(CP) - Cholesterol may not just be bad for your heart.

A study suggests problems with cholesterol regulation in the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas may be responsible for the development of Type 2 (formerly known as late onset) diabetes.

The work, by scientists at Vancouver's Child and Family Research Institute, was done in mice. And the researchers would have to show that the same mechanism is seen in people.

COLUMBIA, Mo., Feb. 7 A University of Missouri-Columbia study says as little as 15 minutes a day of acute exercise can help prevent and fight diabetes.

Acute exercise is a bout of activity in which people actively participate, as opposed to activity resulting from everyday activities, according to study leader John Thyfault.

Many people can fight type 2 diabetes through diet and exercise alone, said Thyfault. It is important to ward off diabetes early. Exercise has proven to be effective at all levels. At any stage of type 2 diabetes, from an obese child to a person dependent for 20 years on insulin injections, exercise could have a dramatic effect on improving insulin sensitivity.Thyfault's study found that relatively short periods of acute muscle exercise in diabetic Zucker rats significantly increased insulin sensitivity in the previously insulin-resistant skeletal muscles.

Over all, 12.5 percent of adult New Yorkers, or more than 700,000 people have diabetes, according to a study released Tuesday by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

That is significantly higher than the 10.3 percent national rate in the United States. And in New York, about 30 percent of diabetics are unaware they have the disease -- they are not working to control the ailment and fend off devastating consequences.

What's one of the most important rules in medicine? Never take a drug if a natural and safer remedy provides the same relief. Yet millions of people take cholesterol-lowering drugs to prevent heart attacks.

This therapy comes with a price. Patients can develop muscle cramps and liver and kidney problems and some have died.

Linus Pauling, a two-time Nobel Prize winner, says a high dose of vitamin C before breakfast is a smart way to start the day.

How much you take depends on your tolerance. Too much may cause diarrhea. But most people can tolerate 2,000 milligrams. Ascorbic acid powder (vitamin C) is the least expensive way to buy this vitamin. A flat teaspoon (5,000 mg) can be mixed with orange juice.

Ten years ago Costello was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes and with that, came changes in her lifestyle including diet, exercise and a series of medications. This regimen includes Byetta, an injectable drug which has been shown to lower blood sugar and also leads to weight loss. Now new research shows how another drug called Rimonabant, has similar effects, but is taken orally.

Patients and their doctors should weigh those potential risks and benefits when choosing between the drugs, the study concludes.

The research, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, looked at 4,360 adults with type 2 diabetes. That's the most common type of diabetes in adults.

Sanofi has reported positive results for Acomplia for type II diabetes. Acomplia has been tested for weight loss, but this is the first study in which the drug was tested by itself as a treatment of type II diabetes. Patients receiving Acomplia 20 mg per day for six months significantly lowered their HbA1c levels.

The data showed that Acomplia improved blood sugar control, reduced weight and acted on other cardiometabolic risk factors. Acomplia--which is set to achieve blockbuster status--has been approved as an obesity therapy in Europe, but recently the FDA requested more information on the drug, delaying approval in the U.S. by several months.

Type 1 diabetes is a growing health problem among European children. European data indicate that the disease incidence has increased five- to six-fold among children under the age of 15 years after World War II, and there are no signs that the increase in incidence is levelling off.

The most conspicuous increase has been seen among children under the age of 5 years. The EU-funded Diabetes Prevention study is generating a wealth of information on breast-feeding practices, infant nutrition and growth in young children in various countries. Newborn infants observed in Northern Europe (NE) had a higher birth weight but a shorter birth length than infants in Central and Southern Europe (CSE).

High blood sugar is one sign that a person is on the road to diabetes. But it kills many people long before they ever get diabetes, note Goodarz Danaei, MD, of Harvard School of Public Health, and colleagues.

Moreover, blood sugar levels start causing problems once they pass the higher-than-normal level. It's not a matter of getting disease at a certain point. It's a matter of ever-increasing disease risk.

Diabetes increases your risk of Alzheimer's. Reduce this risk by controlling your blood sugar. Diet and exercise can help.

Public health officials were already concerned about the projected increase in the number of Alzheimer's cases that will occur simply because the aging baby boom generation is so large. Now they worry there may be even more Alzheimer's cases than expected.

That's because diabetes — a strong risk factor for dementias like Alzheimer's — also becomes more common with age. Type 2 diabetes, which is by far the most common form of the disease, often occurs in people who weigh too much and exercise too little — a group that includes a large proportion of baby boomers.

With some 2.9 million people suffering from diabetes without enough care nationwide, medical experts have sounded a call of awareness to the public on how to prevent the disease they dubbed as "the silent killer."

"We should be alarmed about the worsening problem of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes. It is a silent epidemic that unjustly affects the poor," Health Secretary Francisco Duque said at the Diabetes Expo 2006 held at the Megatrade Hall 1 of SM Megamall on Saturday.

Diabetes (medically known as diabetes mellitus) is a chronic metabolic disorder characterized by hyperglycemia or high blood glucose concentration.

Amylin has soared on sales of one diabetes drug. Now it's looking to extend its franchise into weight loss. Will it pay?

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The biotech Amylin is testing what could be the next blockbuster in the $40 billion market for weight loss products, or the treatment could just be a big fat flop.

The only thing for sure is that it's too early to say, meaning the biotech's bet on the weight loss drug makes the San Diego-based company a risky, long-range investment.

