Tag Archives: Diabetes

Brazil

Tobacco exporters face charges of slavery in a landmark case in Brazil | Instant News


RIO DE JANEIRO (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A major Brazilian tobacco exporter has been accused of using slave labor in the country’s first government action against a tobacco company because of conditions on a farm, labor inspectors said on Monday.

Nine workers, five of whom are children aged nine to 16, were rescued last week from a farm in Venancio Aires in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul which has an exclusive contract with the CTA Continental Tobaccos Alliance.

Labor inspectors said workers were found living in poor conditions on the farm where they were paid less than a third of Brazil’s minimum wage. They also lack protective gear, exposing them to high concentrations of nicotine.

“(The workers) are acutely poisoned, they are nauseous, they are vomiting,” said labor inspector Lucilene Pacini. The children also suffered from symptoms of acute poisoning.

Pacini said the rescue was the third since 2019 in Venancio Aires, one of Brazil’s largest tobacco-producing regions. Brazil is one of the largest tobacco producers in the world, with exports worth $ 1.6 billion by 2020, according to industry group SindiTabaco.

The CTA, the main exporter that ships to more than 50 countries, said it was not responsible for workers but had contracts with farm owners who were responsible for hiring.

The company – which also owns a factory to process tobacco – added that its relationships with tobacco producers are “exclusively commercial” and have programs to combat child labor in the tobacco industry.

“CTA Continental Tobaccos Alliance SA reaffirms that they conduct all of their operations in accordance with the law,” the company said in a statement to the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

In Brazil, slavery is defined as forced labor but also includes debt bondage, degrading working conditions, long working hours that pose a risk to health, and any work that violates human dignity.

Since Brazil first started an anti-slavery task force in 1995, more than 55,000 people have been found in slavery-like conditions in the country.

According to labor inspectors, the entire tobacco industry in the region operates in a manner similar to a CTA in which a company signs an agreement with farmers to provide credit, seeds and equipment in exchange for exclusive rights to agricultural produce.

The contract states that the company can audit the farm and dictate how to develop crops.

The CTA has such contracts with about 12,000 farmers in three states in southern Brazil, according to its website.

But labor inspectors say this level of control means companies have to take responsibility for working conditions on the farms they contract.

“The current position of the (tobacco) industry that is not responsible for the illegal exploitation of labor … must be confronted. Companies should be held accountable, ”said labor inspector Leandro Vagliati, who is also part of the raids on the farm.

If found guilty of using slave labor after a government review, the CTA could be added to the “dirty list” of Brazilian companies involved in forced labor.

The company remained on the list for two years and was prohibited during that period from receiving state loans. This list is also used by international buyers who are concerned with the supply chain.

Reported by Fabio Teixeira @ffctt; Edited by Belinda Goldsmith; Please acknowledge the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the Thomson Reuters charity, covering the lives of people around the world who struggle to live free or fair. Visit news.trust.org

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Technology

A new study shows that mobile medical applications can benefit diabetics | Instant News


A kind Recent studies It has been found that mobile health apps can benefit diabetics, and diabetes Patients can improve their health and reduce medication costs.

The research results will be published in the “MIS Quarterly” magazine of “Management Information System Research Center”.

The emerging smart mobile medical or mHealth technology is changing the way patients track information related to the diagnosis. This study examines the health and economic impact of mobile health technology on the outcomes of Asian diabetic patients.

The study concluded that patients who use these apps have better health conditions and are able to regulate their health behaviors more effectively than those who do not use mHealth apps. They also reduced the number of medical visits and reduced medical expenses. The research was conducted by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and New York University (NYU).

Li Beibei explained: “In view of the importance of healthy behaviors to well-being, health outcomes and disease processes, mobile health technology offers great potential for promoting patient lifestyle and behavior changes through patient education, improved self-regulation and perception. “CMU’s Heinz College Information Systems and Management Professor is the co-author of the study.

The relatively new areas of mobile medicine include mobile computing, medical sensors, and communication technologies for medical services (eg, managing chronic diseases). Mobile health applications can run on smartphones, tablets, sensors and cloud-based computing systems, all of which can collect personal health data.

It is estimated that by the end of 2020, the global mobile medical market will reach 49 billion US dollars. However, few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of this technology in changing patient behavior and outcomes.

In this study, researchers tried to determine how the mHealth app can persuade individuals to modify their behavior to follow suggested methods to achieve certain health goals. , Food intake) as well as the overall health of the application, visits and medical expenses.

The researchers collaborated with a top mHealth company, which provides one of Asia’s largest mobile medical platforms dedicated to diabetes care. The study randomly assigned 1,070 adult patients to different groups within three months: some patients used the mHealth app, some did not use it, and some used a web-based app. In the group using the mHealth app, some patients received personalized SMS reminders, while others received non-personalized text messages.

The researchers interviewed all participants before the start of the study and five months after the end of the study. Questions raised included demographics, medication and medical history, blood sugar and hemoglobin levels, frequency of visits, and medical expenses.

