the levels of this protein could improve the health of diabetic mice.
Now Kay and his team have discovered a small molecule -- one that can be easily developed into a drug -- that controls the intricate molecular cogs or timekeeping mechanisms of cryptochrome in such a manner that it can repress the production of glucose by the liver. Like mice and other animals, humans have evolved biochemical mechanisms to keep a steady supply of glucose flowing to the brain at night, when we're not eating or otherwise active.
"At the end of the night, our hormones signal that we're in a fasting state," said Kay. "And during the day, when we're active, our biological clock shuts down those fasting signals that tell our liver to make more glucose because that's when we're eating."
Diabetes is caused by an accumulation of glucose in the blood, which can lead to heart disease, strokes, kidney failure and blindness. In type 1 diabetes, destruction of insulin producing cells in the pancreas results in the high blood sugar. In type 2 diabetes, which makes up 90 percent of the cases, gradual resistance to insulin because of obesity or other problems, leads to high blood sugar.
Kay and his collaborators discovered in 2010 that cryptochrome plays a critical role in regulating the internal timing of our cyclical eating patterns, timing our fasting at night with our eating during the day to maintain a steady supply of glucose in our bloodstream. Other researchers have recently discovered that cryptochrome also has the potential to reduce high blood sugar from asthma medication by adjusting the time of day a patient takes their medication. "We found that if we increased cryptochrome levels genetically in the liver we could inhibit the production of glucose by the liver," said Kay.
What he and his team found in their most recent discovery was that a much smaller molecule, dubbed "KL001" (for the first such compound from the Kay Lab), can regulate that activity as well. It slowed down the biological clock by stabilizing the cryptochrome protein -- that is, it essentially prevented crypotochrome from being sent to the cellular garbage can, the proteasomes.
The discovery of KL001 was serendipitous, a complete surprise to the scientists that came about from a parallel effort in Kay's laboratory to identify molecules that lengthen the biological clock. Two years ago, Tsuyoshi Hirota, a postdoctoral fellow in Kay's laboratory found a compound that had the greatest effect ever seen on circadian rhythm, a chemical the biologists dubbed "longdaysin" because it lengthened the daily biological clocks of human cells by more than 10 hours.
Continuing his search, Hirota resumed his efforts to find more chemicals that lengthened or slowed down circadian rhythms, enabling the scientists to understand more about the intricate chemical and genetic machinery of the biological clock. He and his colleagues in Kay's lab did this by screening thousands of compounds from a chemical library with human cells in individual micro-titer wells in which a luciferase gene from fireflies is attached to the biological clock machinery, enabling the scientists to detect a glow whenever the biological clock is activated. Their molecular fishing expedition came up with a number of other compounds, one of which was KL001.
"We found other compounds that like longdaysin slowed down the biological clock," said Kay. "But unlike longdaysin, these compounds did not inhibit the protein kinases that longdaysin inhibits so we knew this compound must be working differently. What we needed to know was what is this compound interacting with? And we were absolutely stunned when we discovered that what was binding most specifically to our compound, KL001, was the clock protein cryptochrome that our lab has worked on in plants, flies and mammals for the last 20 years."
Kay's team turned to biological chemists in Peter Schultz's laboratory at The Scripps Research Institute to characterize the compound and understand better chemically how it affected cryptochrome to lengthen the biological clock.
"Those biochemical studies showed us that KL001 prevents cryptochrome from being degraded by the proteasome system, which was another big surprise," said Kay. "It essentially interferes with the signal to send cryptochrome to the garbage can."
To understand how KL001 worked mechanistically with cryptochrome to control the biological clock, the team initiated a collaboration with Frank Doyle and his group at UC Santa Barbara. "They constructed a beautiful mathematical model of cryptochrome's role in the clock," said Kay. "That model was essential in allowing us to understand the action of the compound because the biological clock is very complicated. It's like opening the back of a Rolex and seeing the hundreds of tiny little cogs that are tightly integrated."
Based on that mathematical model, the scientists predicted that adding KL001 to mouse liver cells should stabilize cryptochrome and that the increased level of cryptochrome would inhibit the production of enzymes in the liver that stimulate the process of gluconeogenesis -- the generation of glucose during fasting. Experiments done together with the laboratory of David Brenner, dean of the UC San Diego School of Medicine and Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences, confirmed that prediction to be true.
"In mouse liver cells," said Kay, "we showed that KL001 inhibited gene expression for gluconeogenesis that is induced when exposed to the hormone glucagon, which promotes glucose production by the liver. It's a hormone we all produce in fasting states. And our compound, in a dose dependent way, inhibits hepatic gluconeogenesis, the actual production of glucose by those liver cells."
Kay said the next step for the research group is to understand how KL001 and similar molecules that affect cryptochrome function in living systems, such has laboratory mice. The scientists also plan to probe how such compounds affect other processes besides the liver that may tie the biological clock to metabolic diseases. "As with any surprise discovery," he notes, "this opens the door to more opportunities for novel therapeutics than we can currently imagine."
Besides Kay, Hirota, Schultz, Doyle and Brenner, other scientists involved in the discovery were Mariko Sawa, Pagkapol Y. Pongsawakul and Tim Sonntag of UC San Diego's Division of Biological Sciences; Jae Wook Lee of TSRI; Peter St. John of UC Santa Barbara; Keiko Iwaisako, Takako Noguchi and David Welsh of UC San Diego's School of Medicine.
The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health .

