Pre-Diabetes and Type 2 Diabetes in Children

Once considered a disease of the middle-aged and older crowd, type 2 Diabetes is fast becoming an equal opportunity condition for American youth and children world wide.

Most people think that juvenile Diabetes (type 1) is the only form of diabetes in children. It is not and it saddens me to write that type 2 is steadily increasing among all children regardless of country of origin, race or ethnicity. Type 2 Diabetes is the most common form of Diabetes in adults, usually requiring oral anti diabetic medication and possibly insulin. The complications of diabetes whether type 1 or type 2 includes the following: heart disease, stroke, hypertension, blindness, kidney disease and nerve damage. Type 2 diabetes is all about insulin resistance. Either the body does not produce enough insulin to allow sugar into the cell to be converted to energy or the cells cannot use the insulin produced (insulin resistance.) …

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Shelby on the Street

Human Treatment Helps Pets Diabetes

As more dogs and cats are diagnosed with diabetes, veterinarians turn to tools developed for use by diabetic humans: glucose monitoring and drugs.

Human drugs have long been used to treat the disease in animals, but now vets are using another human tool, the continuous glucose monitor, to develop treatments for dogs and cats, reports MSNBC. The monitor, which is surgically implanted under the skin, tracks the concentration of a sugar called glucose in the blood. As in humans, pets with high blood glucose levels experience extreme thirst, frequent urination and fatigue. Left untreated, high blood sugar can cause blindness and kidney failure. With a continuous glucose monitor, doctors and their human patients can get a more detailed understanding of how insulin levels respond to drugs, meals and exercise. The same is true of pets. "Continuous glucose monitoring, or CGM, is much more …

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