"Diabulimia" in Type 1 Diabetes

According to the National Eating Disorders Association, eating disorders — such as anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder — include extreme emotions, attitudes and behaviors surrounding weight and food issues. Eating disorders are serious emotional and physical problems that can have life-threatening consequences for females and males.

Women with type 1 diabetes are more than twice as likely to develop an eating disorder than age-matched women without diabetes.

Eating disorders in type 1 diabetes such as "diabulimia," as it is known in the popular press, represent some of the most complex patient problems—both medically and psychologically.
Women with eating disorders and diabetes typically struggle with symptoms similar to those of women with eating disorders who do not have diabetes.  However, they exhibit a very dangerous symptom of calorie purging in the form of insulin restriction.
This condition is characterized by weight and body image concerns that lead to the mismanagement of diabetes.

The NHS National Diabetes Audit says a high proportion of women aged between 15 and 30 are skipping insulin injections to lose weight. Now a charity wants diabulimia, as it is known, officially recognised as a mental health condition.

"Between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2011, 8,472 people included in the NDA [national diabetes audit] were admitted to hospital in the UK for diabetic ketoacidosis."

November 2011- Health Observations and Events

Awareness Event	Coverage	Related Organization
Muscular Dystrophy Awareness Month	Australia	Muscular Dystrophy Australia
Crohn's and Colitis Awareness Month	Canada	Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of Canada
Amaryllis Month	Canada	Huntington Society of Canada
Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation Awareness (CPR) Month	Canada	Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada
Diabetes Awareness Month	Canada	Canadian Diabetes Association
Hemophilia Awareness Month	Canada	Canadian Hemophilla Society
Osteoporosis Month	Canada	Osteoporosis Canada
National Marrow Awareness Month	United States	National Marrow Donor Program
National Hospice Month	United States	The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization
Diabetic Eye Disease Month	United States	Prevent Blindness America
National Healthy Skin Month	United States	American Academy of Dermatology
Prematurity Awareness Month	United States	March of Dimes
National Epilepsy Month	United States	Epilepsy Foundation
American Diabetes Month	United States	American Diabetes Association
Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month	United States	Pancreatic Cancer Action Network
National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month	United States	Alzheimer's Association
Pulmonary Hypertension Awareness Month	United States	Pulmonary Hypertension Association
Lung Cancer Awareness Month	Worldwide	Macmillan Cancer Support

November 2011 Health Current Events - Weeks

Event	Date	Nation	Organisation
Scleroderma Awareness Week	3rd Nov - 9th Nov	United Kingdom	Raynauds & Scleroderma Association
Mouth Cancer Awareness Week	11th Nov - 17th Nov	United Kingdom	Mouth Cancer
GERD Awareness Week	18th Nov - 24th Nov	Worldwide	IFFGD
Diabetes Awareness Week	18th Nov - 24th Nov	New Zealand	Diabetes New Zealand

November 2011 Health Events - Days

Event	Date	Nation	Organization
World Diabetes Day	14th Nov	Worldwide	World Diabetes Day
Great American Smokeout Day	20th Nov	United States	American Cancer Society

The Benefits of Flax Seeds

Flax (also known as common flax or linseed) (binomial name: Linum usitatissimum)  is native to the region extending from the eastern Mediterranean to India and was extensively cultivated in ancient Ethiopia and ancient Egypt.
Some call it one of the most powerful plant foods on the planet. There’s some evidence it may help reduce your risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes. 

Uses

Flax is grown both for its seeds and for its fibers. Various parts of the plant have been used to make fabric, dye, paper, medicines, fishing nets, hair gels, and soap. Flax seed is the source of linseed oil, which has uses as an edible oil, as a nutritional supplement and as an ingredient in many wood finishing products. It is also grown as an ornamental plant in gardens.

Flax seed

Flax seeds come in two basic varieties: (1) brown; and (2) yellow or golden. Most types have similar nutritional characteristics and equal amounts of short-chain omega-3 fatty acids. The exception is a type of yellow flax called solin (trade name Linola), which has a completely different oil profile and is very low in omega-3 FAs. Although brown flax can be consumed as readily as yellow, and has been for thousands of years, it is better known as an ingredient in paints, fiber and cattle feed. Flax seeds produce a vegetable oil known as flaxseed or linseed oil, which is one of the oldest commercial oils, and solvent-processed flax seed oil has been used for centuries as a drying oil in painting and varnishing.

Maggot Therapy In Unhealing Wounds

Maggot Debridement Therapy (MDT) is the medical use of live maggots (fly larvae) for treating non-healing wounds.

In maggot debridement therapy (also known as maggot therapy, larva therapy, larval therapy, biodebridement or biosurgery), disinfected fly larvae are applied to the wound for 2 or 3 days within special dressings to keep them from migrating. The literature identifies three primary actions of medical grade maggots on wounds:

1. They clean the wounds by dissolving dead and infected tissue ("debridement");
2. They disinfect the wound (kill bacteria);
3. They speed the rate of healing
   
   !! The video might be disturbing for some of you
   
   
   
   
   History of Maggot Therapy

      Maggots have been known for centuries to help heal wounds. Military surgeons noted that soldiers whose wounds became infested with maggots had better outcomes than those not infested. William Baer, while at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, may have been the first in the Northern Hemisphere to have intentionally applied larvae to wounds in order to induce wound healing. During the late 1920's, he identified specific species, raised them in the laboratory, and used their larvae to treat several children with osteomyelitis and soft tissue infections. He presented his findings at a surgical conference in 1929. Two years later, after treating 98 children, his findings were published posthumously.

The first modern clinical studies of maggot therapy were initiated in 1989, at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Long Beach, CA, and at the University of California, Irvine, to answer the following questions:

1. "Is maggot therapy still useful today?"
2. "Should maggot therapy be used as an adjunct to other treatments, not merely as a last resort?"
3. "How does maggot therapy compare to other treatments at our disposal?" 
   
   

Sleep Well - Wireless Blood Glucose Monitoring Device

         Sleep Well is a wireless blood glucose monitoring device concept, designed aiming to eliminate the sleepless nights of parents with the tension of getting their kids glucose level down to the extreme level. The system comprises a portable and lightweight monitor with an ability to take wireless signal that parents keep with them and a wearable bracelet monitor that remains fastened on the child’s hand to transmit the health condition to the monitor. This monitor allows the parents to check their kid’s health without even leaving her bed and can be set to trigger an alarm when the blood sugar level of the child crosses a particular height.         
          Moreover, parents can easily review their child’s nightly activities during the middle of the night at their bedside convenient. If an emergency situation takes place, they can rush to their child’s room with the monitor to perform the aid that has to be taken based on the information displayed on the monitor.

International holidays and observances - November 2010

• November retained its name (from the Latin novem meaning "nine"

• November is a month of spring in the Southern Hemisphere and autumn in the Northern Hemisphere. Therefore November in the Southern Hemisphere is the seasonal equivalent of May in the Northern Hemisphere and vice versa.