When Diabetes Strikes Your Child

Tips for empowering your child to take care of their diabetes.

Treating diabetes in a child can be more challenging than dealing with the disease yourself. Depending on their age and temperament, children vary in their ability -- or desire -- to understand what's happening to them, take care of themselves, and follow your instructions. But you can put your child on the road to responsible self-care with either type 1 (the most common type in children) or type 2 diabetes if you bear these principles in mind:

Toddlers and Preschoolers
Learn to recognize how hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia affect your child's behavior, since she simply doesn't have the words to tell you how she feels herself. Expect some battles over insulin injections and blood-sugar tests around toilet-training time, as your child starts to assert herself more, but stick to your guns to get them done. Don't worry too much if blood sugar ranges between 150 mg/dl and 200 mg/dl (higher than what's recommended for adults): Children need more blood sugar for normal development. Forget trying to control when your child eats. Instead, accept irregular eating patterns and compensate by using shorter-acting insulin when your child does have a bite.

Elementary School Kids
As your child develops physically and mentally, he'll be better able to understand why his treatment is necessary and become more willing to cooperate with its demands. Educate him about how caring for his condition now will protect his health in the future, but don't scare him with the gory details of complications. Tighter blood-sugar control now becomes more important, especially at night, when there's a higher risk of hypoglycemia. Make sure he has a bedtime snack and doesn't skip meals. Encourage him to participate in school and social activities to build friendships, promote self-esteem, and make him feel less different from other kids. Around age eight, your child can probably start taking on some of the responsibility for injections and blood tests himself -- maybe with the daytime help of teachers or classmates, who benefit from the opportunity to learn about diabetes from your child.

Preteens and Adolescents
Control -- over a number of things -- now starts falling into your child's hands. Studies find that tight blood-sugar monitoring as early as age 13 can prevent complications in adulthood, so encourage her to take charge -- but don't expect the thought of future consequences to motivate her too much. Now's not the time to completely let go of the reins: Worries about what other kids think might cause her to skip steps in her care. Make an issue of it, expect an argument -- but be confident that using you as an excuse ("My parents make me do it") can help her do the right thing. Gradually give your child more responsibility as she's able to handle it. By the time she's choosing which college to attend or looking for work, responsibility should pass to her.
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Diabetes Tests You Should Know About

All the facts about testing for diabetes.
From Looking After Your Each year, more than 80,000 people are diagnosed with diabetes, a disorder in which the body doesn't produce enough insulin (the hormone needed to extract glucose, the body's main source of energy, from the blood) or is resistant to the action of insulin. According to the National Institutes of Health, diabetes is one of the most common and serious chronic diseases in this country. It can be diagnosed early on with a fasting plasma glucose (FPG) test or an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). The sooner you detect diabetes, the more quickly you can treat it and prevent serious complications such as heart attacks, strokes and kidney problems.

Who needs it The American Diabetes Association advises all adults to get tested every three years. How it's done Your FPG reading is taken from a blood sample usually drawn in the morning, before you've eaten. If you are having an OGTT, show up with something to read, since the whole exam can take more than two hours. You'll be instructed to fast for eight hours (overnight) before the test and to avoid certain drugs, such as acetaminophen and oral contraceptives, which can affect the results. You'll be asked to drink several ounces of a glucose (sugar) solution, then blood and urine samples will be taken after one hour and again after two hours.

What the results mean The normal level of glucose in the blood ranges from about 70 to 110 milligrams per deciliter of blood (mg/dl). If your blood sugars measure higher than 140 mg/dl, you may have undiagnosed diabetes. If your blood sugar levels are lower than 70 mg/dl, you may have hypoglycemia, a condition that can produce sudden severe hunger, headaches, anxiety, sweating, and confusion.
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What Is Type 1 Diabetes?

Type 1: An Insulin No-Show
So what makes type 1 diabetes different than type 2? First, type 1 is much rarer, accounting for only 5 to 10 percent of all diagnosed cases of diabetes. With type 1 diabetes, the body's immune system destroys special cells in the pancreas that manufacture insulin. These cells, called beta cells, are the only places in the body where insulin is produced. Without them, the body lacks the insulin it needs to move glucose out of circulation and control high blood sugar. Other major characteristics of type 1:
Needles are necessary. Because the body can't produce insulin, type 1 patients need an outside supply of the hormone, self-administered by daily injections. That's why type 1 is sometimes called insulin dependent diabetes mellitus, or IDDM. This term is used less frequently today, however, because people with type 2 diabetes sometimes need to take insulin as well. But the fact that injections are an inevitable part of daily life for all type 1 diabetes patients remains one of the key characteristics of this form of the disease.

It strikes early. Type 1 diabetes often sets in during childhood, with about half of all cases developing before age 20. Most other cases begin in people up to age 30. It's very unusual to see a case of type 1 diabetes crop up in anyone over age 40. Because it's widely seen as a disease of the young (although you continue to have it your entire life), type 1 is sometimes called juvenile-onset diabetes. This term, too, has fallen out of favor, both because adults can get type 1 diabetes and because rates of type 2 diabetes in children are exploding.

It strikes fast. The onset of type 1 diabetes is rapid compared with type 2, which can take years to develop. If you (or your child) have type 1, such classic symptoms as fatigue, excessive thirst, and frequent urination will probably become worse over a period of just weeks or months.

There is a "honeymoon" period. In the first several months after type 1 is diagnosed and treatment begins, 20 percent of patients seem to improve as the pancreas temporarily begins to increase insulin production once again. This period of remission may last for as long as a year, during which blood-sugar levels become more stable and insulin injections may not even be necessary. While all honeymoons must come to an end, researchers see this period as a potential window of opportunity. One day it may allow yet-to-be-perfected therapies to preserve beta cell function before it's too late.

