Number 94; May 1, 2006

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My most recent articles are:

• Will Abbott Navigate With the Aviator?
  This article is about the pairing of Abbott’s forthcoming continuous sensor  — the Navigator  — and its proposed insulin pump  — the Aviator. My article originally appeared in the April 2006 issue of Diabetes Health and is now also online here.

• The JDRF Artificial Pancreas Project
  The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International has committed up to $6.5 million to fund research leading to an artificial pancreas system. My article originally appeared in the May 2006 issue of Diabetes Health and is now also online here.

• Why Patients and Doctors are Struggling with Meter Reimbursement.
  We are all struggling because nobody can keep track of all the different blood glucose meters and the complexity of health insurance.

• My Diabetes Blog
  My new blog entries for April are:
  • DexCom STS Approved and Available. Now, people anywhere in the U.S. can buy and use a continuous blood glucose sensor. The FDA approved it and DexCom is selling its short-term sensor. It will make a great deal of difference for people with diabetes who can afford it.

  • Farmers Markets. About 4,000 farmers markets around the country provide locally grown vegetables, fruits, flowers, plants, and gourmet cheeses and wines sold by the farmers who produce them. This fresh food is the best way for people with diabetes to get the highest quality food so we can reduce the quantity of what we eat.

  • Insulin Pen Reimbursement. Reusable pens make more sense for the economy than disposable ones. But not for you.

  • Glucose Tabs. The best strategy to stave off hypos is to take three or four glucose tabs. Certainly, not orange juice or the others commonly recommended foods.

  • The Byetta Mystery. It is a mystery why many people lose weight on Byetta, but some don’t. Maybe Dr. Martin Beinborn discovered the answer: it might be in our genes.

  • True Lemonade. Lemonade is both the healthiest and tastiest drink I know. The only problem is deciding which is the best brand.

  • Hiking for Diabetes . Hiking is invigorating, relaxing, and fun. It’s also one of the best ways to control diabetes.

Updates:

• Cinnamon
  The leading researchers on the use of cinnamon for reducing blood glucose presented two studies on April 4 at Experimental Biology 2006 in San Francisco. I summarize and link them here.

• Glucomon
  The company that makes the GlucoMON, Diabetech, is actively recruiting people with diabetes to participate in a large nationwide study using the device and real-time alerts. There’s more here.

Book Review:

• This is an infuriating book.

  What is most infuriating about this book is that while the conclusion may be sound, the details leading up to it are not. What Dr. Thompson advocates is essentially a low-starch diet.

  His basic message is to eliminate essentially all wheat, potatoes, and rice from our diet. These starchy foods are toxic and poison, he says. He equates these with refined foods, somewhat of a simplification, since the highest glycemic of these foods, baked potatoes, are certainly not refined.

  Dr. Thompson does make a good case to eliminate wheat, potatoes, and rice. It would be a much better case, however, if he would simply substantiate his conclusions. He fails, however, to document them, making this a much less scientific book than you would expect from someone with the initials “M.D.” after his name.

  He also seems to want to reinvent the wheel. His table of glycemic load values on pages 46-47 and elsewhere are values that I have never seen elsewhere. They are far from the values established by scientific researchers, including those that I publish at http://www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm.

  He also has good advice to eliminate sugar-sweetened soft drinks and to exercise at least every other day. But we already knew that. In fact, there isn’t anything that I can think of here that we haven’t read before put much more persuasively by experts. And Dr. Thompson is certainly no expert. The M.D. after his name isn’t relevant, because he is a cardiologist, not a diabetes specialist, except that he has diabetes himself.

  The Glycemic Load Diet by Rob Thompson, M.D. appeared in April 2006. The publisher, McGraw-Hill, lists this 225-page paperback for $16.95. The ISBN is 0-07-146269-4.

Announcements:

• This Newsletter
  Diabetes Update keeps you up-to-date with new articles, Web pages, and books that I have written about diabetes.

  I list and link most of these on my at Diabetes Directory and in the site’s menu at the upper left of all my Web pages.

  From time to time Diabetes Update may also include links to other Web pages of special interest.

• HTML Format
  I send out Diabetes Update e-mail in HTML format, which all Web browsers and most modern e-mail programs can display. HTML has live links to all the sites named in the text so that with a simple click of a mouse you can connect to the site you have just been reading about.

• My Guarantee
  This newsletter:
  1. Is and will remain free.
  2. Will never include advertising (except targeted Google ads at the bottom of the web page and not in the email newsletter).
  3. Nor will I ever sell, rent, or trade your e-mail address to anyone.
  4. I will link sources of information.
  5. I will disclose any conflict of interest.
  6. If and when I learn of any errors of fact, I will correct them.

Archives:

I now send out Diabetes Update once a month. Previous issues are online:

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© Copyright 2006 David Mendosa. All Rights Reserved.

David Mendosa
A Writer on the Web: www.mendosa.com
E-mail: mendosa@mendosa.com
Office: 993 E. Moorhead Circle Suite 2F, Boulder, CO 80305