Diabetes
Can Supplements Help Protect People With Diabetes Against Retinopathy?
Nutrition researchers believe regular intake of Vitamins C and E and Magnesium could help prevent or limit diabetic retinopathy (DR), a potentially blinding disease.
Each of these essential nutrients enables the body to respond in ways that alter retinopathy mechanisms. For example, Vitamins C and E suppress production of a known growth factor, VEG-F, which can promote abnormal blood vessels in the retina. And high dietary levels of Magnesium are associated with lower blood pressure and blood sugar. Lower levels of both correlate with a lower risk of retinopathy.
A research team from Metabolic Science, Cambridge, United Kingdom, surveyed studies published from 1988 through 2008 on the impact of these micronutrients on Diabetic Retinopathy (DR). The researchers note the evidence is not yet strong enough to specifically recommend Vitamins C or E or Magnesium supplements for patients with diabetes.
They believe the research should continue because if dietary intake of the micronutrients, rather than a medication, might reduce the risk of diabetic complications, would be preferable.
In hospital-based studies, participants with higher levels of Vitamin C in their blood measurements were less likely to have DR. However, in population-based studies there was no association between dietary intake of Vitamin C and DR.
For Vitamin E, no studies showed an association between blood levels or dietary intake and DR risk. For Magnesium, one study showed an association between low blood levels of Magnesium and DR progression, but other studies were inconclusive.
This research was published in the January 2010 issue of Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Coffee, Tea May Reduce Diabetes Risk...
According To a New Report From Australia
Drinking three to four cups of coffee or tea may reduce the risk of developing diabetes, says a new review and meta-analysis of the data.
A review of prospective studies of regular or decaffeinated coffee and tea revealed that for each additional daily cup of coffee was associated with a 7 per cent reduction in the excess risk of diabetes, according to findings published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
"If such beneficial effects were observed in interventional trials to be real, the implications for the millions of individuals who have diabetes mellitus, or who are at future risk of developing it, would be substantial," wrote the reviewers from the University of Sydney, Australia.
The beverage, and its constituent ingredients, has come under increasing study with research linking it to reduced risk of diabetes, and improved liver health.
Coffee, one of the world's largest traded commodities produced in more than 60 countries and generating more than $70 billion in retail sales a year, continues to generate new research and scientific interest, and has been linked to reduced risks of certain diseases, especially of the liver and diabetes.
The new review reinforces the link between coffee consumption and a reduced risk of developing diabetes, a condition that affects millions of people worldwide, affecting a large percentage of the total population. This figure is projected to increase significantly, unless effective nutritional - dietary measures are taken.
In the US, there are almost 24 million people with diabetes, equal to 8 per cent of the population. The total costs are estimated to be as much as $174 billion, with $116 billion being direct costs from medication, according to 2005-2007 American Diabetes Association figures.
Scientists reviewed data of over 500,000 individuals with over 21,000 cases of type-2 diabetes from prospective studies. Eighteen studies looked at coffee, six studies also included information about decaffeinated coffee, and seven studies reported on tea consumption.
In addition to risk-lowering effects of additional regular coffee consumption, three to four cups of decaffeinated coffee were associated with a 33 per cent lower risk of diabetes, compared to drinking no decaf.
Tea drinkers also benefited, with three to four cups associated with a one-fifth lower risk, added the researchers. "That the apparent protective effect of tea and coffee consumption appears to be independent of a number of potential confounding variables raises the possibility of direct biological effects," wrote the reviewers.
Beneficial bio-active antioxidant constituents...
Commenting on the possible bioactives and mechanism of action, the researchers noted that because of risk reductions associated with decaffeinated coffee, the effects were unlikely to be due solely to caffeine. Other compounds in coffee and tea, such as magnesium, antioxidant lignans or chlorogenic acids, may also be involved.
"It could also be considered that we will advise our patients most at risk for diabetes mellitus to increase their consumption of tea and coffee in addition to increasing their levels of physical activity and weight loss," they concluded.
Commenting independently on the results, diabetes specialists and researchers noted: The principle is that if you drink coffee whether it is decaffeinated or not, you have less chance of developing diabetes. The data has been strengthened by bringing several studies together.
Source: Archives of Internal Medicine Volume 169, Issue 22 "Coffee, Decaffeinated Coffee, and Tea Consumption in Relation to Incident Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Systematic Review With Meta-analysis"
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Vitamin D in Older People Can Reduce Heart Disease & Diabetes
Middle aged and elderly people with high levels of Vitamin D could reduce their chances of developing heart disease or diabetes by 43%, according to researchers at the University of Warwick.
