Nutrition

We have known for more than half a century that good control of blood sugar (glucose) is important for the normal development of the unborn baby throughout pregnancy. During those years there has been much progress in advising

After the discovery of insulin in the 1920´s, available insulin was from natural sources (animal pancreas) until human insulin was made available in the early 1980s. None of these insulins was ideal for injection under the skin. Now, new

Glucose is the fuel on which many parts of our bodies depend. It is also the blood-borne chemical responsible for the damage which causes so many potential problems to people with diabetes. Here Philip Home examines the link between these properties of glucose.

Editor-in-chief's editorial

Populations worldwide are becoming more corpulent. The levels of overweight and obesity in many low- to middle-income countries such as Mexico, Egypt, and South Africa rival that of the country used as the benchmark for this problem, the USA. Moreover, the rates of increase in obesity in these countries are double to quadruple those in the USA. In this article, Barry Popkin reports on the impact of important shifts in nutritional patterns and the trend towards inactivity.

When we eat, the concentration of glucose in our blood rises due to the uptake of glucose from the digestion of starch and other carbohydrates in the gut. In healthy people, the increase is modest; eating activates other processes that

As a species, our condition has changed: from prolonged periods of fasting and occasional gorging, to nearly constant feeding with rarely occurring periods of fasting. The constant availability of ‘grazing opportunities’ has contributed to a change in the body build of humans towards increasing body weight, overweight, and obesity. With this change has come a massive increase in the number of people with diabetes and diabetes- and- obesity-related health problems.

There is no doubt that the introduction of home blood glucose monitoring has helped to revolutionize diabetes management and reduce the amount of time people with diabetes need to spend in hospital to stabilize their condition. However, this has given rise to a series of compliance and management issues for the person with diabetes and the health professional who provides their care. Jan Alford reports.

The Middle East comprises countries such as Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Autonomous Territories and Syria, and contains several ethnic and religious groups. Moslem Arabs, however, are, by far, the largest population group and they form the dominant culture. Certain values belonging to this culture serve to make acceptance of diabetes nutritional therapy difficult. Nevertheless, it cannot be ignored that people with diabetes in the Middle East have to survive and try to be an accepted part of the society in which they live.

President's editorial