Showing posts with label Are. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Are. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

A Personal Trainer Newport Beach Gives Some Pointers For Guys Who Are Seeking To Shape Up


The Newport Beach in California is where you will find a lot of stunning beach resorts. In fact, this is one of the most preferred beach destinations by almost all people in the U.S. and in some parts of the world too. It's for this reason why a lot of people in this city are desperate to lose weight and show off their sexy body at the beach. A Personal Trainer Newport Beach shared some tips for men who are trying to shape up.

Know Your Purpose

A lot of those men who wanted to lose weight do not exactly know what they are aiming for. It is not enough that you tell a Personal Trainer Newport Beach that you want to lose weight. You should be specific with your goals so that the trainer could devise a workout plan that is in accordance with your body type. Inform your trainer if you want bulging biceps, a 6-pack abs, or a thick neck, among others. Having a program that caters to your needs is the most effective way to achieve your fitness goals in a fast and easy way.

Furthermore, a Personal Trainer Newport Beach advises that you perform some stretches along with a 15-minute walk before you start with your workout. If you are someone who is suffering from any health issues, then you should see your doctor and find out what exercises are good for you.

Before you perform any kind of exercise routine, you must first understand your body and find out what it really needs. It is very important that you choose the right kind of exercise programs for you, or you will just not see any results at all. If you consider yourself healthy and with an average built, then you do not really need to undergo a rigorous exercise regimen. Jogging early morning in the park or perhaps doing some yoga a few hours each day would be enough to maintain your weight.

Furthermore, a Personal Trainer Newport Beach advises that you perform some stretches along with a 15-minute walk before you start with your workout. If you are someone who is suffering from any health issues, then you should see your doctor and find out what exercises are good for you.

Nutrition

Proper nutrition is also vital if you wish to lose weight. So aside from adhering to an exercise routine, you must be mindful of the things that you eat, too. Try to eat well balanced meals often which should include low carbohydrate meals, high protein foods and a lot of fruits and veggies. You should also make a habit of consuming a hefty breakfast meal each morning, and as much as possible refrain from starving yourself. A Personal Trainer Newport Beach has said that skipping meals will just make you binge some unhealthy foods later in the day and will not help you to lose weight.

Lifestyle

Besides adhering to a proper diet and doing exercises regularly, you must also try to live a healthy lifestyle if you want to stay in shape. Start your day with a positive attitude and you have to keep yourself motivated all throughout the day. Refrain from smoking and minimize your alcohol intake and try to avoid too much stress if you can. If you follow all of these tips, a Personal Trainer Newport Beach can guarantee that you will surely be able to attain your fitness goals quickly.




About the Author:
By Tammy Walker





Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Are Eye Floaters Bad


Are Eye Floaters Bad
Are Eye Floaters Bad
Are Eye Floaters Bad: No more eye floaters. Try these home remedies to get rid of eye floaters quickly. Safest way to remove eye floaters without a need to visit a doctor.

Monday, June 12, 2017

Stem Cells in Ophthalmology Update 27 ACT Interim Clinical Results Are Outstanding


Having treated 36 patients in two clinical trials for Stargardt’s Macular Dystrophy (SMD - 24 patients to date) and for dry Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD - 12 patients to date), Advanced Cell Technology reported the interim results obtained with 18 of these patients (9 in each trial) in the US-based studies. Both trials (NCT01345006 - Stargardt’s, and NCT01344993 - AMD) began in July 2011, giving the company up to three-year’s data for the earliest patients, and a median of 22 months followup for all. The interim results were reported in The Lancet, published online October 14, 2014 in: “Human embryonic stem cell-derived retinal pigment epithelium in patients with age-related macular degeneration and Stargardt’s macular dystrophy: follow-up of two open-label phase 1/2 studies”.

An additional Stargardt’s trial, being conducted at two clinics in the United Kingdom, with 12 patients enrolled (NCT01469832), along with 3 of the 4 patients treated in each of two trials with better vision candidates, as part of the two clinical trials in the publication (Phase IIa), were not included in The Lancet results.

