Home
You can view the current or previous issues of Diabetes Health online, in their entirety, anytime you want.
Click Here To View
See if you qualify for our free healthcare professional magazines. Click here to start your application for Pre-Diabetes Health, Diabetes Health Pharmacist and Diabetes Health Professional.
Latest Women's Issues Articles
Women's Diabetes Issues Article Archives
April 2011
What if there were a technology that could make people with type 1 diabetes feel absolutely wonderful, completely healthy, better than they ever realized was possible? And what if it were about to disappear? Well, there is such a technology, and it is in serious jeopardy. It's called the implantable insulin pump, currently made by Medtronic. This is the story of four people who have been using this device for 20 years, and their desperate crusade to keep it from disappearing forever.
117 comments - Posted Apr 17, 2011
Three weeks out of every month, my diabetes is well controlled. But the fourth week, the one before my period, is a nightmare. My sugars are astronomically high--I can't even look at a carbohydrate without my sugar spiking. I'm exhausted and cranky, and I can't get comfortable.
8 comments - Posted Apr 15, 2011
While smoking is commonly associated with a higher risk of developing a serious disease, it's not often that second-hand smoke or being an ex-smoker is considered even riskier. If the disease is type 2 diabetes, however, it is.
0 comments - Posted Apr 5, 2011
February 2011
A new analysis from Johns Hopkins University shows that women with diabetes are 50 percent more likely to die if they have breast cancer. Why? The challenges of diabetes management play a role, as well as women's overall health.
0 comments - Posted Feb 14, 2011
It's hard enough to be pregnant, but pregnancy with diabetes is especially challenging because it's so difficult to keep blood sugar within a normal range at a time when hormones are surging. All women try their best with the tools that they have, but even so, about half of all babies born to mothers with type 1 diabetes are overweight or obese at birth because of too much sugar in their mothers' blood. Mothers with high blood glucose levels also increase their child's risk of congenital malformation, stillbirth, neonatal death, preterm delivery, and neonatal admission.
0 comments - Posted Feb 9, 2011
January 2011
DENVER -- New episodes of a critically acclaimed, locally-produced Spanish language soap opera will focus on the obesity crisis in hopes of helping viewers better understand what causes obesity and how they can live healthier lives. The soap opera is called "Encrucijada: Sin Salud, no hay Nada" ("Crossroads: Without Health, there is Nothing").
1 comment - Posted Jan 31, 2011
Did you make any resolutions for 2011? How many of them have you given up on already? Many of my Facebook friends have enthusiastically boasted of their New Year's resolutions--lose weight, spend less time online, read more, worry less. While their goals are admirable, their resolutions rarely last. Why? I believe it's because their aim is too high or too broad, and their enthusiasm is short-lived.
5 comments - Posted Jan 14, 2011
RALEIGH, NC- DiabetesSisters is pleased to announce that registration for the 2011 Weekend for Women Conference in Raleigh, NC will open on January 1, 2011 at 8am. The Conference, a revolutionary national weekend conference designed specifically for women with diabetes, will take place April 29 - May 1, 2011 at the Marriott City Center in downtown Raleigh.
0 comments - Posted Jan 5, 2011
December 2010
New York, NY - December 31, 2010 - Divabetic, one of the country's leading health and wellness nonprofits begins the New Year with an outreach jackpot of resources and tools for those affected by diabetes. With online and special events, Divabetic's mission is to provide an empowering and supportive environment so that no one living with diabetes has to cope alone or in silence.
0 comments - Posted Dec 31, 2010
Women who experienced sexual or physical abuse in childhood and adolescence-whether moderate or severe-run a higher risk of type 2 diabetes than women who were not abused, according to results from a study recently reported online in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
1 comment - Posted Dec 16, 2010
WASHINGTON-Even though the new health reform law will reduce some health costs in retirement for many people, retirees will still need a significant amount of savings to cover their out-of-pocket health expenses when they retire, according to a report released by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). Women in particular will need more savings than men because they tend to live longer.
1 comment - Posted Dec 2, 2010
September 2010
The routine breakdown of old bone during skeletal growth has an important role to play in regulating blood sugar, according to Columbia University Medical Center researchers. The process, known as resorption, goes on throughout life. It stimulates insulin release and sugar absorption, helping healthy people maintain normal blood glucose levels. The new study, published in Cell, suggests that skeletal changes could causes diabetes for some and that possible treatments for type 2 diabetes could come from the bone-insulin connection.
