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Alternative/Complementary Medical Treatments
Acupuncture - Acupuncture is a procedure in which a practitioner inserts needles into designated points on the skin. Some Western scientists believe that acupuncture triggers the release of the body's natural painkillers. Acupuncture has been shown to offer relief from chronic pain and is sometimes used by people with neuropathy, the painful nerve damage caused by diabetes.
Biofeedback - Biofeedback is a technique that helps a person become more aware of and learn how to deal with the body's response to pain. This alternative therapy emphasizes relaxation and stress-reduction techniques. Guided imagery is a relaxation technique that some professionals use in biofeedback. With guided imagery, a person thinks of peaceful mental images, such as ocean waves. A person may also include the images of controlling or curing a chronic disease, such as diabetes. People using this technique believe their condition can be eased with these positive images.
Additional information on alternative therapies for diabetes
To learn more about alternative therapies for diabetes treatment, contact the National Institute of Health's Office of Alternative Medicines Clearinghouse at (888) 644-6226. The National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse collects resource information on diabetes for the Combined Health Information Database (CHID). CHID is a database produced by health-related agencies of the Federal Government. This database provides titles, abstracts, and availability information for health information and health education resources.
Recent Advances in Diabetes Management
In recent years, advances in diabetes research have led to better ways to manage diabetes and treat its complications. Major advances include:
- The development of a quick-acting insulin analog.
- Better ways to monitor blood glucose and for people with diabetes to check their own blood glucose levels.
- Development of external insulin pumps that deliver insulin and replace daily injections.
- Laser treatment for diabetic eye disease that reduces the risk of blindness.
- Successful transplantation of kidneys and the pancreas in people whose own kidneys fail because of diabetes.
- Better ways of managing diabetes in pregnant women, thus improving chances of successful outcomes.
- New drugs to treat type 2 diabetes and better ways to manage this form of diabetes through weight control.
- Evidence that intensive management of blood glucose reduces and may prevent development of diabetes complications.
- Demonstration that antihypertensive drugs called ACE (angiotensin-converting enzyme) inhibitors prevent or delay kidney failure in people with diabetes.
- Promising results with islet transplantation for type 1 diabetes reported by the University of Alberta in Canada. A nationwide clinical trial funded by the NIH and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International is currently trying to replicate the Canadian studies.
- Evidence that people at high risk for type 2 diabetes can lower their chances of developing the disease through diet and exercise.
- Evidence that high quality nutritional supplementation may augment various dysfunctional biochemical path-ways restoring them to a more homeostatic balance.
Future Treatments for Diabetes
In the future, it may be possible to administer insulin through inhalers, a pill, or a patch. Devices are now available (GlucoWatch) that allow a 12 hour monitoring of glucose levels through skin diffusion after a single daily calibration.
Researchers continue to search for the cause or causes of diabetes and ways to prevent and cure the disorder. Scientists are looking for genes that may be involved in type 1 or type 2 diabetes. Some genetic markers for type 1 diabetes have been identified, and it is now possible to screen relatives of people with type 1 diabetes to see if they are at risk.
The Diabetes Prevention Trial - Type 1 (DPT-1) identifies relatives at risk for developing type 1 diabetes and treats them with an oral form of insulin in the hope of preventing type 1 diabetes. In the same study, researchers recently completed a separate trial in which they found that low-dose insulin injections do not prevent type 1 diabetes in relatives of people with type 1 diabetes.
Transplantation of the pancreas or insulin-producing beta cells offers the best hope of cure for people with type 1 diabetes. Some pancreas transplants have been successful. However, people who have transplants must take powerful drugs to prevent rejection of the transplanted organ. These drugs are costly and may eventually cause other health problems. Newer less immunogenic modifications are under development. Scientists are working to develop less harmful drugs and better methods of transplanting beta cells to prevent rejection by the body. Using techniques of bioengineering, researchers are also trying to create artificial beta cells that secrete insulin in response to increased glucose levels in the blood.
In 1996, NIDDK launched its Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP). The goal of this research effort was to learn how to prevent or delay type 2 diabetes in people with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), a strong risk factor for type 2 diabetes.
The findings of the DPP, which were released in August 2001, showed that people at high risk for type 2 diabetes could sharply lower their chances of developing the disease through diet and exercise. In addition, treatment with the oral diabetes drug metformin also reduced diabetes risk, though less dramatically. The same study was halted early due to the profound positive impact of diet and exercise versus metformin. Participants randomly assigned to intensive lifestyle intervention reduced their risk of getting type 2 diabetes by 58 percent. On average, this group maintained their physical activity at 30 minutes per day, usually with walking or other moderate intensity exercise, and lost 5 to 7 percent of their body weight. Participants randomized to treatment with metformin reduced their risk of getting type 2 diabetes by 31 percent.
Several new drugs have been developed to treat type 2 diabetes. By using the oral diabetes medications now available, many people can control blood glucose levels without insulin injections. Many people have been able to reduce their prescription medications, avoid prescription medications and avoid insulin by using high grade |