As noted by Paul K. Wotton, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Advanced Cell Technology, "These study results represent an important milestone and strengthen our leadership position in regenerative ophthalmology. We would like to thank the patients for their willingness to participate in these studies. Our findings underscore the potential to repair or replace tissues damaged from diseases. We plan to initiate comprehensive Phase 2 clinical trials for the treatment of both AMD and SMD, two disease states where there is currently no effective treatment."

Editors Note: As announced on October 15th by the company, the Phase II dry AMD clinical trial (50 Patients) will start during the 1st Half of 2015 and is expected to be completed in the middle of 2016, taking place at 10 Trial Sites across North America. The Phase II SMD clinical trial (100 patients) will start during the 4th Quarter of this year or by the end of the year. It will take 18-24 months to complete, taking place at 30 sites across North America and Europe.

Robert Lanza, M.D., Chief Scientific Officer of ACT and co-senior author of the paper, commented, "Diseases affecting the eye are attractive first-in-man applications for this type of investigational therapy due to the immune-privileged nature of the eye. Despite the degenerative nature of these diseases, the vision of 10 of 18 patients showed measurable improvement at the six month follow up, after transplantation of the RPE cells. Furthermore, the cells have been well tolerated for a median period of 22 months with two of the patients treated more than three years ago. We are pleased that there have been no serious safety issues attributable to the cells observed in any of the patients."

Steven Schwartz, M.D., Ahmanson Professor of Ophthalmology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and retina division chief at UCLA's Jules Stein Eye Institute, principal investigator and co-lead author of the publication said, "The data published in The Lancet support the potential safety and biological activity of stem cell-derived retinal tissue. Once again, surgical access to the subretinal space has proven safe. However, for the first time in humans, terminally differentiated stem cell progeny seem to survive, and do so without safety signals. Combined with the functional signals observed, these data suggest that this regenerative strategy should move forward. This is a hopeful and exciting time for ophthalmology and regenerative medicine."

These two studies provide the first evidence of the mid- to long-term safety, survival, and potential biologic activity of pluripotent stem cell progeny into humans with any disease. In addition to showing no adverse safety issues related to the transplanted tissue, anatomic evidence confirmed successful engraftment of the RPE cells, which included increased pigmentation at the level of the RPE layer after transplantation in 13 of 18 patients.

There was no evidence of adverse proliferation, rejection, or serious ocular or systemic safety issues related to the transplanted tissue. Adverse events were associated with vitreoretinal surgery and immunosuppression. Thirteen (72%) of 18 patients had patches of increasing subretinal pigmentation consistent with transplanted retinal pigment epithelium. Best-corrected visual acuity, monitored as part of the safety protocol, improved in ten eyes, improved or remained the same in seven eyes, and decreased by more than ten letters in one eye, whereas the untreated fellow eyes did not show similar improvements in visual acuity. Vision-related quality-of-life measures increased for general and peripheral vision, and near and distance activities, improving by 16–25 points 3–12 months after transplantation in patients with atrophic age-related macular degeneration and 8–20 points in patients with Stargardt’s macular dystrophy.

Figure 3: Change from baseline in best-corrected visual acuity in patients with age-related macular degeneration (A) and Stargardt’s macular dystrophy (B) Median change in best-corrected visual acuity was expressed as number of letters read on the Early Treatment of Diabetic Retinopathy Study visual acuity chart in patients with age-related macular degeneration (A) and Stargardt’s macular dystrophy (B). Red lines show treated eyes and blue lines show untreated eyes of patients during the first year after transplantation of the cells derived from human embryonic stem cells. Green lines show the difference between the treated and untreated eyes. Patients who underwent cataract surgery after transplantation are not included in the graph. There was a significant difference in the letters read in transplanted eyes of patients with age-related macular degeneration versus non-transplanted controls at 12 months (median 14 letters vs –1 letter; p=0·0117). There was an increase in letters read in transplanted eyes of patients with Stargardt’s macular dystrophy versus non-transplanted controls at 12 months (median 12 letters vs two letters, although the sample size was too small to allow reliable calculation of the Wilcoxon signed-rank test).
The SMD and dry AMD trials are prospective, open-label studies designed to evaluate the safety and tolerability of human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-derived RPE cells following sub-retinal transplantation into patients at 12 months, the studies' primary endpoint. Three dose cohorts were treated for each condition in an ascending dosage format (50,000 cells, 100,000 cells, and 150,000 cells). Both the SMD and dry AMD patients had subretinal transplantation of fully-differentiated RPE cells derived from hESCs.

