Results of two studies may explain why some people develop diabetes after catching the virus
Covid-19 can infect insulin-producing cells in the pancreas and change their function, potentially explaining why some previously healthy people develop diabetes after catching the virus.
Doctors are increasingly concerned about the growing number of patients who have developed diabetes either while infected with coronavirus, or shortly after recovering from it.
Continue reading...It can be debilitating and last a lifetime, but type 2 diabetes, if caught early, can be reversed with weight loss
It’s 10 years since Professor Roy Taylor revolutionised treatment for type 2 diabetes with a groundbreaking study that showed the disease could be reversed through rapid weight loss. Until his research was published, type 2 diabetes was thought to be an incurable, lifelong condition. Now, for many people, we know it is not.
But his achievements – and the thousands of people he has cured – are not something he dwells upon. “I’m in a very lucky position of being able to do this research,” he says, “which really extends what I’ve been doing as a doctor throughout my life.” He laughs at the suggestion that he must occasionally marvel at his own success: “No, no,” he chuckles. “Lots of occupations make a useful contribution to society. I wouldn’t set myself apart.”
Continue reading...More than 350 clinicians report suspicions of Covid-induced diabetes, both type 1 and type 2
A cohort of scientists from across the world believe that there is a growing body of evidence that Covid-19 can cause diabetes in some patients.
Prof Francesco Rubino, from King’s College London, is leading the call for a full investigation into a possible link between the two diseases. Having seen a rise in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes in people who have caught coronavirus, some doctors are even considering the possibility that the virus ‒ by disrupting sugar metabolism ‒ could be inducing an entirely new form of diabetes.
Continue reading...UK researchers find link between regular meat intake and nine non-cancerous illnesses
Eating meat regularly increases someone’s risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, pneumonia and other serious illnesses, research has found.
It is already known that intake of red and processed meat heightens the risk of being diagnosed with bowel cancer. But these findings are the first to assess whether meat consumption is linked to any of the 25 non-cancerous illnesses that most commonly lead to people being admitted to hospital in the UK.
Continue reading...The author of The Case for Keto argues that conventional approaches to tackling obesity and diabetes aren’t working, and that low-carbohydrate diets could be the way forward
Over the past two decades, the UK’s rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes have spiralled, something that has invariably been blamed on our intake of saturated fat. Conventional nutrition science argues this leads to elevated cholesterol levels and a greater risk of heart disease, but journalist Gary Taubes believes we need to rethink this idea. Over the past 20 years, Taubes has suggested that fat has been unfairly demonised, and instead our excessive carbohydrate and sugar consumption is to blame for many of these societal health problems, a concept that has begun to interest increasing numbers of scientists. In his new book, The Case for Keto, Taubes discusses the potential benefits of the ketogenic diet, a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet that is being studied as a potential treatment for a range of diseases, from obesity and diabetes, to even cancer and Alzheimer’s.
You’ve long been one of the biggest advocates for the benefits of low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets. How did this all begin?
I did an investigative piece for the journal Science back in 2001 on dietary fat and heart disease. I interviewed around 140 researchers and administrators, and I concluded that there was never really compelling evidence for this low-fat diet we’d all been told to eat since the mid-1980s. When writing the story, I had a National Institute of Health administrator say to me: “When we told everyone to go on low-fat diets, we thought if nothing else they’d lose weight, because fat is the densest calorie in the diet. And instead they started eating more carbohydrates and everyone got fatter.” So I always had it my head that one of the main things that caused the obesity epidemic was this switch to a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet.
Charity calls for people to use alternative, less polluting heating and cooking options if they can
Campaigners and health experts are calling on people who have alternative heating not to use their wood burning stoves this winter amid growing concern about their impact on public health.
The Guardian recently reported that wood burners triple the level of harmful particulates inside the home as well as creating dangerous levels of pollution in the surrounding neighbourhood.
Continue reading...Research shows people who have a dog with type 2 diabetes are 38% more at risk of having disease themselves
It’s said that dogs resemble their owners, but the similarities may also extend to their risk of diabetes, research suggests. The same cannot be said of cat owners and their companions, however.
Previous studies had hinted that overweight owners tend to have porkier pets, possibly because of shared health behaviours such as overeating or not taking regular exercise. To investigate whether this extended to a shared risk of type 2 diabetes, Beatrice Kennedy, of Uppsala University in Sweden, and colleagues turned to insurance data from Sweden’s largest pet insurance company, using owners’ 10-digit national identification numbers to pull their anonymised health records.
Continue reading...The conditions appeared to cause structural changes that harmed memory and thinking
High blood pressure and diabetes bring about brain changes that impair thinking and memory, research suggests.
Doctors examined brain scans and medical data from 22,000 volunteers enrolled in the UK Biobank project and found significant structural changes in the grey and white matter among those with diabetes and high blood pressure.
Continue reading...Coronavirus highlights weakness of food and health systems, as Global Nutrition Report finds one in nine of world’s population is hungry
An overhaul of the world’s food and health systems is needed to tackle malnutrition, a “threat multiplier” that is now the leading cause of ill health and deaths globally, according to new analysis.
The Global Nutrition Report 2020 found that most people across the world cannot access or afford healthy food, due to agricultural systems that favour calories over nutrition as well as the ubiquity and low cost of highly processed foods. Inequalities exist across and within countries, it says.
Continue reading...After a week on a high fat, high added sugar diet, volunteers scored worse on memory tests
Consuming a western diet for as little as one week can subtly impair brain function and encourage slim and otherwise healthy young people to overeat, scientists claim.
Researchers found that after seven days on a high fat, high added sugar diet, volunteers in their 20s scored worse on memory tests and found junk food more desirable immediately after they had finished a meal.
Continue reading...The natural substitute helps diabetics, combats obesity and tackles climate change
Javier Larragoiti was 18 when his father was diagnosed with diabetes. The teenager had just started a degree in chemical engineering in Mexico City. So he dedicated his studies to a side project: creating an acceptable alternative to help his father and millions of Mexicans like him avoid sugar.
“It’s only when you know someone with this sickness that you realise how common it is and how sugar intake plays a huge role,” he says. “My dad tried to use stevia and sucralose, just hated the taste, and kept cheating on his diet.”
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