0 comments - Posted Sep 4, 2010
August 2010
Women who deal with gestational diabetes in their first or second pregnancy are far more likely to develop the condition again in their third pregnancy, according to a new study from Kaiser Permanente that examined the electronic medical records of 65,132 women. The study was published online in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology last month.
0 comments - Posted Aug 11, 2010
Insulin-resistant obese women lost more weight after 12 weeks on a low-carbohydrate diet than they did on a low-fat diet, according to a study conducted by the University of Nevada School of Medicine in Reno. (The study was funded by Jenny Craig, a company that sells diet foods.)
0 comments - Posted Aug 7, 2010
July 2010
Now that it's summer, I'm enjoying a typical teacher's vacation: summer break. I have three months of freedom, which for many is a dream come true. However, I live in the sweltering Midwest, where it's typical to see mid-summer temperatures of one hundred degrees or more, with an even higher heat index. These oppressive temperatures can continue into late October.
0 comments - Posted Jul 31, 2010
June 2010
Dear Diabetes Health, I have been married for 14 years. I am 36 and my husband is 39, and we have a seven-year-old daughter. About six months, ago my husband found out that he has type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jun 29, 2010
One day as I was multi-tasking (making dinner, washing dishes, supervising my daughter, returning phone calls), I suddenly grew very annoyed at the music we were listening to. I had recently purchased a children's CD for my daughter, and it hit me that all the songs sounded the same. What a waste of twelve dollars, I thought, as I headed toward the CD player to shut it off. As I reached down to hit the "off" button, I noticed a small, unfamiliar icon on the display screen. I crouched down to further examine and then laughed aloud.
0 comments - Posted Jun 26, 2010
There are so many weight loss programs out there, sometimes it is hard just to keep track of them, let alone choose one that will work. Add in the factor of diabetes, and the path to weight loss becomes harder to navigate and often contains land mines that we never even knew existed.
0 comments - Posted Jun 15, 2010
May 2010
The United States Department of Health and Human Services released The National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy aimed at making health information and services easier to understand and use. The plan calls for improving the jargon-filled language, dense writing, and complex explanations that often fill patient handouts, medical forms, health web sites, and recommendations to the public.
0 comments - Posted May 30, 2010
Most women with gestational diabetes know that taking steps to manage the disease during pregnancy is critical for the health of both mother and child. What many women don't realize is that those steps need to continue even after the baby is born.
0 comments - Posted May 7, 2010
April 2010
Dear Diabetes Health, I am a 60 year old married woman who was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes eight years ago. In the last two years, I have lost interest in sex. I just don't feel like it, although I still like hugs.
3 comments - Posted Apr 26, 2010
May is National Correct Posture Month, so take a look at how hours of computer hunching, slouching while cell phone texting and video-game slumping is affecting your posture. It's not just kids with backpacks or cane-carrying seniors---studies show poor posture is a major cause of back and neck pain for all ages, and over time often contributes to digestive and cardiopulmonary problems. The good news: there are easy things people can do to strengthen posture.
5 comments - Posted Apr 24, 2010
The study, published in the journal Diabetes Care, adds to evidence that metformin, a generically available drug commonly used for type 2 diabetes, may have anti-cancer effects.
0 comments - Posted Apr 22, 2010
March 2010
The study started out with nearly 20,000 trim middle-aged and older women. Over time, women who drank alcohol in moderation put on less weight and were less apt to become overweight compared to non-drinkers. This was true even after taking into account various lifestyle and dietary factors that might influence a woman's weight.
2 comments - Posted Mar 9, 2010
February 2010
The North Carolina-based not-for-profit DiabetesSisters (DiabetesSisters.org) is pleased to announce that registration for the first annual Weekend for Women conference to be held May 22-23rd in Raleigh is two-thirds full, and will likely close by April 1.
0 comments - Posted Feb 23, 2010
CHICAGO, IL - On Thursday, February 4, Oprah, Dr. Oz, Bob Greene, Art Smith, Dr. Ian Smith and more reveal the staggering human cost of the growing diabetes and pre-diabetes epidemic on a special episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show. Before a studio audience comprised of all diabetics and their families, Oprah and Dr. Oz reveal the latest facts and figures, share stories of those affected, and hold a no-holds-barred, revealing conversation about risk factors, diet and lifestyle.
