Most of us know that eating fresh fruit and vegetables is good for our health. However, people diagnosed with diabetes may avoid fruit due to its high sugar content. New research investigates the health benefits of fresh fruit consumption among people with diabetes.

Diabetes affects more than 420 million people worldwide and more than 29 million people in the United States alone.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), diabetes caused more than 1.5 million deaths in 2012. In the U.S., diabetes is a leading cause of death, accounting for almost 80,000 yearly deaths, according to the latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Fresh fruit and vegetables are healthful for most of us, but people with diabetes may abstain from eating fresh fruit because of its high sugar content.

This is why a team of researchers - led by Huaidong Du of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom - decided to investigate the health effects of consuming fresh fruit in patients both with and without diabetes.

The authors were also motivated by the fact that, to their knowledge, no studies have so far investigated the long-term effects of fresh fruit consumption on the rate of diabetes or on the risk of diabetes-induced cardiovascular events.

The research was published in the journal PLOS Medicine.

The researchers examined the effects of fruit consumption on almost 500,000 people enrolled in the China Kadoorie Biobank national study. Participants were aged between 30 and 79 and lived in 10 different areas across China.

The participants were clinically followed for approximately 7 years.

During this follow-up period, 9,504 cases of diabetes were identified in participants who did not have diabetes at the beginning of the study.

Using Cox regression models, researchers analyzed the correlations with consumption of fresh fruit while also adjusting for age, sex, location, socioeconomic status, body mass index (BMI), and family history of diabetes.

In total, 18.8 percent of the participants said that they consumed fresh fruit every day, and 6.4 percent said that they never or rarely consumed them. Those who had been previously diagnosed with diabetes were three times as likely to not consume fruit than those without diabetes or with screen-detected diabetes.

The team found that people who did not have diabetes at the beginning of the study and consumed fresh fruit in high amounts had a significantly lower risk of diabetes. Additionally, those who had diabetes at the beginning of the study and consumed high amounts of fruit had a significantly lower risk of dying from any cause, as well as a lower risk of developing cardiovascular complications.

More specifically, in comparison with the other study participants, those who consumed fresh fruit daily had a 12 percent lower relative risk of developing diabetes.

Study participants who had diabetes at baseline but consumed fresh fruit more than three times per week had a 17 percent lower risk of all-cause mortality and up to a 28 percent lower risk of developing both major and minor cardiovascular complications.

"Major" cardiovascular complications refer to events that affect large blood vessels (ischemic heart disease and stroke, for instance), while "minor" refers to those affecting small blood vessels (such as kidney diseases, eye disease, and neuropathy).

In absolute terms, this means that daily fruit-consumers had a 0.2 percent decrease in their absolute risk of developing diabetes over a 5-year period, and people diagnosed with diabetes had a 1.9 percent absolute reduction in the risk of mortality from all causes.

Du and team explain the significance of these findings:

"These findings suggest that a higher intake of fresh fruit is potentially beneficial for primary and secondary prevention of diabetes. For individuals who have already developed diabetes, restricted consumption of fresh fruit, which is common in many parts of the world [...] should not be encouraged."

The study was purely observational, so no conclusions were drawn regarding causality.

Learn how legumes may lower the risk of type 2 diabetes.

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Fresh fruit may prevent diabetes and related complications - Medical News Today

ANN ARBOR, Mich. Michigan Medicine has ranked in the 90th percentile of the AMGA Foundations Diabetes: Together 2 Goal campaign for its diabetes performance related to lipid management.

The campaign, launched in March 2016, has a goal to improve care for 1 million people with type 2 diabetes by 2019. AMGA Foundation hopes to achieve this goal by leveraging the coordinated delivery systems of 150 participating AMGA members as well as national partners and collaborators.

Each quarter, nearly two-thirds of medical groups and health systems that participate in the campaign report diabetes prevalence and control rates in their patient populations. AMGA Foundation then recognizes participants who are high performers in different areas of diabetes care, such as A1c control, blood pressure control, lipid management and medical attention to nephropathy, in an effort to continue improving diabetes care across the nation.

Based on self-reported data for Q3 2016, Michigan Medicine ranked in the 90th percentile for its lipid management performance for diabetes patients.

We are pleased to be recognized for excellence in patient care, says Jennifer Wyckoff, M.D., assistant professor of endocrinology at Michigan Medicines Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Diabetes. We have taken many steps over the past 15 years to ensure top quality care for patients with diabetes, including quality metric dashboards and panel managers for our primary care clinics, a comprehensive diabetes education program and working with patient advocates.

AMGA congratulates Michigan Medicine for their commitment to care for people with type 2 diabetes, says Jerry Penso, M.D., M.B.A., president of AMGA Foundation and chief medical and quality officer of AMGA. Lipid management is an incredibly vital component of type 2 diabetes management, as heart disease and stroke are the top causes of death and disability among this population.

About Michigan MedicineAt Michigan Medicine, we create the future of healthcare through the discovery of new knowledge for the benefit of patients and society; educate the next generation of physicians, health professionals and scientists; and serve the health needs of our citizens. We pursue excellence every day in our three hospitals, 40 outpatient locations and home care operations that handle more than 2.1 million outpatient visits a year.

About AMGA Foundation AMGA Foundation is AMGAs philanthropic arm that enables medical groups and other organized systems of care to consistently improve health and health care. AMGA Foundation serves as a catalyst, connector and collaborator for translating the evidence of what works best in improving health and health care in everyday practice.Learn more atamga.org/foundation.

About AMGA AMGAis a trade association leading the transformation of health care in America. Representing multispecialty medical groups and integrated systems of care, we advocate, educate, innovate and empower our members to deliver the next level of high performance health. AMGA is the national voice promoting awareness of medical groups recognized excellence in the delivery of coordinated, high-quality, cost-effective care. More than 175,000 physicians practice in our member organizations, delivering care to one in three Americans. Learn more atamga.org.