The study found that even after controlling for personal level fixation, patients using the mHealth app also reduced blood sugar and hemoglobin levels. Patients using the app also exercised more, slept more and ate healthier foods. And they go to the hospital less often and the medical expenses are lower.

The author believes that the adoption and use of the mHealth app by patients will lead to significant behavior changes, which will lead to a healthier diet and lifestyle. In this way, users can self-regulate their health behaviors more autonomously, and this growing inner motivation helps them become more involved, lasting and stable, thereby improving their health.

The mHealth platform also promotes more use of telemedicine, thereby reducing the number of patient visits and medical expenses. The study also found that the mHealth platform is more effective than the Web-based PC version in improving the health of patients.

Non-personalized text messages are often more effective in changing patient behavior than personalized messages. This may be because personalized messages can be considered intrusive, mandatory, and annoying.

Among the limitations of the study, the authors pointed out that the study is mainly for participants with type II diabetes, which is different from type I diabetes or gestational diabetes, which is directly related to self-management of diet or lifestyle. Therefore, this study is not necessarily applicable to other types of diabetes patients.

Anindya Ghose, professor of business at New York University’s Stern School of Business, said: “Our findings provide important information for the design of mHealth apps by better understanding patients’ health behaviors and interactions with platforms. Insight.”

Ghose added: “Such knowledge may be very valuable to healthcare mobile platform designers and decision makers, who continue to use emerging technologies to improve the design of smart and connected healthcare infrastructure.”

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uk

Q&A: How Can Doctors Reduce the Risk in a Pregnant Woman with Diabetes? | HCPLive | Instant News


Women with diabetes have a higher risk of several diseases complications if they are pregnant, including preterm birth, low or high birth weight, stillbirth, and congenital abnormalities.

Existing evidence has shown that lifestyle interventions can help reduce complications and improve outcomes in diabetes patients, but whether pregnancy-related complications can be reversed is poorly understood. The problem is very troublesome in terms of type 2 diabetes (T2D), which is a growing problem in many parts of the world.

Helen R. Murphy, MD, of the University of East Anglia, and colleagues, recently completed a Population-based cohort study over 5 years more than 15,000 pregnancies in Great Britain, Wales and the Isle of Man completed between 2014-2018 and were included in the UK’s National Pregnancy Database for Diabetes.

HCPLive asked Murphy to discuss what his findings were and what they had to say about the benefits of the intervention.

HCPLive: Diabetes in pregnancy has been studied before, but your research is well known for its size and scope. Half of the pregnancies occur in women with type 1 diabetes (T1D) and half in women with type 2 diabetes. What are the implications of having such a large study population?

Murphy: Yes, by far the largest contemporary study in diabetes pregnancy. Historically, there have been several studies of 5,000 pregnancies in women with type 1 diabetes but usually over a time period of 15 years (eg Sweden 1991-2003), so at the time of publication this was outdated. Our data are contemporary and highly relevant to current clinical practice. In particular, none of the previous studies included large numbers of women with type 2 diabetes, which is a growing concern among women of childbearing age, especially those from disadvantaged ethnic groups or blacks and minorities.

Your study identifies maternal glycemia and body mass index (BMI) as the main modifiable risk factors in pregnant women with diabetes. How do doctors advise women with diabetes who are planning to become pregnant?

There is an important impact of the mother’s pre-pregnancy BMI on glucose levels during pregnancy, so I think encouraging women to optimize their dietary intake and enter a healthy pregnancy as close as possible before pregnancy is a very important component of pregnancy planning. both on T1 and T2D.

Should the emphasis be on making interventions before pregnancy, or can meaningful changes be made during pregnancy too?

During pregnancy, efforts can be made to limit excessive pregnancy weight gain, but it is too late to ‘undo’ the effects of BMI of being overweight / obese in early pregnancy.

Is there anything in particular that surprises you?

I was shocked about the impact of maternal weight on T1D. We already know that maternal glycemia is important, but I did not realize that early BMI has a strong influence on the glucose level of the mother during pregnancy and also on pregnancy outcome.

In T2D, I expected maternal obesity to have an impact, but was surprised by the impact of maternal glucose – which was much stronger than expected.

What is the main key for doctors?

The good news is that maternal glucose is relatively easy to change in T2D pregnancy, so the take-home message for me is to focus more on pre-pregnancy weight in T1D and on maternal glucose levels during pregnancy in T2D pregnancies.

Another key message is that changes are needed in all clinics to intensify glycemic management. In T1D that means recognition [continuous glucose management] for all pregnant women in all maternity clinics, and for T2D we need to be serious about pre-pregnancy diabetes prevention and weight management programs.

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Marshall islands

Official: Deaths from COVID-19 highlight the need to control diabetes on the islands | Guam News | Instant News


Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, rates of diabetes and other chronic diseases were already high in the US-affiliated Pacific islands, regional health officials told the Rotary Club of Northern Guam on Wednesday.

