June 5, 2021 : Issue #1138

TOP STORIES — Diabetes News and Research

Key Exercises and Training for Aging Successfully and Living Your Best Life
By Sheri Colberg, PhD

Impact of Intensive Insulin Therapy on Diabetic Retinopathy

Caring for Elderly Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Amid a Pandemic

I always look forward to our monthly articles from Dr. Sheri Colberg. For one thing I find them very informative; but also what she has to say makes me feel like I am doing the best for my health, wellness and longevity. When my legs are aching and I’d just as soon do nothing in the morning, it is her reminders and article that will motivate me to get on my road bike at 7 AM and spend 2 hours riding. Or, if I don’t have that much time, get on the rower or move around vigorously for 30-45 minutes. This week she has a great feature on how best to exercise to age successfully.

Just remember, “If you don’t use it, you lose it,’” and the older we are, the harder it is to get back.

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We can make a difference!

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Dave Joffe

Editor-in-chief

By Sheri Colberg, PhD

As the years have rolled by, nothing has become more apparent to me with each passing day than the fact that aging successfully requires a lot of work. When it comes to our bodies, nothing rings truer than “If you don’t use it, you lose it.” This is particularly true when it comes to preventing declines arising from disuse and when trying to slow down the normal impacts of aging.

Intensive insulin therapy may speed up the development of diabetic retinopathy, placing some patients at a higher risk for blindness. 

Telemedicine provides a vital channel for supporting elderly diabetes patients during a worldwide pandemic, but may also pose some challenges.

Older people with prediabetes who followed a diet rich in sardines for one year show significant reductions in risk of developing T2D, compared with those placed on a similarly healthy diet but without the sardines, results from a new randomized trial show.

Participants were advised to consume the whole sardine, bones and all, due to the rich content of calcium and vitamin D. At one year, the percentage of participants classified as being at a very high risk of type 2 diabetes, assessed by the Finnish Diabetes Risk Score (FINDRISC), compared with baseline, had declined to a much greater degree in the sardine consumption group (37% at baseline vs. 8% at one year) compared with those in the control group, who only consumed the nutritional diet (27% vs. 22%) (P = .021). In addition, those in the sardine group had more significant increases in healthy HDL cholesterol and the glucose-regulating protein hormone adiponectin, with decreases in triglycerides compared with the non-sardine group (all P < .005). The patients in the study were a mean age of 71 and had been in a prediabetic state for an average of 4.8 years at the beginning of the study.

Furthermore, the sardine consumption group had a greater decrease in insulin resistance and a significant decrease in systolic blood and diastolic blood pressure versus baseline, while assessed by Homeostatic Model Assessment for Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR; P = .032).

Clinical Nutrition March 2021

Diabetes in Control gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the following pharmacy doctoral candidates in the preparation of this week’s newsletters:

Macrina Ghali, PharmD Candidate 2021, Florida A&M University, College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Damisha Henderson, Florida A&M University, College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Fourth Year PharmD Candidate

Laura Martínez López, PharmD. Candidate 2021, Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, College of Pharmacy

Brenda Oppong, PharmD Candidate, LECOM School of Pharmacy 

Olivia Shenouda, PharmD. Candidate, Florida A&M University School of Pharmacy

Your Friends in Diabetes Care
Steve and Dave

Diabetes In Control
www.diabetesincontrol.com