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Michigan Medicine ranks in 90th percentile for diabetes performance - University of Michigan Health System News (press release)

Amazon Web Services and Merck announced a developer competition on Monday to that plans to harness artificial intelligence for diabetics.

Dubbed the Alexa Diabetes Challenge, and powered by Luminary Labs, the contest aims to incent upstarts and individual developers to create apps that harness Amazons Alexa voice-enabled technologies particularly for patients recently diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

Early adopters such as Penn Medicine and Commonwealth Care Alliance are already running proofs-of-concept or pilot programs with Amazon Alexa being the centerpiece of improving patient experience.

Whats more, a new Healthcare IT News andHIMSS Analytics HIT Market Indicator reportfound that half of hospitals intend to adopt some fashion of AI in five years and more than a third plan to do so within two years.

The Amazon and Merck contest enables innovators to use not only Alexa but also Amazon Web Services cloud infrastructure.

Five entrants will be chosen in the first round. Those winners will collect $25,000 and 100,000 AWS credits apiece and move into the Virtual Accelerator to access mentors as they work to transform the initial concepts into real solutions, the companies said.

The accelerator work will culminate with the finalists presenting their apps to judges in a pop-up AWS loft in New York City, after which the winner will be awarded $125,000.

At the end of the Virtual Accelerator, finalists will present their solutions in-person to the judges at Demo Day at the AWS Pop-up loft in NYC. Submissions take place atalexadiabeteschallenge.comand close on May 22, 2017.

Excerpt from:
Merck, Amazon challenge developers to build Alexa apps for diabetes - MobiHealthNews

April 11, 2017: A 16-year-old with Type 1 diabetes is trying to save a summer camp that means so much to her.

Mary Scott, WBIR 6:56 PM. EDT April 11, 2017

Natalie Miller (Photo: WBIR)

Natalie Miller's Type 1 diabetes requires constant care: five blood sugar tests a day, an insulin pump, counting carbohydrates and the list goes on.

While the Powell High School junior has learned to deal with the pain and management of the medical treatments, she remembers when diabetes made her feel like an outcast.

"It definitely took a toll on my self-confidence for a while. I always feel weird, even now, when my pump will go off in class and every one will turn around and look at me," explained Miller, 16.

Camp Cure is a place where she always feels accepted. Every summer, East Tennessee Children's Hospital put on the week-long day camp exclusively for kids dealing with diabetes.

Even after Miller aged out of the camp, she returned as a volunteer counselor.

"For me, it's where I can go and be with people who understand what it's like to get up at three in the morning with low blood sugar. Or understand what it's like to be irritable because you're blood sugar is high," Miller said.

This year, Children's Hospital said it made the decision to close Camp Cure after four months of consideration.

"When we were really examining it, we did not have the finances to support it this year," said Hella Ewing, Children's Hospital VP of Patient Care Services and Chief Nursing Officer.

Camp Cure costs the hospital about $30,000 every year and is the hospital's only summer camp that does not have a financial endowment to cover costs.

Children's two other camps for children with disabilities and medical disorders, Donald M. Gally Summer Camp and Camp Eagle's Nest, have sustainable philanthropic support.

"We thought we would just take a step back, re-energize the camp, see what potential support we might be able to gain from the community and hope we can do it again next year," Ewing said.

Natalie Miller turned her disappointment from the news into action. She wrote a plea to the community to help bring back the camp next year and shared it on social media.

Read Natalie Miller's full letter below:

Let me give you a bit of background information, so you can see why this summer camp is worth the donations. My name is Natalie Miller, I'm sixteen and I've been Type 1 Diabetic for thirteen years this coming December. I was diagnosed at the age of 4, and I attended Camp Cure from the time I was five until age 12 (because that's the age limit for campers! Of course, you can become a junior staff member once you turn 13). Camp Cure was one of the only places where I felt like I fit in. The thing wasand still isthat no one understood me unless they had diabetes as well, which in Powell, is seldom and far between. Everyone understood me there, and knew the pain of having to poke my finger 4-5 times a day, take shots every time I ate and having to count carbs and measure out my food. They understand what it's like to wake up with a low blood sugar and having to muster up the energy to get up and check your blood glucose, or it being a high BG with uncontrolled thirst, urination and headaches. To say that Camp Cure was a big impact on me is an understatement; they took part in molding me into who I am today.

With that being said, we staff members always want to create a good environment for these children and to have fun and show that no disease would slow us down! These kids look up to us, and think "Wow! You can be a teenager with diabetes!" (Yes, they really say that!! Also, our staff are mainly diabetics, trained professionals... we have a team of nurses!) and they look up to us as role models, and trust that we will take great care of them and have lots of fun with them as well. At Camp Cure, we see a lot of firsts: A first finger stick, or a first insulin shot or changing a pump site, and we make a big deal about it as well, as it's such a milestone! Needles and hospital rooms and doctors are intimidating, even for me, and especially for these kids. It's such an honor to be able to witness their face once they realized that they've done something so significant on their own. This camp is so important to me, and lots of other people and kids. Don't let this year be any different from the last. We want to see new smiling faces, and we want to make an impact on these camper's lives. I know how much of a difference they made for me, and I want all of the T1D kids to know that they aren't alone in what they're going through, and we always welcome them with open arms.

Be sure to contact East Tennessee Children's Hospital for more information on how you can get involved with Camp Cure, and how you can chip in to help. Thank you!"

2017 WBIR.COM

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Teen works to save summer camp for kids with diabetes - WBIR-TV