Jerky is the obvious trail food. It’s energy dense and doesn’t require any preparation. High in protein and fat, it should be low in carbohydrates, especially for those of us with diabetes who need to control our blood glucose levels. But all the brands I’ve found in the stores are too heavy on the carbs.

Now, however, we can get low carb beef jerky online from a non-profit group making paleo-diet designed snack packs. The proceeds go to programs helping kids maintain fitness. Thanks to my corespondent Cheryl for turning me on to this great resource.

The group is Steve’s Club in the desperately poor city of Camden, New Jersey. Steve Liberati says that he started Steve’s Club to be “an athletic fitness club geared towards young boys and girls who aspire to greatness.” [Read more →]

When we don’t get our blood glucose levels low enough or take the diabetes medicine that our doctors prescribe, they often complain about our noncompliance. Particularly when we follow a very low-carb diet and are unlucky enough to have a nutritionist on our medical team, she is almost certain to give us a hard time.

When doctors and nutritionists do that, they are forgetting their place. The doctor-patient relationship is a status thing. While medical professionals usually earn more money than we do, they work for us. We are the ones who make them well off, if not rich.

We hire our doctors. We can fire them too. Several years ago when Byetta first came on the market, I knew that taking it would help me control my blood glucose and lose weight. The doctor I saw at the time had never heard of Byetta, so he had to read up on it. When he did, he refused to give me a prescription for it because he was sure that I would lose only a few pounds. I fired him and proved him wrong after I hired a compliant doctor. [Read more →]

Just changing when you eat can has a big effect on how much you weigh. At least if you are a mouse.

A new study is the first causal evidence connecting meal timing and increased weight gain. The journal Obesity on September 3 published “Circadian Timing of Food Intake Contributes to Weight Gain” online in advance of print.

Only the abstract is available free. But lead author Deanna Arble of Northwestern University’s Center for Sleep and Circadian Biology sent me the full text and answered my questions.

For six weeks the researchers fed some of the mice only during their normal sleeping hours. Their weight gain was 48 percent. But the mice that they fed the same type and amount of food only during the hours that they were naturally awake gained just 20 percent.

[Read more →]

Considering all the supplements that most of us take, we have surprisingly little evidence that the overwhelming majority of them do anything for us. The two biggest exceptions are vitamin D and omega-3 oil, which I have written about here.

Even with these well-tested supplements, the experts have little advice to give us. Now, however, a team of scientists from the University of Lyon in France just reported on how much of one type of omega-3 oil to take so that we can prevent heart attacks and strokes, the major complication of diabetes. This is the first study to identify how much omega-3 oil we need to promote optimal heart health.

They studied DHA or docosahexaenoic acid, which some studies suggest have more potent and beneficial effects than the other omega-3 oil that we usually take, EPA or eicosapentaenoic acid, according to their research communication in September issue of The FASEB Journal,  which the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology publishes.

Only the abstract of the study is online. But one of the study’s authors, Evelyne Véricel, was kind enough to send me the full text. [Read more →]

What I eat keeps changing all the time. Since I change regularly everything else that I do, this should be no surprise.

My breakfast starts with two glasses of GreensFirst. This is one breakfast that I can consume immediately after getting up from bed. The experts all tell me that we do better when we eat within an hour of arising, but that’s always been hard for me to get down. GreensFirst solves that problem beautifully.

I absolutely love this way to start the day! Much better than the two cups of coffee I used to start the day with. Now, I drink only decaf, and much less of that (I also stopped drink single malt Scotch whisky). I don’t drink any alcohol now. I stopped drinking regular coffee and alcohol to help control my headaches, which are now gone, but I am staying off of them for my health (and budget). So sometimes bad things can lead to good outcomes!

When I wrote the article about GreensFirst, I hadn’t experimented much with it. But since I keep changing, I now make it with protein powder and refrigerated sparking mineral water and really enjoy the fizz. Of course, I have to mix it up with a little bit of filtered tap water, because cold water doesn’t work as well. [Read more →]

When Roche Diabetes Care invited 29 of us who write about diabetes to “Social Media Summit” last week, some of us had the opportunity to visit their factory in Indianapolis that produces Aviva test strips. I toured the factory with Bryan Langford, the director of the product supply team for Roche Diagnostics Operations.

The Accu-Chek Aviva is the only meter and strip combination manufactured in America. Roche makes the Aviva meter in Huntsville, Alabama. Roche built the Indianapolis plant a couple of years before the company launched the Aviva in July 2005.

The other meter that Roche currently markets here is the Accu-Chek Compact Plus. Roche manufactures the test strips for that meter in Germany and manufactures the Accu-Chek Compact Plus meters in Ireland. [Read more →]

The American Medical Association today published the results of a large and long study that is good news for anyone who has diabetes. The study shows that intensive control substantially lowers the risk of some serious complications of diabetes.

No surprise that intensive control works. But the surprise is how well it works.

The study followed 1,375 people with type 1 diabetes for 30 years of their diabetes. The complications measured were proliferative retinopathy, nephropathy, and cardiovascular disease. Conventional treatment led half of them to proliferative retinopathy, one-quarter to nephropathy, and 14 percent to cardiovascular disease.

Those in the intensive therapy group has substantially lower rates of these complications — 21 percent, 9 percent, and 9 percent respectively. Fewer than 1 percent became blind, required kidney replacement, or had an amputation because of diabetes during those 30 years. [Read more →]

Roche Diabetes Care this week took a bold and potentially dangerous step into the unknown. This leading manufacturer of blood glucose meters invited 29 of us who write about diabetes to what they called the “Social Media Summit.” During the past 14 years that I have specialized in writing about diabetes no other diabetes company had ever reached out to us.

When my invitation first arrived, I didn’t recognize the term “social media.” I now understand it to mean bloggers and other patient advocates, like me, who write about diabetes.

On Wednesday and Thursday we met with top company executives at Roche’s North American headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana. Luc Vierstrate, Roche’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of Roche Diabetes Care North America, kicked off the event over dinner Wednesday. Roche executives turned out in force, probably outnumbering those of us who write about diabetes. At dinner I sat between the medical director and the vice president of sales, each of whom have type 1 diabetes. [Read more →]