Indian rice brands not bad for diabetics: Study

Swarna rice

  Swarna rice

 

  Mahsuri rice

 

Indian rice brands not bad for diabetics: Study

Kounteya Sinha TNN

New Delhi: Rice isnt the diet villain as commonly thought.In fact,two varieties of rice that are the staple of Indias middle class households have been found to have the lowest glycemic index (GI) the measure of its ability to raise blood sugar levels after eating when compared to 233 varieties consumed around the world.
A recent study conducted by the International Rice Research Institute and the University of Queensland fou-nd Swarna and Mahsuris GI levels were below 55.Another favourite among Indians basmati too fared well but figured in the middle GI group (with GI levels above 60).
Low GI foods are those measuring 55 and less,medium GI are those between 56 and 69,while high GI measures 70 and above.
Basmati has higher GI than commonly consumed rice varieties in India,Swarna and Mahsuri.The basmati showed a GI of between 68 and 74.The other Indian varieties were all below 60.This is good news,especially for non-basmati consumers,which is the general middle class population, said chief researcher Dr Melissa Fitzgerald.Now,the countrys 60 million-strong diabetic population need not worry about having rice in their diet.

For people eating fast food two-three times each week, the risk increases by 50 per cent, and the risk climbs to nearly 80 per cent for people who consume fast food items four or more times each week. It also increased the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by 27 percent.

People who consume fast food even once a week elevate their risk of dying from coronary heart disease by 20 per cent, compared to people who avoid fast food, according to the latest research.

University of Minnesota School of Public Health researchers found that existing studies on fast food and metabolic risk looked at Caucasian populations, the journal Circulation reports.

"We wanted to examine the association of Western-style fast food with cardio-metabolic risk in a Chinese population in Southeast Asia that has become a hotbed for diabetes and heart disease," said Andrew Odegaard, Minnesota post-doctoral researcher, who led the study.

"What we found was a dramatic public health impact by fast food, a product that is primarily a Western import into a completely new market," according to a Minnesota statement.

Minnesota researchers with counterparts from National University of Singapore reviewed a 16-year-old study, based on the eating habits of 52,000 Chinese residents of Singapore who have experienced a recent and sudden transition from traditional foods to Western-style fast food.

"What's interesting about the results is that study participants who reported eating fast food most frequently were younger, better educated, smoked less and were more likely to be physically active," said Odegaard. "This profile is normally associated with lower cardio-metabolic risk."

Take three cups of tea a day could help us keep the type 2 diabetes and heart attacks

 
Black tea lowers heart disease risk
Drinking three cups of tea (per day) for 12 weeks (with no milk or sugar) led to highly significant reduction in blood sugar levels and triglycerides, which are unhealthy fats. Triglyceride levels fell by a whopping 39 percent in males and 29 percent in females.