Blood sugar jumps wildly. With type 1, the pancreas loses its ability to monitor and control blood sugar. As a result, blood-sugar levels tend to spike and crash with greater volatility than in people who have type 2 diabetes, since their pancreatic function is usually less severely impaired. With type 1, the job of the pancreas essentially falls to you. You control your blood-sugar level with the timing and dosage of your insulin injections. This makes monitoring your blood sugar critically important.
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Will Skipping Breakfast Help Lower Morning Blood Sugar?

Q. Help! My blood sugar is sky-high in the morning. Shouldn't I skip breakfast to bring it down?

A. No. It's true that for some people with diabetes, blood sugar tends to be high in the morning. That's because as dawn approaches, your body starts releasing energizing hormones to rev you up for the day. These antagonize the action of insulin and stimulate the liver to produce more glucose, even if the glucose level in the blood is already abnormally high. Will eating make it rise even higher? Probably, but because breakfast is so important for weight loss and proper nutrition, you need to make eating a priority and find other ways to deal with the "dawn phenomenon."

Start checking your blood sugar at 7 a.m. If it's often above 200, try controlling the morning spikes by taking action the night before. For instance, you could eat less in the evening or try exercising before you go to bed, which siphons glucose from the blood into the muscles for hours afterward. If you're taking insulin, you may also need your doctor to adjust the timing or amount of your last dose of the day. Or you may need a morning dose of medication (taken with food) to keep blood sugar under control until proper eating, exercise, and stress management get you on a more even keel. Home Decorating Tips : Latest Gadgets : Home Decorating Tips : All Supercars Collection : Online Games collection : Natural Helath Care Tips : Home Decorating Tips : Home Interior Decorating Tips :

Your Diabetes Prevention Plan 2008

DIET
Doctor your diet. For most people, carbohydrates (especially complex carbohydrates that are high in fiber) should form the bulk of the diet. Protein foods (meat, soy foods, and dairy) should make up 10 to 20 percent of daily calories. Choose protein foods that are lower in fat, especially saturated fat. That means emphasizing fish, poultry, beans, and low-fat or no-fat dairy products.

Stick to a schedule. Avoid delaying or skipping meals and binge eating, all of which can play havoc with blood-sugar levels.

Shed some pounds. At least 80 percent of people who develop type 2 diabetes are overweight. Slim down and you may avoid the disease. Even if you can't get to your ideal weight, a 10-pound loss can dramatically lower blood-sugar levels.

EXERCISE
Move it. Exercise improves your body's sensitivity to insulin, aids glucose control, and can help you lose weight. Brisk walking an hour a day could cut your risk of developing diabetes in half.

MEDICAL OPTIONS
Get a diabetes test. In order to determine whether or not a patient has pre-diabetes or diabetes, health care providers conduct a Fasting Plasma Glucose Test (FPG) or an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT). Either test can be used to diagnose pre-diabetes or diabetes. The American Diabetes Association recommends the FPG because it is easier, faster, and less expensive to perform. With the FPG test, a fasting blood glucose level between 100 and 125 mg/dl signals pre-diabetes. A person with a fasting blood glucose level of 126 mg/dl or higher has diabetes.

In the OGTT test, a person's blood glucose level is measured after a fast and two hours after drinking a glucose-rich beverage. If the two-hour blood glucose level is between 140 and 199 mg/dl, the person tested has pre-diabetes. If the two-hour blood glucose level is at 200 mg/dl or higher, the person tested has diabetes.

NATURAL HEALTH
Protect yourself with E. In one Finnish study, men with the lowest blood levels of vitamin E were found to be about four times more likely to develop diabetes than men with the highest levels. Some experts recommend taking a supplement of 200 to 400 mg of vitamin E daily.

LIFESTYLE
Lower your stress. Excess stress, in combination with poor coping skills, can raise your blood-sugar levels.
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Stabilize Your Blood Sugar

1. Drink a cup of skim milk and eat eight ounces of nonfat yogurt a day. A study of 3,000 people found that those who were overweight, but ate a lot of dairy foods, were 70 percent less likely to develop insulin resistance (a precursor to diabetes) than those who didn't. Turns out lactose, protein, and the fat in dairy products improves blood sugar by filling you up and slowing the conversion of food sugars to blood sugar.

2. Buy bread products that have at least three grams of fiber and three grams of protein per serving. They'll slow absorption of glucose and decrease possible insulin spikes, says J. J. Flizanes, a nutritionist and owner of Invisible Fitness in Los Angeles. Plus, the hearty dose of fiber and protein will keep your stomach feeling satisfied longer.

3. Serve up a spinach salad for dinner. Spinach is high in magnesium, which a large study suggests can help prevent the development of type 2 diabetes. One study in women found higher intakes of magnesium (also found in nuts, other leafy greens, and fish) reduced diabetes risk about 10 percent overall, and about 20 percent in women who were overweight. Another great source of magnesium? Avocados.

4. Sprinkle cinnamon over your coffee, yogurt, cereal, and tea. Researchers from Pakistan (where cinnamon reigns) had volunteers with type 2 diabetes take either one, three, or six grams of cinnamon or a placebo for 40 days. Those taking the fragrant spice saw their blood glucose levels drop 18-29 percent depending on how much cinnamon they took.

5. Eat soba noodles for dinner one night a week. The "Japanese pasta" is made from buckwheat, a grain that lowered blood glucose levels 12-19 percent in one well-controlled study on rats. Sure, you're not a rat, but buckwheat is an excellent source of fiber, and the evidence on fiber and blood glucose improvement is unimpeachable. Add a helping of buckwheat pancakes every Sunday and get double the benefits.