Dr. Anthony Atala, a surgeon and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University in an accompanying commentary in The Lancet said:

"It really does show for the very first time that patients can, in fact, benefit from the therapy.
That allows you to say, 'OK, now that these cells have been used for patients who have blindness, maybe we can also use these cells for many other conditions as well, including heart disease, lung disease and other medical conditions.' "

Human embryonic stem cells have the ability to become any kind of cell in the body. So scientists have been hoping the cells could be used to treat many diseases, including Alzheimer's, diabetes and paralysis. But the study is the first human embryonic stem cell trial approved by the Food and Drug Administration that has produced any results.

"It is really a very important paper."

The co-authors of the study summarized their interpretation of their results in this way:

“The results of this study provide the first evidence of the medium-term to long-term safety, graft survival, and possible biological activity of pluripotent stem cell progeny in individuals with any disease. Our results suggest that human-embryonic-stem-cell-derived cells could provide a potentially safe new source of cells for the treatment of various unmet medical disorders requiring tissue repair or replacement.”


My takeaway from reading The Lancet article (and several of the accompanying writeups about the study) is, the use of RPE derived from embryonic stem cells is safe and efficacious, particularly in the eye. But most of all, this important study shows that Advanced Cell Technology is able to safely stop the progression of to-date untreatable dry AMD and SMD retinal diseases (17 of 18 patients) and to improve the vision in those who have lost considerable sight (10 of 18 patients).

Finally, the two clinical trials that are reported on in The Lancet, were done on patients with nothing to lose (with vision no better than 20/400), whereas patients in the Phase IIa study, still in progress, have vision no worse than 20/100. It is anticipated that even better results will be shown with this better vision group.

References:

1. ACT Announces Positive Results from Two Clinical Trials Published in The Lancet Using Differentiated Stem Cell-Derived Retinal Pigment Epithelium (RPE) Cells for the Treatment of Macular Degeneration, ACT Press Release, October 14, 2014

2. Human embryonic stem cell-derived retinal pigment epithelium in patients with age-related macular degeneration and Stargardt’s macular dystrophy: follow-up of two open-label phase 1/2 studies, Schwartz, SD, Lanza R, et al, The Lancet, Online, October 14, 2014.

Other Resources:

Encouraging New Paper on ACT Stem Cell-Based Trial for Macular Degeneration, Paul Knoepfler, Knoepfler Lab Stem Cell Blog, October 14, 2014

Embryonic Stem Cells Restore Vision In Preliminary Human Test, Rob Stein, NPR Health Blog, October 14, 2014


Disclosure: As of September 17, 2014, I own a small number of shares of the company’s stock.



Friday, June 9, 2017

The Most Popular Cold Sore Medicines That Are Available


By Jane Perone


If you are infected with the HSV-1 virus, the virus that causes cold sore outbreaks, you most likely will want to find a cold sore medication that will work for you. Unfortunately, there are very few medications that have been shown to be effective in treating cold sores.

In order to treat the cold sore infection caused by the Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV-1), the FDA has approved many medications.

You will want to consult with your doctor to find the cold sore medication that is right for you. Let's take a look at the different medications your physician may recommend.

If you have repeated outbreaks your doctor may prescribe an antiviral medication to help with these occurrences. Although antiviral drugs can not cure cold sores, they certainly can help to curb the symptoms and shorten the duration of outbreaks.
Cold Sore Medication
Many patients also report a decrease in size of the blisters and a reduction in the number of blisters experienced during an outbreak when they are on an antiviral medication.

There are gels and cremes that can be placed directly on the affected area, these formulas usually help to only relieve the pain and discomfort associated with the symptoms.

