Canadian Diabetes Association releases consumer's meal planning and lifestyle guide

TORONTO, June 20 /CNW/ - The Canadian Diabetes Association today launched a new publication, Beyond the Basics Resource, designed to help people with diabetes - or those at risk for the disease - choose the right foods and portion sizes to maintain a healthy body weight and manage blood glucose levels. This important tool provides an additional resource for people with diabetes to learn from and discuss with their diabetes health-care team.

Beyond the Basics: Meal Planning for Healthy Eating, Diabetes Prevention and Management is a new consumer-friendly meal planning guide that organizes foods into two main categories - food groups that contain carbohydrates and therefore raise blood glucose levels (Grains and Starches, Fruits, Milk and Alternatives and offer choices for snacks or sweet foods) and food groups that contain little or no carbohydrate (Vegetables, Meat and Meat Alternatives, Fats and 'Extras' such as sugar-free foods and beverages, herbs, spices and condiments). This will assist those with diabetes to manage their blood glucose.

"With obesity rates on the rise and research showing that more than 50 per cent of Canadians with type 2 diabetes do not have their blood glucose under control and are at risk for complications, there is a great need for new consumer resources. Beyond the Basics Resource will provide information that can help anyone improve his or her eating habits," said Sharon Zeiler, Senior Manager, Nutrition Initiatives and Strategies. "The goal of this Resource is to help consumers include a variety of foods in their meals and to promote good diabetes management."

The Beyond the Basics Resource is available to consumers and health-care professionals, for the cost of $29.95 + GST and shipping, from the Canadian Diabetes Association Literature Order Desk at 1-800-BANTING ext. 7073. The order form may be downloaded from the Canadian Diabetes Association's website at www.diabetes.ca/literature and faxed to (416) 363-7465.

Helping Ontario Families Become Healthier
Ontario Government Launches Action Plan For Healthy Eating And Active Living

TORONTO, June 20 /CNW/ - Ontario is setting a strong foundation for healthier families with a comprehensive action plan to promote healthy eating and active living across this province, Health Promotion Minister Jim Watson announced today.

"For the first time in Ontario's history, we are combining healthy eating and active living as a means of improving people's health," Watson said. "Good health is a shared responsibility and I call on our partners to join us in taking action towards building a healthier Ontario."

Ontario's Action Plan for Healthy Eating and Active Living responds to key findings in the November 2004 report by Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health entitled Healthy Weights, Healthy Lives. The report called for a broad, province-wide effort across sectors and communities to combat obesity.

The action plan offers new programs and strategies and builds on existing ones to support healthy eating and active living in Ontario. Programs under the $10 million Action Plan this year include:

- A pilot project which will provide fruits and vegetables to children in schools in Northern Ontario, with an emphasis on Ontario-grown produce.

- A Healthy School Recognition Program that will recognize schools for their efforts to promote healthy eating and physical activity, encourage them to keep up the good work and serve as a role model for others.

- A web and phone-based dietitian advisory service to provide families and health care providers with timely and reliable nutrition information.

"By being more physically active and maintaining a healthier body weight, individuals can reduce the risks of heart disease, prevent some types of cancer, and other illnesses," said Dr. Sheela Basrur, Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health. "Unhealthy eating habits and physical inactivity have created an epidemic of preventable diseases, shortening the lives of many Ontarians.
Other initiatives include:

- ACTIVE2010 is a comprehensive strategy to increase participation in sport and physical activity throughout Ontario. Its goal is to achieve higher physical activity rates and increased sport participation in order to improve the quality of life in the province.

- Places to Grow - The focus of the Places To Grow plan is the creation of complete communities, with a greater mix of businesses, services, housing and parks that will make them more livable.

- Communities In Action Fund - A third year investment of $ 5million for the Communities In Action Fund which invests in community sport and physical activity and helps remove barriers to participation for children and youth, low-income families, aboriginal people, older, adults, women and girls, visible/ethnic minorities and people with disabilities.

A.ffluent D.iseases
New Type 2 Diabetes Cases Have Doubled in 30 Years
From:
http://www.foodconsumer.org/777/8/New_Type_2_Diabetes_Cases_Have_Doubled
_in_30_Years.shtml
By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
Jun 19, 2006, 19:05


MONDAY, June 19 (HealthDay News) -- The number of new cases of type 2 diabetes among middle-aged Americans has doubled over the past 30 years, researchers report.

"There has been tremendous concern, but probably not enough concern, about the emerging epidemic of diabetes," said Dr. Robert Rizza, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic and president of the American Diabetes Association. "It doesn't take long to be doubling before the numbers are simply too great to be even conceived of."

"We've got to stop this, and, of course, it's obesity which is driving it," Rizza added. "This is a biologic weapon which has been unleashed on our population -- its name is diabetes."

Experts agree that the great increase in obesity over the same timeframe appears to be responsible for the growing incidence of diabetes. An estimated two-thirds of adult Americans are now overweight or obese.

"These [diabetes numbers] warrant monitoring, especially if we continue to see increases in the trends of obesity," said study lead author Dr. Caroline S. Fox, a medical officer at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Framingham Heart Study.

The study findings appear in the June 19 issue of the journal Circulation.

In type 2 diabetes, the body either doesn't produce enough insulin -- the hormone that converts blood sugar to energy for cells -- or the cells ignore the insulin. Left untreated, the disease can produce complications such as heart disease, blindness, nerve and kidney damage.

In their study, Fox and her colleagues collected data on 3,104 men and women, ages 40 to 55, who participated in the Framingham Offspring study. All participants were diabetes-free at the start of the study, and they received a routine physical examination during the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s. They were also followed for eight years to track new cases of diabetes.

The researchers found that the odds of developing type 2 diabetes increased 40 percent from the 1970s to the '80s, and doubled between the '70s and '90s. The data revealed that among women, there was an 84 percent increase in the incidence of type 2 diabetes in the '90s, compared with the '70s. In men, the incidence of type 2 diabetes more than doubled in the '90s compared with the '70s.

This trend must be reversed to avoid serious repercussions for the U.S. economy and health-care system, Rizza said.

"It requires a concerted effort by our health-care system, by our government, by all parts of society to realize that this epidemic is endangering not only all the people alive, but our children and our children's children," Rizza said. "Our health-care system and our nation's economy cannot tolerate one in three people having diabetes."

One expert thinks the only way to correct the problem is by making a total lifestyle change.

"This epidemic results, almost entirely, from obesity and sedentary behavior," said Cathy Nonas, director of the obesity and diabetes program at North General Hospital, in New York City, and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.

"The more sedentary we are, the fatter we get, the more insulin resistance we get, the more at risk we are for type 2 diabetes," Nonas said. "We have to maintain healthier weights. We have to be active."

To learn more, visit the American Diabetes Association
<http://www.diabetes.org/type-2-diabetes.jsp> .