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Many health problems are accociated with diabetes complications. This chronic illness can cause high blood sugar levels, which in turn can lead to the damaging

The pathobiology of diabetic complications: a unifying mechanism. Brownlee M. Diabetes. 2005 Jun;54(6):1615-25. PMID: 15919781 doi: 10.2337/diabetes.54.6.1615

de Lorgeril M, Salen P, Martin J-L, Monjaud I, Delaye J, Mamelle N:\nMediterranean diet, traditional risk factors and the rate of\ncardiovascular complications after myocardial infarction. Final report of the Lyon Diet Heart Study.\nCirculation 1999, Febr

ScienceDaily (May 12, 2009) - Taking folic acid supplements for at least a year before conception is associated with reduction in the risk of premature birth, according to a study by Radek Bukowski (from the University of Texas Medical Branch, United States of America) and colleagues. Although most pregnancies last about 40 weeks, many babies (for example around 12% in the United States) are born before 37 completed weeks of pregnancy. Babies born prematurely are less likely to survive than full-term babies and are more likely to have breathing difficulties and learning or developmental disabilities. Currently, there are no effective methods of prevention or treatment of premature (preterm) birth, but previous studies have suggested that lower concentrations of folate (folic acid) are associated with shorter duration of pregnancy. Bukowski and colleagues therefore tested this idea, by analyzing data collected from a cohort of nearly 35,000 pregnant women. The results of this study showed that taking folate supplements for at least one year before conception was associated with a 70% reduction in spontaneous premature birth between 20 and 28 weeks (a reduction from 0.27% to 0.04%), and a 50% reduction between 28 and 32 weeks (reduction from 0.38% to 0.18%), as compared to the rate of preterm birth when mothers did not take additional folate supplementation. Folate supplementation for less than a year before conception was not linked to a reduction in the risk of premature birth in this study, and folate supplementation was not associated with any other complications of pregnancy. In a related commentary also published in this week's PLoS Medicine, Nicholas Fisk from the University of Brisbane, Australia, and colleagues (who were not involved in the original study) say "Methodologically, the study has several strengths... It is based on a huge dataset, with prospective recording of dietary supplements and potential confounders, and gestational age determined accu

TUESDAY, April 14 (HealthDay News) -- A particular type of stem cell transplantation using the patient's own cells led to short-term freedom from insulin injections in 20 of 23 patients newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes participating in an experimental protocol in Brazil. One patient even managed to go four years without needing outside sources of insulin, although the average was 31 months, said the authors of a report in the April 15 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a themed issue on diabetes. The patients also kept their blood sugar under control, which is key to preventing complications from diabetes. And, the authors stated, increased C-peptide levels indicated that the pancreas' beta cells were alive and well.

This one targets the elderly.