Once you have contracted the Herpes virus, you will have cold sores for the rest of your life-- because there is no cold sore cure.

You can easily get rid of cold sore symptoms within as little as two days by taking another FDA-approved medication known as Famcyclovir. The key to success in curing cold mouth sores is starting treatment immediately as you feel the cold sore symptoms.

As you can see, if you suffer from cold sore outbreaks, you really do not have a lot of options when it comes to finding a cold sore medication to treat the virus. You will want to work with your doctor to determine if an antiviral medication might help, or if an over the counter option will work.

You most likely will also want to pick up one of the topical over the counter medications to help with the symptoms you will experience during an outbreak.




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Saturday, May 27, 2017

What Are The Best Ways To Lose Weight Fast


By Juno Templeton


Have you made drastic efforts to discover what is the best way to lose weight fast recently but have shown little success, it could have been the type of diet that was not right for you. Frantically looking for a diet pill that could somehow automatically burn the unwanted fat away will not work either. A very important thing you can do is to make an effort to find a weight loss program that would be best for you. This can take doing a little considerable reading and studying on your part.

If you find research a bit tedious and arduous and you don't want to hear another statement about a weight loss program, I have a little bit of good news for you. Today, I have prepared to focus on 5 categories of foods that are slaughtering your efforts to lose weight. These kinds of foods are keeping you from losing weight and you have not figured it until now! When you are ready to wean yourself off of these types of food, you certainly will start to see the fat burn off without resorting to another diet program or fat loss gimmick again.

Whenever you stop eating the foods that reduces your chances of reaching your ideal weight and start eating the foods which can burn fat, you will probably start to see leg, thigh, and arm fat come off rather quickly; and quick weight loss schemes will be in your rear view mirror for good. You will definitely even start to feel and look younger with more energy.

One of the key conditions to seeking out to what is the best way to lose weight fast is to eat foods that help build muscle. Plenty of muscle tissue can help to burn fat. It's safe to eat proteins and carbohydrates. You just basically need to discover which ones. You can add weight loss supplements to your weight loss diet as long as they are all naturally-occurring and free of man-made chemicals. Now, let's talk about the four to five foods that are keeping you resembling something like the Michelin Man.

Firstly, you need to stop drinking a lot of liquid calories. Fruit drinks, soft drinks, and alcoholic beverages are the causes. Every one of these tasty beverages are nothing but sugar. They usually have very little minerals and vitamins if any for the body.

Even the majority of the self proclaimed good for your body fruit juices are packed with artificial chemicals, sugars, and salts. Food products that have an incredibly high content of refined sugar, sodium chloride, and synthetic preservatives can have detrimental effects on your blood sugar and encourage the storage of extra fat.

I realize you know this more or less but pre-cooked food is a no-no. Some highly processed foods to avoid are dried fruits, store bought pastries, and chicken nuggets. A lot of these foods are in most cases piled to the hilt with high fructose corn syrup and artificial preservatives that will at some point lead to being obese, developing diabetes, and high blood pressure.

Types of foods that are heavy laden with trans fats ought to be avoided like a tax audit. Trans fat meal items add to unhealthy cholesterol levels that may bring about heart problems at a later time. Various trans fat foods you don't want to buy are some frozen foods, cake frosting, and breakfast sandwiches.

The two remaining categories of foods you will want to eat somewhat sparingly are baked breads and pastas. You can still enjoy these foods but make sure they are made with wholesome grains. Take into account, diets that work usually are not fashion or gimmicky diets.

Fad diets will do one of two things. One, they will build your desires and hope to extreme and the other, they will leave you forlorn and defeated. The founders of these diet plans will try to come up with convincing arguments on how easy it is for losing weight fast in a minimal amount of time. But what they fail to tell you is that some of their methods will cause more grief than gravy for your health.




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Sunday, April 30, 2017

What Are The Causes Symptoms And Treatments For Low Back Pain


By Jimmy D McCaffs


The lower back connects the upper and lower portions of our frame. This results in it bearing most of the weight of the body. Therefore, it is relatively easy to hurt this area when twisting, reaching, or lifting. Nearly everyone experiences low back pain at some time and causes, symptoms, and treatments vary from one person to the next. Learn more about what contributes to this type of pain, how to identify it, and treatment methods including spinal manipulations.

