Study putting pancreas cells in patient's arm; impact could lead to diabetes breakthrough

Some promising research is being conducted right here in Houston for people with diabetes.

Doctors at The Methodist Hospital are experimenting with a new treatment for the diseased or injured pancreas in which they remove the organ and implant its insulin-producing cells in the patient's arm or leg.

While it might sound like a wild idea,”
Putting pancreas cells in the arm,
Is really very logical, according to Dr. Craig Fischer, the lead researcher of this project.

The research, conducted on the first patient a month ago, is part of an ongoing inquiry into how best to prevent diabetes in a person whose pancreas has been removed because of pancreatitis, trauma, or benign or early-stage malignant tumors.

The work could also speed up national efforts to use stem cells, the building blocks of tissue, to cure Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.

I have several friends and one young, family member with diabetes, so I understand the impact this can have on somebody’s life. I’m personally praying for finding a cure.

Diabetic Days: a good tool for managing lifestyle through technology

Thanks to
Fred’s Head Companion
For tipping me to the following information.

If you or somebody you know is a diabetic, here is a web site you might find very useful.

Diabetic Days
Is much more than just an online community of diabetics. However, that communal link is definitely one of the strengths Diabetic Days offers its members.

Diabetic Days is a new FREE website that allows anyone, anywhere to easily keep a track of their Diabetic life.

WHAT DOES IT OFFER?
• Submit your records via the web, email, or mobile phone (sms).
• Never carry an insulin diary or record book ever again.
• Export & share results with your specialists & doctors.
• Participate in a community of thousands with Diabetics from across the world.

The ability to use online reporting and exporting/sharing of insulin diaries and the like is a great step in involving today's ubiquitous technologies such as cell phones and SMS messaging to manage one’s health. Some very cool innovation, indeed.

Cell phone application has potential for being useful tool for blind diabetics

Its been interesting to watch cell phones evolve into the mini computers that they have become. Today’s mobile phones are running more and more computer applications and letting their users do computing tasks without the computer.

There is a story in today’s Houston Chronicle reporting on how
more people are using their phones for data services.
(The Chronicle maintains its links for only a limited time, so I apologize if too many days have lapsed and this link no longer works.)

One particularly nifty tool, which I learned about in this article, is a glucometer application. As blindness is one of the serious side effects that can stem from diabetes, I’m wondering if this application would work with a cell phone screen reader such as Talks or Mobile Speak? If so, this nifty and useful gadget can allow all diabetics the freedom to travel with one less piece of equipment.

From the article:
“Through his Wellness Wireless company, the CEO and president of Diabetes Centers of America has embedded a glucometer into a cell phone so diabetics can automatically track their blood sugar when they check it. The data also gets shared with nurses back at the office. If blood sugar is especially high, a patient will get a message from a nurse asking whether he feels OK. If he says no, the nurse will call him with instructions. They might even have a video conversation.”

“Wellness Wireless also offers a health-based application for nondiabetics that uses other metrics such as blood pressure, height, weight, age and gender. The health information is used to recommend exercise plans and meals, and companies including NutriSystem and Whole Foods pay to suggest recipes and shopping lists.”

While it doesn’t appear to be initially constructed as assistive technology, if this glucometer works with the screen readers as I suggest, then it would definitely become just that. It would allow blind diabetics the same information that they currently get from their specialized talking glucometers. And, with the connectivity with the nurses that the program provides, that makes it even more useful than the glucometer.

HealthSims web site offers educational resource for Type I diabetes

Through a family member’s recent diagnosis with Type I diabetes, our entire family has had to come to understand a lot more about the disease. This, of course, has included gathering resources to help learn the information that we needed.

One of those resources is the
HealthSims
Web site. HealthSims is focused on education about Type I diabetes at present, but will include material about Type II later this year.

The site is a rich informational resource that includes a forum and an in-depth educational course about Type I diabetes. Dana Blankenship, whose son has Type I diabetes, is the founder of the site.

The learning material is targeted towards those who are newly diagnosed, as well as their family members, to help them learn to manage the diabetes. Additionally, it is useful for any professionals who work with diabetics, or those in fields needing continuing education. The training material is non-sequential, thus allowing the user to go to a particular area of interest or concern first, rather than having to follow a rigid design structure.

The course is thorough, running approximately 12-16 hours. The following course description is from the web site:
“The course includes the basic facts about type 1 diabetes and the common treatment strategies. You will also find lessons learned and practical tips on a wide variety of topics from over 300 people from across North America that have first hand experience managing this disease. In this exciting training course, you will hear people tell their own stories and share their personal lessons learned. You will also get the opportunity to test your own knowledge of type 1 diabetes in the practice activities embedded in the training topics as well as in the Practice Activities Topic which includes 100 questions to test your knowledge of content taught throughout the course. You can complete the training topics in any order you wish.”

Diabetic service dogs: a niche worth filling

Earlier this afternoon, I received an email with a news article about some research being conducted at Queens University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The university researchers are gathering scientific data to see whether dogs can be used to detect dangerous blood sugar levels in diabetics. The article noted that there were only anecdotal reports reporting that dogs can detect this.

Spurred by this idea, which had never previously occurred to me, I did a little web research to investigate.

Did you know that there are already organizations placing dogs with Type I diabetics to detect hypoglycemia.?

