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More than 100M Americans have diabetes or prediabetes (2017)

cdc.gov

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Re: More than 100M Americans have diabetes or prediabetes (2017)

#31

Post by hirundo »

wonder_er wrote: post #13
hirundo wrote: post #4

I highly recommend getting a continuous glucose monitor and wearing it for at least a few weeks. I was able to find a model at about $35/week, which required a prescription (US). You can quickly get a good idea about how different foods and exercises affect your blood glucose. For me it was fun and motivating. It's helped a lot to put my diabetes into complete remission. The improvement in my daily quality of life is…

do you have diabetes? suggestions on getting a perscription? I've used Levels, but at $400/mo, not very sustainable. I'd have access to health insurance, I'd be happy to nag my primary care doctor for a prescription.

My doctor was happy to give me a prescription for the cost of an office visit. I've heard that's generally the case. The only reason not to provide them OTC seems to me to be an outrageous and harmful paternalism.

Re: More than 100M Americans have diabetes or prediabetes (2017)

#32

Post by disabled »

yudlejoza wrote: post #24
disabled wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. If you are in the US, you want a Freestyle Libre 2, which costs what you state, with coupons: $35/week In the European Union, the Freestyle Libre 3 is available and is far better technology than the Freestyle Libre 2, for a variety of reasons. This also does not require a prescription in Europe. Because I cannot get a Freestyle Libre 3 in Croatia, I order the Freestyle Libre 3 from Abbott Diabetes Care in Germa…

I've heard Freestyle Libre, and most portable models, is not very accurate. Freestyle Libre has the additional feature of continuity, which IMO, is likely to be more inaccurate (generally portable models take a blood drop and give one reading, i.e., are not continuous monitors). Any thoughts on this?

It’s static (blood glucose testing) sampling versus dynamic (continuous glucose monitoring via interstitial fluid) sampling. The best comparison is that it is like a picture (static sampling) versus a movie (dynamic sampling). It makes a huge difference: you can actually prevent blood glucose fluctuations, blood glucose lows/highs, with a continuous glucose monitor. With a blood glucose meter, at least with type 1 diabetes, you really only can take action after the blood glucose (static sample) is taken, and you really cannot use informed insight moment to moment to prevent things.

The continuous glucose monitors tend to be pretty accurate. The Mean Absolute Relative Difference (MARD) for the ascribed devices:

Freestyle Libre 3: 9.2% (in adults)

Freestyle Libre 2: 9.2% (in adults)

Dexcom G6: 9.0% (in adults)

Also, I regularly test my blood glucose using finger sticks whenever I need to take a fairly large insulin dose and there is a large amount uncertainty of where I may possibly be (such as when my two sensors have a big discrepancy, and especially when my blood glucose is fluctuating). For that, I use Freestyle Lite blood glucose test strips.

About 1 in 25 to 1 in 30 Freestyle Lite test strips I use is about 50 mg/dL off, despite me using proper testing technique, which is quite significant, since my blood glucose values are very tightly managed. It is obvious when it happens, looking at the Freestyle Libre 3 graph, and the Freestyle Libre 3 in this case keeps me from overdosing and causing a serious low.

Re: More than 100M Americans have diabetes or prediabetes (2017)

#35

Post by dddiaz1 »

hirundo wrote: post #4

I highly recommend getting a continuous glucose monitor and wearing it for at least a few weeks. I was able to find a model at about $35/week, which required a prescription (US). You can quickly get a good idea about how different foods and exercises affect your blood glucose. For me it was fun and motivating. It's helped a lot to put my diabetes into complete remission. The improvement in my daily quality of life is…

You can also play with the data directly using open source projects like nightscout. I used that to convert a days worth of glucose data into sound :) https://dddiaz.com/post/glucose-sound/

Re: More than 100M Americans have diabetes or prediabetes (2017)

#36

Post by mjrpes »

at_a_remove wrote: post #21

My A1C is reasonable, despite my rather high carbohydrate intake. Due to a metabolic disorder, I'm supposed to be on a carb-heavy diet, and when I get seriously ill, one of the recommendations is a truly shocking amount of glucose. If anyone should be near diabetes, it should be me. And yet my friends, with more reasonable diets, tend toward diabetes or near it. I'm rather afraid for my friends.