Pain in the low back can be experienced anywhere from above the upper legs to below the ribs. Experts in health care have not identified a specific single cause but note that everything from a spinal problem to aging can be contributing factors. A muscle strain, protruding disc, degenerative arthritis or other injury can cause a flare-up of pain in the lower portion of the back. Even an organic illness can lead to lower back pain that can persist if left untreated.

Symptoms are typically dependent upon the cause of the condition. Pain may be sharp or dull and concentrated in a particular area or spread over the entire lower back. Some people experience muscle spasms when they have flare-ups. The condition can affect the legs, causing tingling, pain, or even numbness in the upper legs and knees. If nerves at the end of the spinal cord are squeezed, a serious condition called cauda equina syndrome may occur.

Most pain in the lower back is acute, meaning short-lived, so it will heal on its own within a few days to a few weeks. However, people who are under more mental or physical stress may experience chronic pain, which is long-lasting. The Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, a research journal specializing in the study of the spine, reports that patients with chronic pain in the low back generally experience positive results from chiropractic care and patients with acute pain recover even faster.

Whether pain in the back is acute or chronic, chiropractic care involving hands-on manipulation of the spine performed by a qualified health professional, called a Doctor of Chiropractic, can provide relief by aligning the structures of the spine. This safe, cost effective treatment restores proper movement to the spine and pelvis. Maintenance visits, proper exercise, and a healthy diet and lifestyle should prolong the positive results.

Once an individual experiences low back pain, the situation is more likely to reoccur. After providing treatment, a chiropractor will recommend preventative measures including sleeping on the side, exhibiting good posture, and avoiding sitting or standing for long periods. By following a healthy lifestyle and seeking chiropractic treatment when necessary, anyone can avoid pain in the lower back.




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Thursday, April 20, 2017

Sufferers Are Having Shoulder Pain Relief Accelerated By Chiropractic In Pasco County


By Christian Bordner


If someone is suffering from shoulder pain there are numerous possible reasons for it. It may have been an accident or a degenerative disease such as arthritis. Reports from Pasco County chiropractic indicate that some conditions make it impossible for the client to raise a hand or carry an object with the affected arm.

A joint deformity is another possibility. That condition is caused by an injury. Pain may strike when you are not moving. Bruising and swelling are possible as well as fever. Care plans are dependent on the reason for the pain. A chiropractor is qualified to evaluate the severity and cause of the hurting.

Someone who is interested in medication free and non invasive care will turn to chiropractic. The first, and probably most important step is the evaluation. When the root cause is identified a care plan can be created.

Ice packs may be applied in some cases. In others heating pads are used. The professional evaluation will indicate how to care for your hurtful shoulder condition.

One common pain relief method is an application of ice packs. Another is application of a heating pad. Your chiropractor will decide which is appropriate in your case. Sometimes stretching exercises help alleviate the pain. Other times it will make it worse.

During your first appointment with a chiropractor that evaluation will help decide on which type of care is appropriate. You will answer questions and be physically examined. There may be range of motion testing and assessing the strength of the muscles that are affected.

Referred pain from the neck and middle back is a common possible cause. The chiropractor may examine those areas first. Excruciating pain may be the result if caused by rotor cuff tendinitis, rotor cuff tear or bursitis. Any one of those are a source of severe pain.

The person with calcium deposits in a tendon have a condition called calcific tendinitis. There are other reasons for shoulder pain. The original evaluation made by the chiropractor leads to the best possible care.




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Saturday, April 15, 2017

Are floaters in the eye caused by stress


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Wednesday, March 15, 2017

What Are The Risks Of Doing HIIT


Today we are going to be looking into HIIT to help you get more from your workouts. Too many fitness enthusiasts suffer unnecessary setbacks in the gym because they are not taking the time to weigh up the possible risks beforehand.

We live in an impatient world. A world where gym users rush into buying products like creatine with no idea what it actually does for them.

