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...seniors join the program and will cover heart-disease and diabetes screenings to catch problems before they become expensive. It will also provide incentives for reducing medical errors, notably by supporting electronic-prescription programs to cut down on mistakes resulting from bad handwriting and by encouraging doctors to share patient information via computer programs...
There are ways to keep costs down. It doesn't take a physician to teach a patient the principles of better nutrition or how to use a glucometer. Nurses, nutritionists, diabetes educators and other non-M.D.s can play a key role. Experts say it's important to reach the communities that are hardest hit by diabetes--American Indians, for example--all the while taking cultural differences into account. "You can't give everybody the same diet to solve the problem," says Albright, a registered dietitian. "People obviously eat the foods they've grown up with. So you have...
Once 90% of the islet cells are destroyed, the body is no longer able to regulate blood-sugar levels and the patient develops the classic symptoms of diabetes. At this point, the patient needs insulin injections to survive. Even with insulin, though, the complications of Type 1 disease can take a terrible toll. By age 55, for example, 35% of victims have died of a heart attack. Kidney failure is also common, and after 15 years of the disease, 80% of Type 1 diabetics have sustained significant eye damage...
...Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami, is one of the pioneers who have refined islet-cell transplants. And while a pancreatic-cell transplant may sound like a cure, Ricordi is quick to point out that it is not. First, there is the challenge of preventing a patient's body from rejecting the transplanted cells, and second, there is the challenge of shutting off the immune response that still wants to kill off islet cells...
While the study may drive patients to more seasoned M.D.s, making it harder for less seasoned ones to get needed practice, you still have the right to know your surgeon's case count. Websites and directories provide only academic back-ground and credentials, so the best approach is simply to ask. Remember, you're not only a patient, you're a consumer...