A new study has shown that drinking three cups of tea in a day can lessen the risks of getting a heart attack and suffering from diabetes to

While many of us may remain undecided about how much is too much for us to take tea in a day, researchers have claimed drinking three cups of tea a day could help us keep the heart attacks and type 2 diabetes at bay.
A review shows regular drinking of tea, with or without milk, can reduce the risk of heart problems by cutting levels of bad cholesterol and blood sugar, Daily Mail reported.
As per experts, the benefits of tea are largely due to the flavonoid content - antioxidant ingredients that counteract cardiovascular disease.
One cup of tea provides 150-200mg of flavonoids and it is the best source of antioxidants in the diet.
Drinking three or more cups of black tea a day protects against heart disease and two or more cups a day may protect against type 2 diabetes, a review in the journal Nutrition Bulletin found.
Nutritionist Carrie Ruxton, co-author of the latest review and a member of the industry-backed Tea Advisory Panel (TAP), said: "There is far more to the nation's favourite drink than we realise.
"With its antioxidant flavonoids, black tea packs a powerful punch with many health benefits particularly for the heart. And recent studies show that the flavonoids work their magic whether or not we choose to add milk."
In addition, a 12-week study of 87 volunteers showed how drinking three cups of tea a day produced a significant improvement in various cardiovascular risk factors.
Flavonoids found in tea are thought to control inflammation, reduce excess blood clotting, promote blood vessel function and limit furring up of the arteries. (IANS)

Drink four cups of tea a day claim to have found the best way to slash the risk of developing diabetes

 Wish to Cut Short Risk of Diabetes? Drink At Least Four Cups of Tea a Day



Scientists  -- to drink at least four cups of tea a day.
A study examining tea-drinking habits of more than 12,000 Type 2 diabetes sufferers in across Europe found that drinking four cups tea a day had a 20 per cent lower risk of developing the illness.
The study found that benefits seemed to be most obvious among heavy tea drinkers -- drinking a mere one to three cups a day doesn't lower the risk, the researchers said.
 However, drinking excessive tea prepared with milk and sugar could be quite harmful to health, according to experts.
"Obesity is a major risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes, but dietary factors may also play a role. One dietary factor of interest is tea consumption," said study author Christian Herder of the Leibniz Center for Diabetes Research at Heinrich Heine University in Germany.
"Tea consumption may lower the risk of type 2 diabetes by influencing glucose digestion, glucose uptake, and by protecting beta-cells from free-radical damage. This beneficial effect may be due to the polyphenols present in tea," Herder was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail.
According to Herder, drinking at least four cups of tea per day was linked to a 20 per cent lower risk, while drinking one to three cups per day did not lower the risk of diabetes compared with non-tea drinkers.
But it was unclear if tea is associated inversely over the entire range of intake, he said.
"Therefore, we investigated the association between tea consumption and incidence of type 2 diabetes in a European population," he said.
"It was done in 26 centres in eight European countries, and consisted of 12,403 incident type 2 diabetes cases plus thousands of others without the disease. Tea drinking ranged from an average of none a day in Spain to four a day in UK."
Herder added: "Increasing our understanding of modifiable lifestyle factors associated with the development of type 2 diabetes is important, as the prevalence of diabetes is increasing rapidly.

"In line with this, no association was observed when tea consumption was studied as continuous variable. This may indicate that the protective effect of tea is restricted to people with a high tea consumption."













Press Trust of India / London June 05, 2012, 15:36

Diabetics are required to test their blood test for Rs.2, just in 10 seconds

Blood sugar test for Rs 2, in 10 seconds

 

NEW DELHI: India is all set to unveil a path-breaking test for diabetes that will save both money and blood.The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is almost ready with a new digital finger-pricking blood sugar machine that will not require repeated use of testing strips. Significantly, it will cost less than Rs 2 per blood sample and require 1,000 times lesser blood than what glucose meters use now. Even better, it will take only 10 seconds to know your blood glucose count.

Being developed by professor of biological sciences at BITS-Pilani, Dr Suman Kapur, the test will undergo final evaluation by July 15 and is expected to be ready for mass production by December.
This low-cost rapid test will be a boon for India which plans to test five crore people for diabetes by the end of this year. India plans to screen all adult males above 30 years of age and pregnant women of all age groups for diabetes and hypertension in 100 districts across 21 states.
Now, India is home to over 61 million diabetics — an increase from 50.8 million last year. By 2030, India's diabetes burden is expected to cross the 100 million mark.
The country is also the largest contributor to regional mortality with 983,000 deaths attributable to the disease last year.
Dr Kapur said, "Our device is as handy as a glucometre but with a different chemistry. The major aim was to make a pocket-size glucose testing device that is affordable and can be used for mass screening. Diabetics are required to test their blood often, each time costing around Rs 25. Our test will bring the cost down to below Rs 2. Also we will require just 1 or 2 picolitre of blood which is 1,000 times lower that what is required now."