Like all forms of training, interval training comes with a certain element of risk and it should be assessed before you attempt it. [
See the top 5 types of hiit sessions and what they are designed for.
]

The overwhelming majority of gym users who wish to adopt this method into their workout program are more interested in the potential fat loss benefits it could yield. However, it would be foolish to jump in without first addressing the two most common risks. They are:

1) What is the recommended frequency for interval training?

2) How can you avoid unnecessary injuries?

Do not make the common gym mistake of presuming that more means better. In fact, your body needs adequate time to recover from each workout you perform and it is during these rest periods that your muscles grow bigger and stronger. If you choose to cut these rest periods out of your schedule and train every single day you run the risk of damaging your results rather than helping them.

You may have heard that the top fat loss benefit of interval training is EPOC, also known as the afterburn. This is the process by which your body will continue to burn off more calories after your leave the gym. It lasts for up to fourteen hours in total, meaning you should allow adequate rest between each workout if you want to get the most from this desirable phase. Because of this recovery period it is recommended that you perform no more than three hit workouts in any given week.

Injuries can occur during high intensity workouts, making this particular style of exercise a very dangerous thing to throw into your program if you don't take the time you research it beforehand. Usually this is due to lack of warm-up exercises.

A warm-up need only take five minutes and the benefits are clear. However, we live in an impatient world where folks want to get in and out of the gym as quickly as humanly possible and this sometimes means skipping the warm-up and cool-down sessions. Much like if you tried using whey protein or creatine supplements without researching them first. this only comes back to haunt you and your hiit sessions will suffer as a result.




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By Russ Hollywood






Saturday, March 4, 2017

These Things Are Actually Making People Get Smoking Cessation Programs


By Amy Robinson


There are plenty of reasons why people smoke. No matter how one is use to it are basically taking its toll on the health and lifestyle of individuals. Its why most individuals are thinking to solve this one.

Services are actually out there now which are trained and disciplined for such an expertise and basically what users would need. Smoking Cessation Programs Pioneer Valley MA is the number one thing to solve cases. By this, it has helped a lot of people so check out details in here and get to know more out of it.

Smoking is one habit that is bad for anyone else, users and the surrounding mass alike but are still in high demand in the industry and of the current age. Using it a lot will risk anyone on its dependence which exposes to very serious problems. Health is a major issue here which is why solutions must be taken over.

To make sure that everything is in proper result, it would eventually let anyone go through the same treatment over and over again. There is also a need to rehab individuals from using such a substance to stabilize the solution itself. When it is hard to stop, it is actually a good thing to have it over time.

Without doing such then it would be greatly affect the individuals and trigger sickness once the health deteriorates when time comes. Individuals are much ill tempered and hungrier when people quits when time requires them to. This is why treatments are really good resolution for such a case.

Many different kinds of treatments can be done by professionals in this matter which involves the person who smokes a lot. For that very one, they would get to diagnose and heavily go through each process of such. However, it would lower the risk for cancer within years of quitting and lessens any ailments out there.

Counseling can also be done especially when it happens over the clinic or centers where a physician is present. In this case, users can get to speak out their feelings whereas professionals can suggest and even advice things in such a regard. Through that, anyone can work with someone who can really help a lot.

Medications are now available for anyone that wants effectiveness especially for this particular type of setting. There are ways to get it though and anyone can buy these things off from any establishment, such a nicotine patch and any other substitutes out there. These are the products that are actually cheaper and lower in costs for a regular basis.

There are occurrences in this kind of situation and basically as these some things that will brighten up someones life a little bit. It supports the very thing that anyone would need in this kind of change. There are several websites out there that one can actually read information to help clear things out a bit.




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Thursday, February 2, 2017

Aging Diabetes and Yoga Stereotypes That Are Truly Dangerous


by Melitta Rorty
Tracks by Brad Gibson
When most people think of diabetes, they think of diabetes associated with obesity (particularly abdominal obesity) and older age. When the mass media uses the term diabetes, it almost always is in reference to Type 2 diabetes, but never stated as such. Yet fully 20-25% of all cases of diabetes are Type 1 diabetes, formerly called juvenile diabetes, which is an autoimmune disease that can occur at any age, including in the elderly, and which requires exogenous insulin for survival.

