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Phil Southerland and Joe Eldridge, founders of Team Type 1
Team Type 1 wins the race across America!
“I used to feel like an athlete with type 1 diabetes. Now, I feel like an athlete.” – Monique Hanley
On June 12, Team Type 1 began the 3,043-mile Race Across America to show the world that “diabetics can do anything and everything that non-diabetics can do,” in the words of Team Type 1 founder Phil Southerland. We’ve been rooting for the team ever since it got started, and after five days, 15 hours, and 43 minutes, they clinched first place. The second place team came in nearly a day behind. Team Type 1 wore the yet-to-be-approved Navigator continuous glucose monitor as well as Insulet Omnipod disposable insulin pumps filled with Apidra. Said team member Monique Hanley recently, “I used to feel like an athlete with type 1 diabetes. Now I feel like an athlete.” Very telling. Read more about Monique, Phil, and Team Type 1 Southerland by clicking here or go to the Team Type 1 website.
Novo Nordisk and power to the people
The Changing Diabetes Bus rolled onto the scene in June, for the US segment of its tour around the world. After a trek through Europe, Africa, Australia, Asia, and Canada, the bus and team looked as good as new. In Chicago, on the same sunny weekend as the big ADA meeting, the bus was parked at Navy Pier with the Changing Diabetes Village built around it. CBS and ABC cameras rolled as the Chief Medical Officer of Novo Nordisk Alan Moses introduced the event, along with Chicago’s public health commissioner Terry Mason, and, drawing the most attention, Bears’ head coach Lovie Smith. All were incredibly inspiring. Smith talked about the devastation type 2 diabetes has caused for his family and how critical teamwork is to conquer the disease. The best advice: take your parents out for a walk sometime. The event was excellent, with free fruit and ice cream, an art station for kids, and an impressive health screening station to find out your blood pressure, glucose level, and cholesterol levels. Check this Web site to see when the bus is coming to you. We saw another Novo Nordisk exhibit at ADA as well, a traveling photography exhibit produced by Rick Smolan, a former Time, Life, and National Geographic photographer; the show is called Meet the Face of Change. A lively opening the same weekend at ADA revealed super sized photographs of real people with type 2 diabetes who are making changes to live better with their diabetes. You can enter too, for a chance to have your story told, up until September 30th.
Rudy Moyado next to his portraits at Meet the Face of Change
Beware selenium supplements
Coffee, wine, saccharin, cell phone radio waves… Our ideas of what’s good and bad for us are often outdated. It may interest the few on selenium supplements that these antioxidants are falling out of favor. The body needs selenium in very small doses. For some time, selenium supplements have been advertised as a tool for improving glucose metabolism and preventing type 2 diabetes (because of encouraging studies in animals). It turns out just the opposite may be true. A study recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that over seven years, people who take selenium supplements are about two and a half times more likely to develop diabetes. Whether a subject received supplements was based on his starting selenium level. It also turned out unsurprisingly that the risk of developing diabetes was also higher in participants who had high starting selenium levels. We must point out that the onset of diabetes was self-reported by participants - no blood glucose tests were done. Nevertheless, talk to your doctor if you’re considering selenium supplements. They’re at best iffy, especially given, as the study noted, that the risk for selenium deficiency in the US is negligible given our diets.
People aren't the only ones who need help with weight loss
In a world focused on the dire problem of human obesity and type 2 diabetes, it's good to know that someone's also looking out for… dogs. Yes, that's right. Pfizer Animal Health announced on June 12 that the FDA has approved Slentrol, the first prescription drug for the treatment of canine obesity in the United States. It seems that pets really are a reflection of their owners; Pfizer estimates that up to 25% to 40% of US dogs (about 17 million) are overweight or obese (that's actually a lower percentage than their owners). Not sure if your pudgy pup is at risk of heart disease? Check out Pfizer’s StopCanineObesity website which comes complete with a Body Assessment Rating for Canines or BARC calculator (think of it as the dog version of BMI), to help owners decide if their pets are overweight or obese. Time to pay a visit to the vet!