17 comments - Posted Feb 4, 2010
January 2010
DiabetesSisters is pleased to announce OPEN REGISTRATION for the Weekend for Women Conference hosted by DiabetesSisters and TCOYD on May 22-23, 2010 at Marriott City Center in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina.
2 comments - Posted Jan 3, 2010
December 2009
I have never been one to make New Year's resolutions. This probably stems from my life experiences. Every year at my fitness club, the place is flooded with new faces from January until late February. Then, as the days tick by, the club becomes less and less crowded.
8 comments - Posted Dec 30, 2009
October 2009
Taking Control Of Your Diabetes TCOYD (www.tcoyd.org) and DiabetesSisters (www.diabetessisters.org) are nationwide non-profit organizations with similar missions of motivating and educating people with diabetes. In 2010, TCOYD and DiabetesSisters are partnering to bring a unique, life-changing learning experience to women with diabetes. The First Annual Weekend for Women Conference hosted by DiabetesSisters and TCOYD will begin at 5pm on Saturday, May 22nd (immediately following the TCOYD Conference) in Raleigh, North Carolina and end at 5pm on Sunday, May 23rd. The Weekend for Women Conference will take place at Marriott City Center in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. All participants will receive a single room at the hotel.
4 comments - Posted Oct 10, 2009
"Ask any of the elite who have become truly massive beasts which anabolic substance has had the most profound effect upon their physique, and the answer from the largest mammals will unanimously be insulin." That's a quote from Iron Magazine, a publication for body builders. Apparently, injecting insulin for its anabolic properties is not uncommon among the "massive beasts," as several body-building websites actually contain instructions on how to do it and what types of insulin to use.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2009
August 2009
Only a handful of studies have examined the relationship of a woman's menstrual cycle to her blood glucose control, but they have one finding in common: menstruation's effect on blood glucose is as varied as each individual's disease. As a result, blood glucose testing remains the only way to know how a woman's monthly cycle affects her diabetes control.
10 comments - Posted Aug 15, 2009
July 2009
Women who frequently snore-at least three nights a week-run a substantially higher risk of developing gestational diabetes during pregnancy than non-snorers.
0 comments - Posted Jul 9, 2009
May 2009
Dear Sex & Diabetes, I have had type 1 diabetes since the age of ten. When my husband and I were first married, I had no trouble with my sex drive. After the births of our three children, however, I noticed a big decrease in desire. I have also had a hysterectomy and have gained 50 pounds since we were first married. Do you think my weight has something to do with it? I really don't feel it is fair to put my husband through my lack of desire. He still seems to want me.
2 comments - Posted May 12, 2009
March 2009
The following is a Q&A with Judith Waldrop, who participated in Living Well, a week-long residential program designed for women with type 2 diabetes. The program is a joint effort of the healthy weight loss pioneers at Green Mountain at Fox Run and the Joslin Diabetes Center. This year, Living Well will take place April 19-25, 2009.
1 comment - Posted Mar 31, 2009
December 2008
About a year ago, Cheryl Tooke found herself in the last place she ever wanted to be. She weighed 268 pounds, and her doctor had just diagnosed her with type 2 diabetes.
84 comments - Posted Dec 25, 2008
June 2008
How would you describe a minor hiccup in your daily care that just happens out of the blue, especially when just moments before, you felt fine and everything seemed perfect? That’s a ‘diabetes bad hair day’ according to Divabetic, a national nonprofit diabetes outreach organization, currently on tour with its free national diabetes outreach program, ‘Novo Nordisk Presents: Divabetic – Makeover Your Diabetes.’
1 comment - Posted Jun 19, 2008
February 2008
A Canadian study asserts that girls and young women with big breasts run a 68-percent greater chance of acquiring diabetes by middle age than their smaller-breasted peers.
4 comments - Posted Feb 4, 2008
July 2007
Apparently death doesn't have a glass ceiling. After examining data from 20,000 people who were followed from the seventies through the nineties as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, researchers have found that diabetic men are dying less, but diabetic women aren't.
0 comments - Posted Jul 18, 2007
March 2007
Diabetes Health would like your help in addressing the lack of information about women, sex, and diabetes. To that end, we've set up a survey on our website, packed with questions about how having diabetes affects your sex life and how you overcome the hurdles that diabetes raises.
