wheat can cause diabetes

An abnormal immune response to wheat proteins may contribute to type 1 diabetes, Canadian researchers say.

Their study of 42 people with type 1 diabetes found that nearly half had immune system T-cells that overreacted to wheat. The researchers also identified genes associated with this abnormal immune response.

“The immune system has to find the perfect balance to defend the body against foreign invaders without hurting itself or overreacting to the environment, and this can be particularly challenging in the gut, where there is an abundance of food and bacteria,” study author Dr. Fraser Scott, a senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa, said in a hospital news release.

“Our research suggests that people with certain genes may be more likely to develop an overreaction to wheat and possibly other foods in the gut, and this may tip the balance with the immune system and make the body more likely to develop other immune problems, such as type 1 diabetes,” he explained.

The study appears in the August issue of Diabetes.

“These observations add to the accumulating evidence that the gut is an active player in the diabetes disease process,” Dr. Mikael Knip of Finland wrote in an accompanying editorial.

3 kind of drugs that kill sex drive

If you're having sex drive issues, check your medicine cabinet. Several varieties of prescription medication can dampen desire.

Birth control
Some hormonal birth control methods such as pills and patches can increase women's levels of sex-hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), which drops the amount of testosterone that's floating around freely in the bloodstream.

A small but alarming 2006 Boston University study, authored by Irwin Goldstein, MD, director of San Diego Sexual Medicine and editor in chief of The Journal of Sexual Medicine, found the Pill to have a long-term effect on libido in some women. The level of SHBG was twice as high in women who had taken the Pill—four months after they'd stopped taking the medication—as those who never had.

That kind of long-term effect is pretty rare, however, according to Hilda Hutcherson, MD, an ob-gyn professor at Columbia University. She finds that birth-control-related sex drive problems usually go away when her patients switch pill formulations. "It's the progestin that seems to affect libido," Dr. Hutcherson says. "Some progestins have an androgen [male hormone] effect, and those tend to have less effect on libido."

Or try another form of birth control completely. With most women Dr. Hutcherson has seen in practice, she says she's found that "if you take them off the Pill, their sex drive comes back."

Antidepressants
Selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac are supposed to cheer you up, but they can interfere with one potential source of happiness: sexual pleasure. Some doctors will keep the SSRI but add Wellbutrin, which increases dopamine and acts as an "antidote to the SSRIs," according to Dr. Goldstein. For others, a doctor might switch the patient to Wellbutrin and cut the SSRI.

Everyone's body reacts differently to drugs, however, and for some, depression itself is more of a sex drive dampener than the SSRIs are. For still another set of patients, notes Marjorie Green, MD, director of the Mount Auburn Female Sexual Medicine Center in Cambridge, Mass., and a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School, "When you give them SSRIs, they get a libido and can be sexually functional when they weren't able to be before."

Diabetes drugs
Both diabetes and the medicine used to treat it can diminish desire, arousal, and orgasm. And those changes, in turn, can affect sexual interest. As Dr. Hutcherson puts it, "Who wants it if it's not fun?"

What if you need the medicine?
Sometimes simply switching to another type of medicine, or even a different formulation of the same medicine, can solve the sex drive side effect. But if it does not, and you need the medication, and your regular provider isn't coming up with any new ideas, don't despair. "Go see a sexual medicine expert who can work with the physician prescribing the medicine to figure out other strategies," advises Alan M. Altman, MD, an assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School and a specialist in menopausal issues and midlife sexuality.

Diabetes: Is More Than Just Sugar Overload?

We eat 150 pounds of sugar a year, but it’s not just sweets that have created a diabetes epidemic. You can also blame too-large portions, unhealthy carbs, not enough exercise, and processed foods: Sugar is hidden in unexpected places like ketchup, spaghetti sauce, salad dressing, bread, gravy, soups, and fat-free products. But it’s not too late to beat the blood sugar blues. Here’s how.

I walk every day, eat a healthful diet, and have no diabetes in my immediate family. I’m not model skinny (truth be told, I’ve been known to pack on a few extra pounds), but I’m certainly not a couch potato or junk food addict. So, imagine my surprise when a routine blood test showed that my blood sugar was elevated and I was officially prediabetic.

Prediabetic, meaning I have higher-than-normal blood sugar levels that put me at risk of developing diabetes, the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States. Yikes!
The fact that I’m not alone doesn’t make me feel any better—57 million Americans have prediabetes and another 24 million have diabetes (90% to 95% of all diabetes diagnosed is type 2, which typically appears in adults and is associated with obesity, physical inactivity, family history, and other factors). Being part of what’s shaping up to be a diabetes epidemic in America isn’t a club I want to join.

Another wake-up callIt turns out that prediabetes isn’t really “pre” anything, according to Mark Hyman, MD, author of UltraMetabolism and The UltraMind Solution: Fix Your Broken Brain by Healing Your Body First. “It’s a danger in and of itself that sets off a whole cascade of problems,” he says. In fact, there’s now evidence that a prediabetic patient’s risks for eye, kidney, and nerve damage, as well as heart disease, are nearly as great as a diabetic’s, says Alan J. Garber, MD, chairman of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) task force that’s currently writing new guidelines for managing prediabetes.

What’s more, diabetes can be especially dangerous for mothers and their unborn children, potentially leading to miscarriage or birth defects. Women with diabetes are also at higher risk of having a heart attack at a younger age. And elevated insulin levels have been shown to put postmenopausal women at increased risk of developing breast cancer.

The more I learned about diabetes, the more determined I was to lower my blood sugar levels. But how? What was I doing wrong in my so-called healthy life? Here’s what I found out that can help you, too.

I’m not alone in my surprise at having blood sugar troubles. Virginia Shreve was in the same boat when she went to a walk-in clinic with a bad backache and found out she had full-blown diabetes. “I had no clue,” says the 52-year-old from Lynchburg, Virginia. During her exam, the doctor tested her blood sugar and found that it was 280. (A normal, nonfasting blood glucose level is less than 140 mg/dl.)

“I felt like a deer in the headlights,” Shreve remembers. “I’d always been healthy. I knew thirst was a symptom, but I thought it was healthy that I was drinking so much water. And I’d been a good walker for years, so it wasn’t like I never got any exercise.”

When she returned to the doctor the following week, Shreve was given the results of her hemoglobin A1c test, which shows how blood glucose is controlled over two to three months. Normal for nondiabetics is 6% or lower—but Shreve tested at 9.6, enough to require medication.

Diabetes symptoms include being hungrier than usual, urinating frequently, and losing weight without trying, as well as fatigue, irritability, blurred vision, tingling or numbness in hands or feet, persistent infections, and slow-healing cuts or bruises. But some people have no symptoms or don’t equate the symptoms they do experience with diabetes.

“A lot of people feel fine with prediabetes or even when they’re diagnosed with type 2 diabetes,” says Sue Kirkman, MD, of the American Diabetes Association (ADA). “It’s not a painful disease early on, so people don’t realize how serious diabetes is and what kind of bad complications it can cause.”