A team of researchers at Warwick Medical School carried out a systematic literature review of studies examining vitamin D and cardiometabolic disorders.
Cardiometabolic disorders include cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome.
Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that is naturally present in some foods and is also produced when ultraviolet rays from sunlight strike the skin and trigger vitamin D synthesis. Fish such as Cod, Salmon, Tuna and Mackerel are good sources of vitamin D, and readily available as dietary supplements.
Researchers looked at 28 studies including 99,745 participants across a variety of ethnic groups including men and women. The studies revealed a significant association between high levels of vitamin D and a decreased risk of developing cardiovascular disease (33% compared to low levels of vitamin D), type 2 diabetes (55% reduction) and metabolic syndrome (51% reduction).
The literature review, published in the journal Maturitas, was conducted at Warwick Medical School. The researchers reported "We found that high levels of vitamin D among middle age and elderly populations are associated with a substantial decrease in cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome.
"Targeting vitamin D deficiency in adult populations could potentially slow the current epidemics of cardiometabolic disorders." All studies included were published between 1990 and 2009 with the majority published between 2004 and 2009. Half of the studies were conducted in the United States, eight were European, two studies were from Iran, three from Australasia and one from India.
New Study Reports Antioxidants May Help Lower Diabetes Rates...
Higher consumption of antioxidants in the diet in order to lower the rate of diabetes should be made a public health priority, according to a new study.
The findings of the study, published in the journal Nutrition, Metabolism & Cardiovascular Diseases supports the view that dietary antioxidants are associated with improved glycemic biomarkers in healthy adults, as well as in diabetic patients.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 150 million people have diabetes mellitus worldwide, and this number may double by the year 2025 due to population growth, aging, unhealthy diet, obesity and sedentary lifestyle.
The researchers, based at the University of Athens, said recent studies suggested that oxidative stress is related to diabetes, possibly originating through increased free-radical production, with the theory proposed that pancreatic cells are particularly susceptible to reactive oxygen species, due to their low free-radical quenching enzymes.
"Thus, by damaging mitochondria, oxidative stress could induce apoptosis of pancreatic beta cells, blunt insulin secretion and dysregulate glucose levels," they explained. The scientists also report that total dietary antioxidant capacity has been found to be inversely related to markers of inflammation, suggesting that inflammation and oxidative stress are interrelated.
And they explained that the hypothesis that a diet high in antioxidants could be inversely related to the development of diabetes prompted their decision to evaluate the relationship between glycemic indices (glucose, insulin and insulin resistance) and dietary antioxidant intake, in apparently healthy adults as well as in adults with diabetes.
Method
The authors said they based this study on a random sub-sample from the well documented ATTICA study, with participants consisting of 551 men and 467 women from all parts of the Attica region in Greece. Complete nutritional and biochemical information was included, they added. Dietary habits were evaluated using a validated food-frequency questionnaire, with participants reporting their daily or weekly average intake of several food items including fruit, vegetables, legumes, non-alcohol beverages, chocolate, honey, jam, nuts, rice, pastas and grains. The authors noted previous research suggesting that a diet rich in antioxidant containing fruit and vegetables was associated with a reduction of diabetes risk by 13 per cent.
Overall dietary habits were assessed using a composite index that evaluates adherence to the Mediterranean diet, and the dietary antioxidant capacity was measured by ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), total radical-trapping antioxidant parameter (TRAP) and Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC), they specified.
The researchers said that participants were categorised as non-diabetic, impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and diabetic and were also defined for socio-demographic, lifestyle and health factors such as smoking, exercise and hypertension. People with type 1 diabetes were not included in the ATTICA study, they added.
Findings
The results indicated that higher total dietary antioxidant intake is correlated with lower levels of glycemic indices in healthy individuals, as well as in pre-diabetic and diabetic ones, and the findings are an important consideration for public health planners, claim the researchers. And the scientists added that the observed, protective association of dietary antioxidant intake to diabetes biomarkers was independent of age, gender and physical activity status, but did not hold in obese individuals.
They added that further research is required, with perhaps the inclusion also of antioxidant supplement usage, in order to substantiate causality between high antioxidant consumption and improved glycemic biomarkers in the general population.
Source: Nutrition, Metablolism & Cardiovascular Diseases