The stereotypes, widely held both by the general public and medical doctors, are that Type 1 diabetes is strictly a childhood disease and Type 2 diabetes is a consequence of older age and obesity. A particular danger for those who acquire Type 1 diabetes as adults is that they will be misdiagnosed as having Type 2 diabetes, an altogether different disease with different genetics, causes, treatments, and potential cures. The consequences of misdiagnosis are extreme:  rapid onset of diabetic complications and even death.  Fully 10% of people diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes have the autoantibody markers for Type 1 autoimmune diabetes and have been misdiagnosed; that equates to millions of people in the United States alone who are misdiagnosed.

I, myself, experienced the harsh reality of misdiagnosis. In 1995, at the age of 35, I was hospitalized in diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), but because of my age, I was misdiagnosed as having Type 2 diabetes (by an endocrinologist who is a medical school professor), despite having zero risk factors for Type 2 diabetes. I was removed from life-saving intravenous (IV) insulin and released from the hospital, treated only with oral medications for Type 2 diabetes, a disease that I do not have.  Thankfully, I remained misdiagnosed for only about a week, because in that time I read all the literature about diabetes that was provided to me at the hospital, and realized that the symptoms I had (extreme weight loss, diabetic ketoacidosis, blood glucose 7 times normal, massive ketones in urine) were that of Type 1 diabetes and not Type 2 diabetes. When I confronted the endocrinologist who (mis)diagnosed me, to his credit he admitted he had made a mistake and apologized. Then he changed my diagnosis to Type 1 diabetes and put me on exogenous insulin. Since that time, I have come to know hundreds of others who have been similarly misdiagnosed, and I have worked diligently to dispel the myth that Type 1 autoimmune diabetes is a childhood disease.

Sadly, not much has changed since 1995 and misdiagnosis is still extremely common today, in spite of widely available diagnostic tests that can assist with obtaining a correct diagnosis.  As stated in a recent Wall Street Journal article on the problem of misdiagnosis,

"Most of my [adult Type 1 patients] have been misdiagnosed as having Type 2," says Robin Goland, co-director of the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. "Once the right diagnosis is made the patient feels much, much better, but they are distrustful of doctors and who could blame them?"

In the United States, a medical doctor faces no repercussions if he/she misdiagnosis a person as having Type 2 diabetes when in reality the person has adult-onset Type 1 diabetes. The governing bodies (the Expert Committee on the Diagnosis and Classification of Diabetes Mellitus; the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists) describe the different diseases that fall under the umbrella term “diabetes,” but they do not identify any protocols for differentiating amongst the different diseases. So there is no requirement to diagnose, classify, and appropriately treat the different diseases that fall under the term “diabetes.” If there were a standard or guideline, doctors would be held accountable to the minimum standard of care:  anything less would be malpractice. From my perspective, the lack of guidelines appears to be about limiting medical liability, not about enhancing patient care and saving lives.

If you or someone you care about has been diagnosed with diabetes and for any reason you suspect it may not be Type 2 diabetes, request that your doctor run autoantibody tests and the c-peptide test. Dr. Lou Philipson, Director of the Kovler Diabetes Center (University of Chicago) says:

“What I teach is that it is always important to ask oneself why a given patient has diabetes and what kind they have [Type 1, Type 2, or another form of diabetes]. Do not assume. If you have doubts, get another opinion, or get a referral to a see a specialist. Persistence can be life-saving.”

How does all this relate to yoga and healthy aging? I started practicing yoga six months before my first symptoms of diabetes. When I was newly diagnosed, I was in extreme despair—I thought my life was ruined. But yoga saved my life then by allowing me some space and freedom from constant thoughts about my disease. And yoga continues to save my life today by helping me stay calm and focused despite the daily grind of self-care that those of us with Type 1 diabetes must do. I recommend yoga to anyone who has to live with the stress of chronic illness.

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