Amylin is experimenting with its injectable drug Symlin, which is already on the market to control blood sugar levels for diabetics, for an additional use as a weight loss drug. The biotech recently reported that Symlin reduced weight by 7 percent to 8 percent over 52 weeks in diabetics, compared to a 1 percent weight loss with a placebo. 

HealthDay News -- The estimated 20 million Americans with diabetes need to remember that simple foot care can reduce their risk of toe, foot or leg amputations, say experts at the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons (ACFAS).

People with diabetes are 10 times more likely to have a lower limb amputated than people who don't have the illness, which can cause poor blood circulation and nerve damage in the feet. This makes feet more vulnerable to ulcers, infections, deformities and brittle bones. 

The syringes represent the number of insulin injections a young diabetes sufferer is likely to have in the first 10 years of their life.

One hundred children with type one diabetes gathered with their families today to talk to parliamentarians to ask for their support for research into a cure for the condition.

But the scientists -- who included H. Fallah Huseini, PhD, of the Institute of Medicinal Plants in Tehran, Iran -- aren't recommending the extract to patients just yet.

Instead, they call for further studies to probe milk thistle's effects.

Their report appears online in Phytotherapy Research.

"The results are very encouraging, and now we need to do further large multi-centre studies," Huseini says in a news release from the journal's publisher.

ISLAMABAD - Taking cod liver oil early in life appears to reduce the chances that children will develop insulin-dependent ("type 1") diabetes, researchers report. The protection may possibly come from the anti-inflammatory effects of long-chain n-3 fatty acids found in cod liver oil.

"In Norway, cod liver oil is an important source of dietary vitamin D and the long-chain n-3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)," according to Dr. Lars C. Stene, of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, in Oslo, and colleagues.

All these nutrients "have biological properties of potential relevance for the prevention of type 1 diabetes," they explain in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

SARASOTA, Fla., Oct. 30 (UPI) -- A cinnamon extract reduces oxidative stress associated with the metabolic syndrome linked to diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, a U.S. study found.

The placebo-controlled, double-blind study was designed to determine both the antioxidant and insulin-like activity of a water-based cinnamon extract on people with impaired insulin function.

Twenty-four participants with impaired fasting glucose were given either a placebo or 250 mg of Cinnulin PF twice daily for 12 weeks. The Cinnulin PF group saw a significant increase in two measures that determine antioxidant activity, including ferric reducing ability of plasma and plasma SH. Additionally, the cinnamon group demonstrated a decrease in malondialdehde showing heart health protection. No changes were observed in the placebo group, according to study leader Dr. Anne-Marie Rousel.

Background: Islet transplantation offers the potential to improve glycemic control in a subgroup of patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus who are disabled by refractory hypoglycemia. We conducted an international, multicenter trial to explore the feasibility and reproducibility of islet transplantation with the use of a single common protocol (the Edmonton protocol).

Methods: We enrolled 36 subjects with type 1 diabetes mellitus, who underwent islet transplantation at nine international sites. Islets were prepared from pancreases of deceased donors and were transplanted within 2 hours after purification, without culture. The primary end point was defined as insulin independence with adequate glycemic control 1 year after the final transplantation.

Diabetes is a fact of life for millions. According to figures from the American Diabetes Association, more than 17 million Americans are living with diabetes, and 16 million of them have type 2 (formerly known as adult onset diabetes).

Diabetes can cause health problems throughout the body, but those who have type 2 can do a lot about improving their own health by keeping a careful watch on their nutrition.

People with diabetes can live long, healthy lives if they take good care of themselves – particularly by controlling blood glucose levels through good nutrition.

- study shows

There is more evidence that the American love affair with coffee is helping to reduce the risk of diabetes.

Drinking caffeinated coffee was found to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by as much as 60% in a newly published study that included people at high risk for the disease.

Even those who used to drink coffee but quit were less likely to develop diabetes than those who never drank it.

Carrying two copies of a common variant of a particular gene doubles your chances of developing diabetes and puts you in a similar risk category to being clinically obese, according to a collaborative study led by UCL (University College London) researchers.

The collaborative team led by UCL Professor Steve Humphries studied the TCF7L2 gene, which was discovered to be implicated in diabetes earlier this year by a group working in Iceland. The new study followed healthy middle-aged men in the UK for 15 years, and found that carrying a common variant of the gene increased their risk of developing diabetes by 50 per cent. Carrying two copies of the variant gene increased the risk two-fold, to nearly 100 per cent. In the population as a whole, the impact of this gene on the risk of developing diabetes is as big as the problem of being clinically obese (having a body mass index over 30).

A new systematic review calls into the question the health benefits versus risks of an oral medicine widely prescribed for diabetes throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia.

The drug -- called pioglitazone -- is marketed in the United States by Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America, Inc., and Eli Lilly and Co. under the trade name Actos.

Your diabetes diet is an important part of your treatment plan. Consider the latest guidelines for diabetes nutrition.

When you have diabetes, diet plays a key role in controlling blood sugar. You probably already know the cornerstones of any diabetes diet — moderate portions of healthy foods and regular mealtimes. Now, new guidelines from the American Diabetes Association can help you make even better choices about what you eat.

Here's a quick look at the latest recommendations, including how to incorporate the basics into your own diabetes diet.

Food labels can be an essential tool for diabetes meal planning. Here's what to look for when comparing food labels.

When you have diabetes, your diet is an important part of your treatment plan. And of course you know what you're eating — a turkey sandwich, a glass of skim milk, a sugar-free fudge pop. But do you pay attention to the details? Reading food labels can help you make the best choices.