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Diabetes: Are you at risk?

Are you at risk for diabetes? Are you one of about 25% of those with diabetes who don't yet know they have the disease? A few minutes of time is all it takes to answer these very important questions.

Risk factors for type 1 diabetes are mainly family history and genetics. Also, race can play a factor, as caucasian people have a higher risk for developing type 1 diabetes than black, Asian or Hispanic people.

On the other hand, some risk factors for type 2 diabetes can be controlled. Those risk factors include:

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Breath Test May Screen for Diabetes

A breath test can spot someone whose metabolism is not handling glucose properly, indicating that he or she runs the risk of becoming diabetic, scientists report.

For the test, the subject drinks a solution of glucose labeled with a short-lived radioisotope, carbon-13. A breath analyzer then measures the amount of exhaled carbon dioxide labeled with carbon-13.

"This novel breath test method may assist in recognition of pre-diabetes or early-stage diabetes in at-risk persons without the need for invasive blood sampling, thus making it an attractive option for large-scale testing of at-risk populations, such as children," the researchers write in the medical journal Diabetes Care.

To test the method, Dr. Melinda Sheffield-Moore, at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and her colleagues collected blood and breath samples from 17 subjects every 30 minutes for 10 hours after they consumed a drink containing radiolabeled glucose. The team measured glucose level in the blood samples and the ratio of labeled-to-unlabeled carbon dioxide in the breath samples.

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Studies point to viruses as cause of diabetes

LONDON (Reuters) - Two studies published on Thursday provide evidence that common viruses may cause childhood diabetes, paving the way for potential vaccines against the life-threatening condition, researchers said.

One team showed that enteroviruses -- which normally cause colds, vomiting or diarrhea -- were found frequently in the pancreases of young people who had recently died from type 1 diabetes, sometimes called juvenile diabetes, but not in healthy samples.

This suggests a virus could trigger the disease in children genetically predisposed to the condition, which affects an estimated 440,000 people worldwide, said Alan Foulis of the Royal Infirmary in Glasgow, who worked on one of the studies.

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