The first one I found was
Dogs for Diabetics,
A California non-profit that places diabetic service dogs with people who have only Type I diabetes. The organization, originally called The Armstrong Project, has been in existence for almost seven years. Armstrong was the name of the first dog the service trained for this specialized task. Armstrong was obtained from

Guide Dogs for the Blind
(GDB), a long-established guide dog school in San Rafael, California. Today, most of their dogs are primarily obtained from GDB, with a couple of other agencies contributing as well.

From their web site, here’s what Dogs for Diabetics offers:
• Training and certifying dogs for hypoglycemia (low blood glucose) medical alert.
• Studying and developing training protocols for the Dogs4Diabetics program.
• Training diabetic youth and adults for the proper use and care of our dogs.
• Qualifying diabetic youth and adults for placement and service of our dogs.
• Placement follow-up services.
• Educating the businesses, organizations, and the public to the uses and rights of certified Dogs for Diabetics medical alert dogs.

Additionally, I also found
Heaven Scent Paws,
another agency specifically offering service dogs for diabetics.

If you want to understand what motivates somebody to start a service like this, check out
The story behind Heaven Scent Paws.
It is a parent’s tale of true passion, motivated by fear and love, looking for direction and answers in a world where very few existed.

Finally, there is this story of one teacher’s pairing with her diabetic assistance dog, obtained through the
Great Plains Assistance Dog Foundation,
Located in Jud, North Dakota.

The number of these particular service dogs across the U.S. is low in comparison to other types of trained service dogs, according to the executive director of the Great Plains Assistance Dog Foundation in that article. However , he predicts that number will rise as word of this invaluable service gets around.

I feel certain that it will.

Kidney Early Evaluation Program offering free screenings

Until I read a recent letter in
Dear Abby
about the National Kidney Foundation sponsoring the
Kidney Early Evaluation Program,
or KEEP, I was unaware that such a program even existed.

However, now that I am aware of it, I can work to pass along the news of this great screening program in hopes that the news gets disseminated even further.

March 8 is World Kidney Day and it is the day that the NKF is offering these free screenings.

According to the author of the letter in Dear Abby, 20 million, or 1 out of every 9, adults in America have chronic kidney disease and another 20 million are at risk of it.

KEEP is offering free evaluations to people at high risk of kidney disease and has been doing this since the year 2000. Those at high risk include those with diabetes and high blood pressure, two of the leading causes of kidney disease, as well as a family history of kidney disease. The screening is able to find symptoms of kidney disease that might otherwise go undetected with traditional screenings and tests most patients undergo.

To locate the nearest center offering screenings,, check out
www.keeponline.org
or call 800-622-9010.

Awareness is preventative medicine at its best, so please share the news of this screening to those you know that may be at high risk of kidney disease.

Accessible World offers resources and on-line diabetes symposium

AccessAbility has recently learned of another great location for blind and visually impaired resources.
Accessible World
Has a good selection of information related to accessible computing, as well as other areas of interest to the blind and visually impaired. There is an archive of technology training podcasts and also have list-serves on various topics.

Coming up on Monday, Oct. 30, there is a training session on scanning with the OmniPage program.

With the assortment of physical complications that are associated with diabetes, it is notable that they are about to host the First International Virtual Audio online Symposium on Diabetes.

The details from their web site about this event are as follows:

Helping Hands for the Blind
and The Accessible World Symposiums have formed a partnership whose main goal is to produce the first “On-Line" Symposium on Diabetes around the world scheduled for Wednesday, November 8, 2006 from 10 A.M. to 3 P.M. PST.

We have scheduled such prominent speakers as Gretchen Becker who wrote the Book "Living with Type 2 Diabetes," Dr. Bernard Mahaver who will discuss the various drugs in use to control Diabetes, an Endocrinologist from UCLA, and Finally, Dr. Anne Williams, a noted Diabetic Educator who will discuss Research and Trends in Diabetic care. The program will be followed by a discussion period with the Audience having an opportunity to ask questions of the guests and committee members.

> To participate in this interactive online event, you will need a computer running Windows, an Internet connection, speakers, a microphone and a sound card. Various agencies serving blind and visually impaired individuals in the United States and other strategic countries will also be providing a computer and space for blind and visually impaired persons who are not computer literate or do not have a computer at home to join this symposium.
However, it must be noted that anyone who has Diabetes or knows someone who does can also join this symposium.

To access the online conference room, go to:
http://www.accessibleworld.org
and select the Auditorium link.


**Note: The Helping Hands for the Blind web site linked above has more links and services that may be of interest to your vlind and visually impaired students. Most notably, Helping Hands claims to provide financial grants to blind students and also help in transportation.

FDA approves new drug for Type II diabetes

Here’s a mixed bag of news for those with Type II diabetes. The
FDA has approved a new diabetes drug.

According to the Houston Chronicle story:

“The Food and Drug Administration said it approved Januvia, which enhances the body's own ability to lower blood sugar levels, after clinical trials showing the new pill works just as well as older diabetes drugs, but with fewer side effects like weight gain. The drug is made by Merck and Co. Inc.”

“The new drug's cost may limit its use, however. Merck did not immediately disclose what it would charge for Januvia, but it is expected to cost between $3 and $6 a day. Older diabetes drugs can cost 50 cents a day.”

“Januvia, also known as sitagliptin phosphate, works with a one-two punch: It increases levels of a hormone that triggers the pancreas to produce more insulin to process blood sugar while simultaneously signaling the liver to quit making glucose. The pill does that by blocking production of an enzyme, called DPP-4, that normally inactivates that hormone.“

So, take the news for what it is worth. It handles Type II diabetes with less side effects than existing medications, but at a higher cost per dose.