Weight loss critical in fight against diabetes

Steven V. Edelman, M.D., Founder and director of Taking Control of Your Diabetes - Del Mar, Calif.
Diabetes and obesity are inextricably linked medical conditions that affect Americans at epidemic levels. The proven link between these two metabolic diseases, however, was not emphasized in USA TODAY's story on the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists' new recommendations for the treatment of people with pre-diabetes, a condition that often precedes diabetes ("Pre-diabetes must be treated, doctors urge," Life, July 23).
Obesity is in large part fueling the increase of pre-diabetes and diabetes in the United States. Excess weight exacerbates health problems, such as high blood pressure and abnormal cholesterol levels in people with and without diabetes, often leading to heart disease, stroke and kidney failure, among other problems, including death.

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Gestational diabetes raises risk of type 2 diabetes

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Developing diabetes while pregnant -- what doctors call gestational diabetes -- greatly increases a woman's risk of developing type 2 diabetes later on, a new study confirms.
"Because of the high level of risk for these women, both screening for type 2 diabetes and preventive measures should be taken," Dr. Denice Feig of the University of Toronto, who was involved in the study, told Reuters Health.

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Researchers Say Women With Diabetes More Likely to Have Babies With Birth Defects

July 30, 2008 -- Women diagnosed with diabetes before their pregnancy have a higher risk of giving birth to a baby with a birth defect or multiple defects than a woman who does not have diabetes before giving birth, according to a new study.
"For single [birth] defects, the risk is three to four times greater, and about eightfold for multiple defects," says Adolfo Correa, MD, MPH, PhD, the study's lead author and an epidemiologist at the CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.

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