So how will the new device work?

Once we prick the finger with a needle, the red blood cells from the blood that flows in will be trapped and the plasma will be allowed to pass through. "The machine will react right there and produce a colour corresponding to glucose levels. We are using nano particles to intensify the colour using a colour to frequency censor. Then, the reading will show up on the device. The major advancement will be on the sensitivity," added Dr Kapur, who is also dean of research at BITS-Pilani.
He said the test has been successfully tried with human samples. "We are working on the reading device which will be the size of a cellphone. Instead of strips that glucometres use now, our machine will use a capillary (small hollow pie) which will cost Rs 2 every time a diabetic tests h/his blood," he added.
Dr Chandra Sekhar from the ICMR said, "We will validate the technology by July 15. This will be a major advancement in diabetes testing." ICMR has put in Rs 25 lakh in grants over two years to develop the test.
A health ministry official said, "The best way to detect abnormal BP and high blood sugar levels is to conduct mass screening. This will give us a clear picture of the prevalence of diabetes in the population."

 Source : TOI

Trajenta, (Linagliptin-film-coated tablet) A new drug for type-2 diabetes was launched.

A new drug for type-2 diabetes was launched. The drug was introduced in metros like Mumbai and Delhi earlier this month. Launched by Boehringer Ingelheim India (BI) and Eli Lilly and Company, the 5mg film-coated tablet Linagliptin is sold under the brand name Trajenta.

Type-2 diabetes is a progressive disease and often, over a period of time, people are unable to maintain their sugar levels, requiring therapies to prevent diabetes-induced complications. New drugs are constantly being tested and introduced in the hope of finding a solution to maintain the blood glucose levels at acceptable levels. 

 Regular use of the drug showed improvement in the cell function that controls blood sugar levels

Chennai-based diabetologist V. Mohan said that the new tablet is an improvement on the other three products in the same class as a person has to take it only once a day. “The earlier tablets like sitagliptine, vildagliptine and sexagliptine have proved to be effective. This group of drugs are quite effective with very mild hypoglycaemia-inducing property. Linagliptin can be given even if (a person has) renal or liver failure.”

According to him, the tablet has been marketed by the company after conducting a five-year study for its effect on the human cardiovascular system. “Normally when such drugs come into the market, the Food and Drug Administration in the US calls for a five-year study. Other drugs underwent the study after being launched but in this case the study was done before launch and was found to be safe,” he said.

Regular use of the drug showed improvement in pancreatic beta cells function, an important component in controlling blood sugar levels. The tablet has been found to maintain the levels for a 24-hour period, he said.

He however cautioned that these drugs have been around only for six to eight years and hence there is no knowing what the side effects could be when it is used for a long term. Another factor would be the cost of the tablets itself. Dr. Mohan said if the price is reduced then more patients would benefit.

The drugs in this category are quite pricey. A person who is prescribed sitagliptin tablet, which is one dose per day, spends around Rs. 40 on each dose while vidagliptin costs around Rs. 20. According to a company spokesperson, per day therapy of linagliptin costs Rs. 42.70. 

linagliptin, Tradjenta

GENERIC NAME: linagliptin

BRAND NAME: Tradjenta

DRUG CLASS AND MECHANISM: Linagliptin is an oral drug that reduces blood sugar (glucose) levels in patients with type 2 diabetes. Linagliptin is a member of a class of drugs that inhibit the enzyme, dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4). Other members of this class include sitagliptin (Januvia), and saxagliptin (Onglyza). Following a meal, incretin hormones such as glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) are released from the intestine, and their levels increase in the blood. GLP-1 and GIP reduce blood glucose by increasing the production and release of insulin from the pancreas. GLP-1 also reduces blood glucose by reducing the secretion by the pancreas of the hormone, glucagon, a hormone that increases the production of glucose by the liver and raises the blood level of glucose. The net effect of increased release of GLP-1 and GIP is to reduce blood glucose levels. Linagliptin inhibits the enzyme, DPP-4, that destroys GLP-1 and GIP and thereby increases the levels and activity of both hormones. As a result, levels of GLP-1 and GIP in the blood remain higher, and blood glucose levels fall. In summary, linagliptin reduces blood glucose levels by inhibiting DPP-4 and increasing the levels of GLP-1 and GIP. Linagliptin was approved by the FDA in May 2011.
GENERIC AVAILABLE: No
PRESCRIPTION: Yes
PREPARATIONS: Tablets: 5 mg
STORAGE: Tablets should be stored at room temperature, 15-30 C (59-86 F)
PRESCRIBED FOR: Linagliptin is combined with diet and exercise to improve blood glucose levels in patients with type 2 diabetes.
DOSING: Linagliptin may be taken with or without food. The recommended dose is 5 mg once daily.
DRUG INTERACTIONS: Rifampin decreases the blood concentration of linagliptin by stimulating break down of linagliptin by CYP3A4 liver enzymes. Other drugs that increase activity CYP3A4 may also reduce the blood concentration of linagliptin.
PREGNANCY: There are no adequate studies of linagliptin in pregnant women.
NURSING MOTHERS: It is unknown whether linagliptin is secreted in human breast milk.
SIDE EFFECTS AND PRECAUTIONS: The most common side effects of linagliptin are stuffy or runny nose and sore throat. Hypoglycemia may occur when linagliptin is combined with insulin or a sulfonylurea-type drug. Allergic reactions and muscle pain also may occur. Pancreatitis also has been reported.