0 comments - Posted Mar 28, 2007
April 2006
Dutch researchers say that treatment of diabetes in pregnant women should be aimed at achieving A1C levels within the range of 6% or less. They add that “a minimum of 10 self-monitored blood glucose determinations daily is necessary to obtain adequate information of all daily glucose fluctuations.”
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
[Type 2 diabetes] independently increases risk of urinary incontinence in women,” report researchers. “Because risk of incontinence appeared associated with longer duration of [type 2 diabetes], even delaying the onset of diabetes could have important public health implications.”
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
There is a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes in women who consume alcohol. That was the finding of researchers in the Netherlands investigating the relationship between alcohol consumption and type 2 in older women.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
May 2004
Larger leg fat mass is associated with lower glucose levels and may be protective against disturbed glucose metabolism, particularly in women.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2004
April 2004
Researchers have long believed that pre-menopausal women with type 2 may lose the protection against cardiovascular disease provided by estrogens to non-diabetic women.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2004
May 2003
In women with heart disease, hormone therapy reduced the incidence of diabetes by 35 percent, according to researchers at the University of California, San Francisco.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2003
April 2003
Having bacteria in the urine without exhibiting symptoms is common among women with diabetes, say researchers investigating the issue of whether to treat this condition with antibiotics.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2003
January 2003
C-reactive protein (CRP) is an inflammation marker that has been implicated in the development of type 2 diabetes in Caucasians (see "A New Buzzword," November 2002, p. 66). However, a new study has found that, among Mexicans, CRP is likely to predict type 2 diabetes in women but not in men.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2003
December 2002
Postmenopausal women who have diabetes and take oral diabetes medications or insulin are more likely to have acute, symptomatic urinary tract infections (UTIs) than women who don't have diabetes, women who manage their diabetes by lifestyle changes—or even women with untreated diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2002
Postmenopausal women who have diabetes and take oral diabetes medications or insulin are more likely to have acute, symptomatic urinary tract infections (UTIs) than women who don't have diabetes, women who manage their diabetes by lifestyle changes - or even women with untreated diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2002
Women who have repeated miscarriages are likely to be insulin-resistant, according to researchers at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2002
November 2002
Obesity and weight gain before diagnosis of diabetes are associated with future risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) among women with type 2 diabetes, say Harvard researchers.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2002
Obesity and weight gain before diagnosis of diabetes are associated with future risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) among women with type 2 diabetes, say Harvard researchers.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2002
October 2002
The risk of heart disease begins about 15 years before a clinical diagnosis of type 2 diabetes in women, and it is nearly as high before the women develop diabetes as it is after diagnosis, say researchers who have been studying 117,629 female nurses since 1976. None of the women studied had signs of heart disease at baseline.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2002
The risk of heart disease begins about 15 years before a clinical diagnosis of type 2 diabetes in women, and it is nearly as high before the women develop diabetes as it is after diagnosis, say researchers who have been studying 117,629 female nurses since 1976. None of the women studied had signs of heart disease at baseline.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2002
September 2002
Combination oral contraceptives may do more than prevent unwanted pregnancies—they also may help prevent diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2002
Women who snore are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, according to the results of a study conducted by doctors at Harvard.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2002
August 2002
Once again, Diabetes Health has read through more than 2,500 abstracts of research presented at the American Diabetes Association's annual Scientific Sessions and selected a few of the more interesting ones to pass along to you as part of our annual "Research Extravaganza" feature.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2002
The topic of sexual problems among women with diabetes has been highly underreported, says Lois Jovanovic, MD, from the Sansum Medical Research Institute in Santa Barbara, California. While nearly 2,000 studies addressing sexual dysfunction among men with diabetes have been published in the past five years, Jovanovic observes that a "paltry" 13 articles about sexual dysfunction among women with diabetes appeared during that same period.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2002
May 2002
There is no strong consensus among doctors in Greece about what type of birth control young women with type 1 diabetes should use, according to a recent study. In addition, Greek gynecologists have limited experience in counseling and training young women about their diabetes. These findings were published in the December 2001 issue of the European Journal of Gynecology and Reproduction.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2002
October 2001
Having type 1 diabetes can cause women to experience early menopause, say researchers in Pennsylvania. Janice S. Dorman, PhD, from the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues found that the women with type 1 diabetes started menstruation later, experienced more irregular periods before the age of 30 and reached menopause at an earlier age. As a result, women with type 1 also had a lower number of reproductive years (30 years compared to the 37 years of their non-diabetic sisters and 35 years in the control group). In evaluating all risk factors, researchers also found that bearing no children and the removal of one ovary were also associated with earlier menopause.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2001
Only half of women with type 1 diabetes begin taking folic acid before they get pregnant, according to the results of a survey taken in England. The failure of a significant number of women with diabetes to take this critical supplement is due to "lack of awareness of its importance," say researchers. C.J. Wills, MRCP, of the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham, UK, and colleagues reported their findings in the May issue of Practical Diabetes International.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2001
June 2001
Eating fruits and vegetables may help reduce the risk of diabetes, especially among women and people with higher education levels, according to a recent study published in the January issue of Preventive Medicine.
