Diabetes
Will Ozempic Lead to Hair Loss?
Over the past several years, the FDA has approved a number of injectable medications designed to help people with type 2 diabetes control their blood sugar. You may have seen some of them advertised o…
Is Hair Loss a Side Effect of Wegovy and Ozempic…
The hottest drugs in weight control these days are Wegovy and Ozempic. Ozempic does not have FDA approval for weight loss, but this injectable diabetes drug contains the exact same ingredient as Wegov…
Sweet Beverages Boost Your Risk of Diabetes
Does it matter what you choose to drink? A new analysis indicates that sweet beverages can lead to premature death for people with diabetes. Sweet Beverages and Premature Mortality: Epidemiologists re…
Best Diet for People with Diabetes Is Low in Car…
Diabetes experts have been arguing about the best diet for patients with type 2 diabetes for decades. Past and present studies now show that a diet low in carbs can help people with type 2 diabetes lo…
Do Nutrition Scientists Have a Bias Against Ice …
What should a healthful diet include? If you had to make a list, you’d probably start with vegetables and fruits. After all, they feature prominently in both the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hyp…
How to Improve Your Health with Chocolate
Could you improve your health with chocolate? Despite widespread skepticism that chocolate could have health benefits, researchers keep uncovering additional evidence. We'll summarize some of that bel…
High Cost of Insulin May Be Deadly
Insulin was first used to treat type 1 diabetes on January 11th, 1922. It was a major medical breakthrough. In type 1 diabetes, the body cannot make insulin, and without this hormone, the patient dies…
Is It Safe to Take Alli for a Long Time?
We love the idea of losing weight with less effort. Perhaps that is why people seem to embrace new diet drugs when they become trendy. Although all the attention these last several months has been on …
Can You Overcome Depression with Exercise?
Millions of people globally are suffering from depression or anxiety. There is some good news, however. An overview of systematic reviews (an "umbrella review") of more than a thousand randomized cont…
Celebrate National Nutrition Month
March is National Nutrition Month! Have you heard the recent prominent news around the benefits of flavanols? The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND), the world's largest organization of nutritio…
COVID and Diabetes: Another Aftereffect of the P…
Most people have tried to put COVID in the rear view mirror. Sadly, though, COVID is still with us. Just in the last two weeks we have heard about a surprising number of people who have caught COVID-1…
What Is the Outcome of Prediabetes?
Doctors are increasingly diagnosing people with prediabetes. These individuals have slightly elevated blood sugar levels that don’t yet meet the criteria for frank diabetes. Some studies have used a…
How Dangerous Are High Vitamin B12 Levels?
Vitamin B12 (cobalamin) wasn't fully described until 1956. It is essential for the development of red blood cells. It is also critical for the brain. Myelin, the fatty sheath that surrounds neurons, d…
Are You Fed Up with Prescription Drug Ads?
Drug companies used to focus their marketing strategies exclusively on doctors. They spent millions on sales representatives who traveled the country chatting up physicians and handing out free sample…
Show 1325: Recognizing the Ravages of Silent Inf…
This week on our nationally syndicated radio show, our guest describes the causes and consequences of silent inflammation. Usually, inflammation (redness, swelling, heat, pain) is a tool the immune sy…
Caffeine Consumption Cuts Risk of Type 2 Diabete…
The most common drug in the world has surprisingly strong health benefits. Caffeine consumption through drinking coffee and tea can help reduce the risk of Parkinson’s disease or type 2 diabetes. Th…
People with Diabetes Do Better on Low-Carb Diets
For years, doctors and dietitians have been arguing about the best diet for people with diabetes. The American Diabetes Association has long recommended cutting fat, especially saturated fat, which le…
What the Heck Is a Well-Balanced Diet Anyway?
Ask almost any health professional—doctor, nurse, pharmacist, registered dietician—about the elements of good health and you will likely hear this mantra: exercise, do not smoke, get a good night…
Drug Boomerang: When Meds Cause What They Should…
When a doctor prescribes a medicine there is an implicit promise that it will relieve symptoms or cure us when we are ill. The Hippocratic Oath that most physicians take upon graduation is widely unde…
Show 1321: Rebalancing Our Microbiome Through Pe…
This week on our nationally syndicated radio show, we consider how to maintain a healthy balance in our gut microbiome. Each of us carries a vast collection of microbes in our digestive tracts. Althou…
Musk’s Wegovy Weight Loss Drug Upsets Readers
When Elon Musk was asked on Twitter how he had lost weight, he at first responded: “Fasting.” A follow-up tweet added “And Wegovy.” That set off a firestorm of controversy around the Wegovy we…
Supplements to Help Ease Diabetic Neuropathy
Diabetes threatens the health of millions of Americans. In 2019, doctors had diagnosed more than 37 million people with this metabolic disorder. People with diabetes either don't make insulin (type 1 …
Angry Doctor Insists HCTZ Is Safe!
Hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) is one of the most prescribed drugs in the US. It is a diuretic that helps lower blood pressure. At last count, over 10 million people swallow this pill daily. But HCTZ is a…
Should You Consider Intermittent Fasting for Goo…
Americans love to snack. Stop to fill up your gas tank and you can purchase all sorts of treats—ice cream, popcorn, candy, crackers, cookies and nuts, just to name a few of the many enticements. Go …
Farxiga and Chronic Kidney Disease: FDA Confusio…
On June 14, 2016, the Food and Drug Administration strengthened its warning on certain medications prescribed for people with type 2 diabetes. Canagliflozin and dapagliflozin are sold under the brand…
Could Step Counters Help Us Ward Off Dementia?
Do you wear a FitBit or a fancy watch? What about a lower-tech pedometer? Step counters are popular because they give us feedback on how many steps we have taken in a day. Even if the common goal of 1…
Are American Children Becoming Obese?
Doctors worry when children gain weight, because losing it later often proves difficult. A new analysis of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) shows that more Ameri…
Show 1257: The Metabolical Results of the Americ…
Dr. Robert Lustig has been warning us all about the hazards of sugar since 2009, when his YouTube lecture “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” went viral. As a pediatric neuroendocrinologist, he spent much o…
Will Nopal Cactus Control Blood Sugar?
We love it when scientific research reveals that a home remedy actually works. One that seems quite improbable is eating nopal cactus pads to help with blood sugar control. A few readers have tried th…
Show 1302: Managing the Microbiome for Better He…
In our nationally syndicated radio show this week, we with an international expert about managing the microbiome. How does the microbiome interact with our immune system? Each of us has trillions of m…
People Are Dying Because of the High Cost of Med…
In the movie Wall Street we are told by actor Michael Douglas (Gordon Gekko) that “greed is good, greed is right, greed works, greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolution…
Cinnamon May Offer a Surprising Way to Reverse P…
Prediabetes is an often-undiagnosed condition that frequently leads to the development of type 2 diabetes. In the past, scientists have found that intensive lifestyle changes or medications such as me…
Does Your Medicine Pose a Cancer Risk?
Most people take prescription medications to relieve symptoms or prevent serious health problems. Some of the best sellers include blood pressure medicines, acid-suppressors, diabetes drugs and medica…
Show 1275: The Vicious Cycle of COVID and Diabet…
There are at least two pandemics raging through the world at this time. The first is obesity. The second is, of course, COVID-19. Diabetes sits uncomfortably at their intersection. In a vicious cycle,…
What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About the Stat…
Statins such as atorvastatin or simvastatin are extremely effective at lowering circulating levels of cholesterol. Doctors prescribe them to reduce the chance that a patient will have a heart attack o…
Kids Are Coming Down with Diabetes After Getting…
People with diabetes are at higher risk for complications from COVID-19. Now, the CDC reports that the virus puts children at greater risk for coming down with diabetes (MMWR, Jan. 7, 2022). Rates of …
Vitamin B12 Helps Ease Nerve Pain of Diabetes
People with type 2 diabetes often develop a painful nerve disorder called diabetic neuropathy. People with this condition may experience numbness, tingling, burning or pain in their hands or feet. The…
Does Red Yeast Rice Raise Blood Sugar Levels Lik…
Many people are reluctant to take statins because of side effects like muscle pain and weakness. But their doctors are often quite adamant that they need to lower their LDL cholesterol. Sometimes peop…
If Statins Cause Diabetes, Why Should ALL Diabet…
The guidelines from the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology are crystal clear. Middle-aged people with diabetes (both type 1 and type 2) should be on a statin-type choles…
Statins and Diabetes! A LONG Delayed Warning
Our first inkling that statins and diabetes might be a problem came in 2003. That’s when a reader of our syndicated newspaper column reported a rapid rise in blood sugar after taking atorvastatin (L…