REFERENCE: FDA prescribing information.

Stem cells may help reverse diabetes

In a new study, researchers have successfully reversed diabetes in mice using stem cells, thereby paving the way for a breakthrough treatment for a disease that affects millions worldwide.
The research by Timothy Kieffer, from University of British Columbia in collaboration with scientists from the New Jersey-based BetaLogics, is the first to show that human stem cell transplants can successfully restore insulin production and reverse diabetes in mice.

Bristol-Myers to buy diabetes drug maker Amylin

UK drugs firm AstraZeneca will help finance a $7bn (£4.5bn) deal to buy diabetes treatment maker Amylin.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, which failed to get US approval for a new diabetes treatment in January, will pay US$5.3 billion for Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc, the maker of two drugs on the market for the disease.
The purchase comes a month after Bristol’s top seller, the blood-thinner Plavix with US$7.1 billion in sales last year, began facing generic competition. Next year, the New York-based company loses patent protection on its US$1.6 billion HIV drug, Sustiva.
Under the agreement announced on Saturday, Bristol-Myers will pay US$31 a share in cash, a 10 percent premium to Friday’s closing price for San Diego-based Amylin. At the same time, AstraZeneca PLC, based in London, will pay Bristol US$3.4 billion to help develop Amylin’s drug portfolio, the companies said.
It “looks a bit rich in terms of the price paid and it’s a trend in the sector, where biotech companies are commanding significant premiums, higher than they would have commanded in previous years because the pharmaceutical sector is being forced down this road,” said Navid Malik, an analyst with Cenkos Securities PLC in London.
The pharmaceutical industry lost patent protection on products valued at US$34 billion in annual sales last year, and revenue at risk from generics will rise to US$147 billion by 2015.
The diabetes market has become a key target for drugmakers as a result of rising obesity rates and the aging of the Baby Boom generation. About 346 million people globally have diabetes, and the number of deaths from the chronic disease may double from 2005 to 2030, according to the WHO.
AstraZeneca, Paris-based Sanofi and Merck & Co, of Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, also made offers during a bidding process, people with knowledge of the process had said.
Amylin ended a marketing deal with Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly & Co in November last year, and has been seeking a partner to sell Bydureon, a version of its diabetes drug Byetta, outside the US. The San Diego-based company began to seek acquisition suitors after rejecting a US$22-a-share offer from Bristol in February, people familiar with the matter said earlier this year.
For Bristol, the purchase is the largest of 19 since 2007, when it began a so-called string of pearls acquisition strategy designed to revitalize the company in the face of patent losses and produce a more diverse stable of products.
Bristol-Myers’s own experimental diabetes product, dapagliflozin, also called Forxiga, failed to win US marketing approval in January, when the Food and Drug Administration asked for more data to assess risks and benefits for the treatment, being developed with AstraZeneca. It is awaiting approval in Europe, and may be cleared later in the US.
The boards of Bristol-Myers and Amylin endorsed the deal, according to Saturday’s statement. Including Amylin’s debt and a payment owed to Eli Lilly & Co of about US$1.7 billion, the deal is valued at about US$7 billion.
“We are pleased to be able to strengthen the portfolio we have built to help patients with diabetes by building on the success Amylin has had with its GLP-1 franchise,” Bristol-Myers chief executive officer Lamberto Andreotti said.