1 comment - Posted Jun 1, 2001
November 1999
I am 28 years old and I've had juvenile diabetes for 21 years. I want to try for a family. I'm concerned about my frequent dropping out with low blood sugars at any given time, for a hundred different reasons (hormone levels is one). My big question is, how low can your blood sugars go before it starts to harm a fetus? Or, is it a matter of how long you have a low blood sugar?
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1999
July 1999
Bone mineral density is lower in type 1 girls, and starts to decline sometime after the teen years.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1999
December 1998
The emergence of Viagra on the drug market has spurned several studies directed at sexual function in men with diabetes.
1 comment - Posted Dec 1, 1998
May 1998
The incidence of diabetes in men is slightly greater than in women, according to a study of 11,654 Norwegian men and women ages 35 to 52. Over the course of 12 years, 87 men and 75 women with diabetes were studied.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 1998
January 1998
Developing intimacy involves trusting and learning to understand the other person. Unfortunately, sexual issues, especially for women with diabetes, are often kept in the dark.
1 comment - Posted Jan 1, 1998
August 1997
Many young women with diabetes are putting looks before their health, even going so far as to stop taking insulin to lose weight.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1997
Women with type 1 diabetes are more prone to experience premature menopause and, as a result, are at greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1997
February 1997
Last month Diabetes Health reported on men, sex and diabetes. In this issue, we look at some of the concerns women with diabetes may have about sex.
1 comment - Posted Feb 1, 1997
January 1996
A recent study reported in the September 1995 issue of Diabetes Care by David S.H. Bell, MB, at the University of Alabama, may have answered a question long debated by diabetes researchers. It has been known for some time that long-term diabetes complications rarely occur before puberty. Whether this is a result of the short duration of diabetes before puberty or because pre-puberty diabetes simply does not cause complications has remained a controversial question.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1996
October 1995
Female hormones are both a blessing and a curse. They make us feminine and fertile, but they upset our diabetes control. With each monthly cycle, insulin needs are influenced heavily by changing hormone levels.
1 comment - Posted Oct 1, 1995
September 1995
In 1994, Universal Press Syndicate published a report stating that diabetes is twice as deadly as breast cancer in women. Linda Geiss, a researcher in Atlanta, wanted to find out if this statistic was accurate.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1995
November 1994
Menstrual irregularities are more common in adolescent girls who have type I diabetes, according to research done at John Radcliffe Hospital and published in Diabetes Medicine (June, 1994).
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1994
In a recent study published in Obstetrics and Gynecology (Oct. 1994) it was found that women with type I diabetes have an increased risk of miscarriage or having infants with birth defects.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1994
As many as 40.2 percent of women with type I diabetes between the ages of 15 and 30 intentionally take less insulin than they need. This is according to a study that took place at Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston and was published in Diabetes Care (October 1994).
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1994
November 1993
A new study from Düsseldorf, Germany shows that modern IUDs (Intrauterine Devices) are as safe and effective in women with type I diabetes as in women without diabetes (from Diabetes Care, Sept. '93). Concerns about IUDs in type I women arise from studies using older model devices which indicate a higher rate of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) than in nondiabetic women.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1993
September 1991
Few studies have looked closely at female sexuality and diabetes. What are the special issues that arise? In this interview, Eileen Walko, MD, and Daryn Stier, MSW, LCSW, poignantly discuss what all women with diabetes should know.
3 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1991