For decades, the treatment of type 2 diabetes has been based more on assumptions than on facts. Even the most crucial question—does a reduction in blood glucose help to prevent long-term complications—has remained unanswered. Now, 4 reports from the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS)1–4 offer useful information on the benefits of treating hyperglycemia and hypertension in this di...

OBJECTIVE The aim of the current study is to investigate the association of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), a group of environmental pollutants, with diabetes mellitus. Animal studies link PAHs to inflammation and subsequent development of diabetes mellitus. In addition, occupational studies suggest that exposure to other aromatic hydrocarbons such as dioxins may be associated with dia...

BACKGROUND Previous methods to measure glycohemoglobin (GHb) have been time-consuming or imprecise; we therefore developed a new enzymatic assay for GHb. METHODS Blood cells were first hemolyzed, and hemoglobin was digested with protease to yield fructosyl amino acid. Fructosyl amino acid oxidase acts on the fructosyl amino acid and generates hydrogen peroxide, which reacts with chromogens in...

BACKGROUND Patients receive care in safety net clinics regardless of insurance status; however, receipt of diabetes preventive care might vary among patients with differing levels of insurance continuity. METHODS In a retrospective cohort study, using electronic health record data from adults with diabetes who were receiving care in 50 safety net clinics in Oregon in 2005 to 2007, we conducte...

The discovery that non-enzymatic glycation of proteins occurred in vivo with an increased intensity in diabetes mellitus has constituted a major step in human biology during the past 50 years. It has led to the identification of numerous post-translational modifications-derived products (PTMDPs), and to the demonstration of their involvement in the complications of various diseases, such as dia...

Certain aspects of the chronic complications of diabetes suggest that, with time, the abnormal metabolic milieu leads to irreversible changes in some cell populations. Since we have previously observed that high glucose concentrations induce an increase in single strand breaks in the DNA of cultured human endothelial cells, we have investigated whether the same abnormality occurs in cells deriv...

Half of all adults are unable to understand basic health information and services needed well enough to make appropriate health decisions, according to the Institute of Medicine. Findings from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), the National Center for Education Statistics’ only study of Americans’ ability to understand health-related information, painted a similarly grim pic...

A major assumption in the interpretation of HbA1c as a measure of glycemic control is that the duration of Hb exposure to glucose does not vary among patients who are hematologically normal. In this issue of Diabetes Care, Virtue et al. (1) use an appealingly simple method to quantitate erythrocyte lifespan (2,3) and report an inverse correlation with glycohemoglobin concentration in patients w...

In 2010, the Japan Diabetes Society decided to introduce the National Glycohemoglobin Standardization Program (NGSP) values into clinical practice. Accordingly, NGSP Certification of Japanese manufacturers of HbA1c-related diagnostic reagents and instruments was initiated in February, 2012, through an NGSP network laboratory, the Asian Secondary Reference Laboratory (ASRL) #1. Traceability to t...

heterozygous, double-heterozygous and homozygous subjects, as established by 13 methods. Clin Chim Acta 1994;231:161–71. 10. Martina WV, Martijn EG, van der Molen M, Schermer JG, Muskiet FAJ. b-N-Terminal glycohemoglobin in subjects with common hemoglobinopathies: relation with fructosamine and mean erythrocyte age. Clin Chem 1993;39:2259–65. 11. Holownia P, Bishop E, Newman DJ, John GW, Price ...