A new survey reveals that most people prefer to treat diabetes by changing their diets, rather than using medicines.

According to a survey of 1,022 adults (515 women and 507 men), 69% of Americans would prefer to try a dietary approach, whereas only 21% preferred treating diabetes with medicines. The survey reinforces results from clinical research on diabetes, which has consistently found that people with diabetes adapt well to low-fat vegetarian diets and gain important health benefits. A dietary approach to diabetes based on scientific research shows that a low-fat vegan diet can lower high blood sugar levels three times more effectively than oral medications.

Among the results: women are even more likely than men to prefer food changes over pills. People with more education and higher incomes were especially likely to favor a diet approach. For the financially savvy - this makes a lot of sense. You MUST buy food. You might as well buy healthier foods and curtail your Rx costs. Furthermore, Americans aged 45 to 64 were more enthusiastic about diet changes, compared with older Americans. I'll bet it's the convenience factor. A little less medication, a little more supper, please. The most pill-happy generation was the 18- to 24-year-olds. Don't look at me like that - I'm 28 and favor the flavor over medication, any day. Bon appetit!

A popular article from The New York Times is worth a look. It's all about how people are so much more robust and healthy than were previous generations, particularly comparing today's Americans with those from the mid-1800s or the early 1900s. One of the topics discussed at length in the feature is disease, specifically chronic diseases that used to be commonplace and affected people from relatively early ages.

The article discusses various studies that link health and longevity to health in early childhood (and, specifically, the availability of good food, vaccinations and antibiotics). These studies have also identified a link between individuals' health and longevity and the state of their mothers' health during pregnancy.

One example: researchers studied the health of babies born to women who were pregnant during the Dutch famine, which occurred during World War II, between November 1944 and May 1945. These babies seemed no worse for their mothers' terrible suffering - their birth weights were normal, for example. However, it was found that now, as age catches up with those people, they are developing chronic diseases, including diabetes, at unusually high rates.

Similarly, a study of children born to mothers who were pregnant during the influenza epidemic of 1918-19 found that they were also more likely to suffer from chronic illnesses than were children born to women pregnant before or after the epidemic. Again, the incidence of diabetes was higher than for other people - in this case, twenty percent higher by the age of sixty-one.

The conclusion? When a mother is ill or starved during pregnancy, the danger is not just the health of the baby, but for that child as he or she grows, and even for the rest of his/her adult life. That is, the experience of the mother may predispose the child to illnesses that typically do not develop until later in life (middle age or later).

Older Americans with heart failure are increasingly likely to also be afflicted with diabetes, according to a new study. Moreover, having diabetes is a big risk factor for people in this category.

The study was conducted by researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, and results have been published in the American Journal of Medicine (July 2006). It looked at the health records of 665 older people with an average age of seventy-seven. Of that number, around twenty percent had diabetes. The prevalence of diabetes within the group studied increased by 3.8 percent each year. The really significant finding was that five-year survival was several percentage points lower for those with heart failure and diabetes than for those who had heart failure alone.

The conclusion of the researchers: effective diagnosis and aggressive treatment of diabetes is essential for reducing risk of heart failure.

High rates of obesity and diabetes amongst Americans may be the reason why people in the US experience a higher rate of kidney failure than Europeans. That's the word from a group of researchers who have studied the subject extensively, looking at the medical records of 65,000 Norwegians and compared them with those of 20,000 Americans.

The conclusion? Americans with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are two and a half times more likely to have their condition develop into end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and loss of kidney function. Serious? Yes, very. When your kidneys cease to function, you're looking at drastic measures: dialysis or a kidney transplant.

The interesting thing though is that the overall prevalence of CKD is about the same in the US as in Norway. So, researchers asked themselves, why is it that rates of ESRD are so much higher in the US? The difference, they say, is the aforementioned obesity and diabetes, both of which are major risk factors for kidney disease.

Billboard.com has announced the death of Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Syd Barrett from complications of diabetes. According to Billboard, Barrett left Pink Floyd over thirty years ago due to mental health issues, and lived the remainder of his life in seclusion with his mother in Cambridge, England.

Known for psychedelic rock, Pink Floyd, with Barrett and members Roger Waters, Rick Wright, and Nick Mason, gained an international cult-like following due to its innovative beyond the boundaries rock.

By some accounts, Barrett's LSD drug use created mental problems for him and he eventually retired from the band to live in his hometown of Cambridge. Pink Floyd band members dedicated two songs to Barrett, who was seen as influential in all that Pink Floyd symbolized and position it held in the rock world, with Shine on You Crazy Diamond and Wish You Were Here.

At the Live 8 benefit, Gilmour, Waters, Wright and Mason performed Wish You Were Here in Barrett's honor. Barrett was 60.