I love the Geico commercial with the Caveman-- the one where he's in the therapist's office and his phone rings . He says, "My mother's calling. I'll put it on speaker." According to a recent study published in the medical journal Diabetes Care, researchers have found that family communication and problem-solving skills are important for helping young people with type 1 diabetes to manage the condition. Specially tailored family therapy can help teens with type 1 diabetes keep their blood sugar levels under control.

A family-based behavioral therapy program was specifically tailored to address diabetes-related family issues. The program consisted of 12 sessions offered over six months, and included training in "behavioral contracting" techniques for family members and a 1-week parental simulation of living with type 1 diabetes. For their study, the researchers randomly assigned 104 families of teens with poorly controlled type 1 diabetes to the behavioral family therapy program, standard care, or a multifamily support group that included educational elements. While levels of A1C, a measurement of long-term blood glucose control, fell in all three groups over the first six months, A1C levels climbed again in the standard-care and support-group kids, but remained low for the behavioral family therapy group up to 18 months after the program began.

Researchers concluded that the efficacy of a family-based behavioral therapy approach is more effective in improving diabetes control. There is power in numbers especially when it comes to any family affair. See mom and dad - told you so!

Before experiencing wounds or diabetic ulcers, patients affected by diabetic peripheral neuropathy suffer from loss of sensation, loss of balance, chronic pain, or loss of feeling in their extremities. An infrared therapy is showing promising results for the reduction of pain from peripheral neuropathy.

Anodyne Infrared Therapy is a treatment that uses light energy to exponentially increase (up to 400%) the circulation in peripheral areas (arms, legs). Light-emitting diodes are fitted into flexible pads that can be applied directly to the skin on any affected part of the body. The light energy helps increase blood flow by delivering nutrients to the injured site. Anodyne therapy consists of 10 to 12 sessions lasting 30 minutes each. During this time, energy is penetrating your tissues increasing circulation that results in reducing pain and rapid wound healing.

Light energy helps your body release a gas called Nitric Oxide from your own red blood cells. This powerful molecule plays a critical role in the health of your arteries. Anodyne Infrared Therapy can be used to intervene at the early stages of the disease in order to prevent the more serious complications. If you suffer from any condition distinguished by pain and inflammation or a condition characterized by poor circulation, Anodyne may be a painless, non - invasive treatment option for you.

The benefits of Anodyne Therapy extend as far-reaching as: arthritis, bursitis, tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, sprains, temporal mandibular joint disorders ("TMJ"), slow healing wounds, and stress fractures. Let the light shed some promising results on your painful ailments. I'm curious to see how well it works. I called a local office and setup an appointment. If it works for me - you'll be the first to read about it. Stay tuned...

Remember that movie with Billy Crystal and Robert De Niro, Analyze This? Well we all don't have super-risky mobster lifestyles to induce depression like Paul Vitti's, but according to a new study of depressed type 2 diabetics -- depression has a negative impact on blood sugar control.

Researchers treated 93 patients with type 2 diabetes and depression with the antidepressant bupropion (Wellbutrin). They chose the drug because it is capable of reducing depression and weight simultaneously. The hypothesis behind the treatment was mood enhancement and weight reduction would, in fact, improve blood sugar control. (Always a gold star day in my book!) The results were documented in the March issue of Diabetes Care, and showed that antidepressant treatment produced benefits beyond just mood improvement. Patients also lost weight, improved self-management of their diabetes, and improved their A1c levels.

In the 6 months following the conclusion of the study, depression improvement predicted maintenance of improved blood sugar control. This confirms the research hypothesis that depression improvement can produce better blood sugar control, independent of weight loss and overall diabetes management. The importance of weight-independent physiological factors like insulin sensitivity and inflammation improve during depression relief and contribute to better long-term control of diabetes.

The moral of this story? You tell me. I spotlight the research - I like it when you guys give me answers.

The results of this study do not surprise me at all. Researchers have found that psychosocial factors like cynical distrust, chronic stress and depression, may be associated with higher levels of inflammatory markers. These inflammatory markers are related to an increased risk for cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of premature death among people with diabetes.

The study included 6,814 men and women between the ages of 45 to 84. Participants were assessed for their levels of depression, chronic stress and cynical distrust. Blood samples obtained at the start of the study were analyzed for markers for inflammation. The researchers found associations between all three psychosocial factors and inflammatory markers.

A high stress lifestyle may increase the chance that an individual engages in social behaviors that increase inflammatory markers. The same high stress lifestyle may contribute to obesity and related metabolic problems. Furthermore, socioeconomic position is likely to be a precursor to psychosocial characteristics. True. But let's not wager our lives on a dollar-denominated scale. Consider the Chinese proverb, those who know when they have enough are rich. Now ask yourself where you stand in the socioeconomic parade. If you put it that way - I'm on easy street! Too bad it's in the wrong neighborhood.

Researchers found that using a systematic approach for the treatment of depression in diabetics will not increase health care spending, and might actually decrease the overall costs.

Researchers evaluated the cost and cost-effectiveness of a systematic depression treatment program versus the usual care for 329 outpatients with diabetes and depression. The intervention involved specialized nurses who provided a 12-month stepped-care depression treatment program using psychotherapy or antidepressant drugs or both. Systematic depression treatment significantly reduced the patients' average depression scores after 6 and 12 months, and these improvements were maintained at 24 months.

Outpatient depression treatment costs were approximately $700 higher in the intervention group during the first year, the results indicate. However the general medical outpatient costs in this group were lower, and offset most of the difference. During the second year, the approximately $100 in higher outpatient depression treatment costs in the intervention group was more than offset by lower outpatient costs of approximately $1400.

The study was designed with the hope of alleviating human suffering caused by diabetes. If reducing the burden of suffering also reduces costs of care, then depression management programs should be routinely integrated into diabetes care. Preempt this mission with the fact that the systematic depression treatment programs were associated with an increase of 61 depression-free days and an estimated cost savings of $300 - that's a monthly stipend of 20% more Happy Days and a half tank of gas. That'll give you something to smile about!

Those delicious late night snackies may be bad for you. Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle say that diabetics who eat lots of food in the evening are upping their risk of health complications. These experts sat down and interviewed 714 diabetes patients about their eating habits. Ten percent said they ate more than one-quarter of their daily food intake not at dinnertime, but after dinnertime. That means snacking after dinner, and getting up at night (even multiple times in the night) to sneak some late-night food treats - and we're not talking apples and oranges here. No, we're talking about snacks of the fatty and highly processed variety - the kinds of foods that give nutrition experts the night frights.

Seems that this little habit catches up with these patients in their declining health - they were two to three times more likely than the other patients in the study to be obese, to have poor blood sugar control or to have multiple diabetes-related complications, including the "biggies" - heart disease, and kidney and nerve problems. The cause? It seems that these patients are more likely than others to be suffering from depression. It appears that the late night eating is a coping mechanism. Researchers hope that access to therapy and antidepressants could help these people out.

The results of the study have been published in Diabetes Care (August 2006).