An open letter from DDD (Digital Device Dependent)
Dear Steve Jobs,
I’m writing to you on behalf of millions of people who walk around wired to little tech devices and won’t leave the house without them. No, I’m not talking about the iPod – and that’s the point. While your brilliant product line enhances the lifestyle of (100) millions, I’m talking about the little devices that keep us alive, the people with chronic conditions.
Let’s talk about diabetes, the disease that affects 20 million Americans, and I’m one of them.
Whether blood glucose monitor or insulin pump, thanks to the achievements of medical device companies, we can now live a normal life by constantly monitoring and adjusting our blood sugar levels.
But have you seen these things? They make a Philips GoGear Jukebox HDD1630 MP3 Player look pretty! And it’s not only that: most of these devices are clunky, make weird alarm sounds, are more or less hard to use, and burn quickly through batteries. In other words: their design doesn’t hold a candle to the iPod.
Most people on this planet can’t agree on much, but most do agree that Apple knows how to design outstanding high-tech devices. It’s your core expertise. It’s your brand. It’s you and Jonathan Ive.
We are, of course, deeply grateful to the medical device industry for keeping us alive. Where would we be without them? But while they’re still struggling with shrinking complex technologies down to a scale where we can attach them, hard-wired, to our bodies, design kinda becomes an afterthought.
Read more: diabetesmine.com
January 10 2010 | Open Letter | No Comments »
Diabetic Recall Program is a pilot project spearheaded by Vancouver Island Health Authority in the West Coast General Hospital ’s microbiology lab. The lab may be closing but the really terrific work being done in the laboratory are still positively things taking place at the facility. Pam Ganske.Ganske, the director of laboratory medicine for the Vancouver Island said that the concerned outcry over the lab closure will overshadow the really positive news in diabetes management. The numbers swell to nearly 500 and the program originally enrolled 249 patients in November. Among First Nations people, Port Alberni and the West Coast have a high rate of diabetes. With cure in mind, the Diabetic Recall Program helps them to manage their disease. Patients undergo an HbA1 test under the program. It is being funded bu PRIISME-GlaxoSmithKline.
December 10 2009 | General | No Comments »
Having diabetes during pregnancy cause certain risk such as miscarriage, stillbirth or birth defects. That’s why years ago, doctors are advising women who are diagnosed with diabetes not to get pregnant. However, these threats or risks can be reduced through proper observation and intake control of sugar. It’s better to consult your doctor and have a complete medical checkup if you plan to get pregnant to identify any complications. At the same time to avoid any impediment during pregnancy, be sure to achieve proper diet, have a regular exercise (consult your doctor about this), control of insulin, and watching signs of dangerous fluctuations in glucose.
November 01 2009 | Research | No Comments »
Diabetes is commonly recognized as one of the leading causes of death and disability. In fact, it ranked as the sixth leading cause of death in 2002. It is associated with long-term complications that have an effect on every part of the body. Diabetes often leads to blindness, heart and blood vessel disease, stroke, kidney failure, amputations, and nerve damage. Likewise, unrestrained diabetes can complicate pregnancy, and birth defects can occur to babies. Currently, the US has allotted a budget for diabetes patients. Indirect costs includes disability payments, time lost from work, and premature death while direct medical costs for diabetes are care, hospitalizations, and treatment supplies.
October 18 2009 | General | No Comments »
Oral hygiene is important. Not only because of the different oral diseases that may arise, but also that of diseases that are not “oral” in nature but are connected with oral hygiene such as diabetes.
Yes, diabetes is in fact linked with oral hygiene according to the latest report in Current Medical Research and Opinion, a UK medical journal. This was confirmed by an American periodontist, Dr. Ray Williams, stating that dentists and physicians need to collaborate more on their findings to determine the connection of oral hygiene and diabetes. It is said that orienting the people about the do’s and don’ts of maintaining good oral hygiene can lead to a lot of health benefits.
Photo taken from http://www.smilebuilderz.com
September 13 2009 | Information | No Comments »
There is a new discovery made Nature Genetics: a certain gene is responsible in making your waistline’s circumference big, your weight increasing and for you to have type 2 diabetes. As we all know, obesity is linked with diabetes as obese people have a high insulin resistance, therefore, making them vulnerable to type 2 diabetes.
The gene discovered is most common to the Indian Asian race than those with European ancestry. This discovery can in fact help minimize, if not eliminate, obesity and diabetes amongst the people. It is said that half the population has this kind of genetic sequence, ergo, making this discovery vital to the human race if pursued and developed.
Photo taken from http://www.scottish-enterprise.com
August 22 2009 | Information | No Comments »
A promising development in the drive to help the millions of people expected to suffer from diabetes comes form a citrus extract that has been effective in treating metabolic syndrome, a disorder that is blamed for most cases of diabetes and cardiovascular problems. The extract has been found to cause entice the liver to hasten enzyme production enough to get it to process food faster thus lessening the risk of it accumulating in the blood stream and into the organs where they accumulate to cause problems later. The flavonoid (a plant-based active molecule) getting the liver to burn excess fat faster than the normal rate. The researchers are finding their results promising enough and the subject of the study being all natural, it is less likely to cause aggravated side-effects of man-made molecules.
July 15 2009 | Information | No Comments »
As with any automation process, the medical field is set to gain a lot of advantages when it comes to patient care for the faster medical records are made available the better. The medical field being heavily dependent on documentation has a nasty ability to get huge amounts of paper piled one on top of another year after year. The call to digitize this system would not only allow faster access to probably life-saving information such as past medical history and other vital information, it is also seen to amount to quite a lot of paper which gets tied up in files upon files in storage areas all over the place. Paper wouldn’t be eliminated for technology as we know it is quite prone to failure so anything wrong with a computer or the media onto which they can be stored renders them quite unreachable. Paper would always be part of the system but augmented and eventually replaced by digital data storage, it would allow better statistical and emergency information to save lives, faster.
June 15 2009 | Information | No Comments »
Breakthrough Testing technology is being developed with the help of three specialist groups, engineers, endocrinologists and microbiologists that have come up with a faster light-based testing system that gives result in as little as a minute. The product shines light onto the skin to detect for the presence of glycation endoproducts that is sure sign of damage caused by abnormal blood sugar levels. The technology is promising for it does not involve painful needle pricks that is quite traumatic to most when testing for diabetes. The disease is frustrating enough due to the severe lifestyle changes that have to be undertaken to manage the disease and the indignity of having to prick yourself several times a day to check for proper sugar levels or to simply do spot checks is more than enough for some to handle. continue reading »
May 13 2009 | Information | No Comments »
Sight is one of the areas of our senses that can be greatly affected by diabetes when the nerves of the eye tend to wear out easily. With this in mind, ophthalmologists are being asked to join the battle for diabetes so more emphasis on the disease and sight are taken upon with utmost urgency. In the US alone, 6.3 million people have undiagnosed diabetes, maybe more who die without having proper diagnosis and records of such a disease. continue reading »
April 13 2009 | General and Information | No Comments »
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