Recent studies have showed intermittent fasting can be a major factor in insulin/glucose levels:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/intermittent-fasting-sur...

Re: More than 100M Americans have diabetes or prediabetes (2017)

#37

Post by 01100011 »

hirundo wrote: post #4

I highly recommend getting a continuous glucose monitor and wearing it for at least a few weeks. I was able to find a model at about $35/week, which required a prescription (US). You can quickly get a good idea about how different foods and exercises affect your blood glucose. For me it was fun and motivating. It's helped a lot to put my diabetes into complete remission. The improvement in my daily quality of life is…

I'd love to see what my insulin levels do throughout the day. I have a lot of issues which feel like they're blood sugar related(extreme fatigue after meals, "brain fog", low energy, sleepy all the time but my apnea and nighttime SpO2 is fine, bouts of feeling hypoglycemic), but every time I've checked my glucose levels they're normal. I suspect I am becoming insulin resistant but I'm not sure.

Things seemed to really go downhill after I tried intermittent fasting(16/8).

Re: More than 100M Americans have diabetes or prediabetes (2017)

#38

Post by Anand_S »

How many of these are due to unhealthy American Diets and how many of them can easily be cured by a simple whole foods plant based diet.

There are so many reports coming out now that diet (mostly a whole foods plant based diet) can reverse diabetes and that too in a short time. People heal faster when they remove the root cause of the problem. (bad diet)

https://nutritionfacts.org/2019/10/08/how-not-to-die-from-di...

Hard to believe not a single comment about diet (whole food plant based) from hacker news community.

Re: More than 100M Americans have diabetes or prediabetes (2017)

#39

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

hirundo wrote: post #4

I highly recommend getting a continuous glucose monitor and wearing it for at least a few weeks. I was able to find a model at about $35/week, which required a prescription (US). You can quickly get a good idea about how different foods and exercises affect your blood glucose. For me it was fun and motivating. It's helped a lot to put my diabetes into complete remission. The improvement in my daily quality of life is…

> I was able to find a model at about $35/week, which required a prescription (US).

Can I get a prescription at Walmart? Asking because I'm in one of the several states where the cost of healthcare exceeds total earnings.

I suppose it's off to the black market to see what's available - same as everyone else around here.

Re: More than 100M Americans have diabetes or prediabetes (2017)

#40

Post by maria_weber23 »

Anand_S wrote: post #38

How many of these are due to unhealthy American Diets and how many of them can easily be cured by a simple whole foods plant based diet. There are so many reports coming out now that diet (mostly a whole foods plant based diet) can reverse diabetes and that too in a short time. People heal faster when they remove the root cause of the problem. (bad diet) https://nutritionfacts.org/2019/10/08/how-not-to-die-from-di...…

Why do you have to diminish your otherwise good comment by advocating for something that is clearly just your own belief? There is nothing special about a whole foods plant based diet, except that it is like infinitely more healthy than the standard American "diet" (or you could also call it "slow and painful way to die").

The problem is that vegan or vegetarian diets will scare away many people for no good reason.

Anyway, if you want something that actually works, look at the AIP diet: https://www.thepaleomom.com/

But yeah in general I agree. It's pretty amusing how the HN crowd talks about measuring and temporary fixes like "intermittent fasting" but not at all about actually ending the poisoning by food... Yeah sure, you can do all sorts of stuff to prolong your life while stuffing yourself with poison. However the most effective way is still not to eat the god damn poison in the first place. But hey, then there would also be no engineering problem to solve and no products to sell, right?

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