But with many of the more than 100 deaths from COVID-19 in Guam linked to diabetes, the need to control diabetes has become much more urgent, they said.

Two officials from the Pacific Island Health Care Workers Association, or PIHOA, shared with Rotarians how prevalent diabetes, hypertension, cancer, heart disease, obesity and other non-communicable diseases are in the US-affiliated Pacific islands.

These islands include Guam, CNMI, American Samoa, Palau, Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia.

There is well-established documentation in Guam that comorbidities such as diabetes and other chronic illnesses increase the risk of death from COVID-19, according to Janet Camacho, PIHOA deputy director of programs and operations for Honolulu.

From 2001 to 2019, the number of diabetes cases “has increased steadily” and has become one of the leading causes of death in Guam, said Cerina Mariano, PIHOA program and administrator of Guam operations.

This is based on data from the Guam Department of Public Health and Social Services, he said.

The behavioral risk survey, he said, also showed that 84% of respondents said they had never been told by a doctor that they had diabetes.

“Since this is a self-report, it is most likely underestimated,” said Mariano.

Risk factors

In Guam, diabetes risk factors include age, ethnicity, and education as well as income, he said.

According to the survey, more men than women have diabetes, and those 55 and over make up 50% of those with diabetes, Mariano said.

As far as ethnicity goes, being a Pacific islander – compared to white, black, American Indian or Native Alaskan and other ethnic groups – means a much higher risk of being diagnosed with diabetes, he said.

Socio-economic factors such as education and income also play a role due to limited access to health services and affordable healthy food.

Diabetes and other chronic diseases are not only common among adults on Guam, but also tend to start at a young age.

“About 40% of youth in Guam in 2019 reported being overweight or obese, and that number has been increasing over the years,” said Mariano.

A hybrid survey over the past five years among most of the US-affiliated Pacific islands shows that the prevalence of diabetes in adults on these islands is much higher than in the United States.

That’s mainly because of the island’s geographic isolation and limited resources, Mariano said.

1 in 4 people are treated

Only about one in four of those diagnosed with diabetes are on treatment, and of those on treatment, less than 10% are controlled on the islands, Mariano said.

“The situation is big enough to attract international attention,” he said.

Through partners such as the World Health Organization, Mariano said, FSM can receive more than 9,000 doses of insulin for diabetes from a company in Denmark.

But even just bringing insulin to the islands is a challenge. It had to be sent to Australia first, and then sent to San Francisco and then Guam, and finally to FSM, Mariano said.

Control diabetes

Hermie Queja, president of the Rotary Club of Northern Guam, said they plan to help raise awareness about diabetes among young people and look forward to partnering with entities like PIHOA.

PIHOA officials say diabetes awareness, prevention and treatment programs need more help.

The simplest steps a person can take to prevent diabetes or control it is to eat a healthy diet and be physically active, Mariano said.

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Food & Drink

Personal and Global Food and Health Choices | Instant News


Apr. 5, 2021 5:20 AM ET


Photo:

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Not debating the benefits of the keto diet, an approach that has worked for some people to change the symptoms of obesity and other diseases (“What if Meat is Our Healthiest Diet ?,Review, January 30). Gary Taubes’ mistake was his lack of attention to the nutritional value of whole grains, fruits and vegetables, classifying them in the same category of processed foods because they contain carbohydrates. Obesity and type II diabetes have become national crises over the last three decades, when we have seen an increase in the prevalence of obesity across all age groups, revealing that the cause is not only genetic. Humans have survived and thrived on a diet of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables (with or without red meat) for thousands of years without a high prevalence of obesity. Lifestyle, food preparation, and the environment in which we live are the main causes of the obesity crisis, not carbohydrates from whole foods. Recent research tells us that there is no panacea for treating obesity. To serve the next generation who are unaware of the challenges of obesity, research efforts need to focus on preventing obesity, starting in early childhood when eating habits are established.

Andrea Bushaw, Ph.D., APRN, CPNP

Edina, Minn.

Mr. Taubes missed something important because he didn’t consider what an animal protein diet would look like in traditional societies around the world. In many traditional herding and pastoral communities who have been or are dependent on animals for food – for example, among the Dinka cow herders or the Sami reindeer herders – people rely more on milk and blood products than animal meat, eating animal meat only occasionally, usually at feasts and days. celebration.

Even in pastoral societies where most animal meat is eaten, meat is usually eaten less frequently than in industrialized societies such as ours, where it is very easy to walk into a shop and buy a steak or roast. People also make full use of each carcass in a way that most meat-eaters in the US don’t, eating all the organs, using the skin and boiling the bones to make broth.

Therefore, it is entirely possible to eat a low-carb, high-protein diet that uses fewer animals per person than we currently do in the US. Therefore, the choices are not that strict, as Mr. Taubes. As an anthropologist and as a human being on the best paleo or keto-type diet, I have come across this good news.

Sarah E. Murray

Alameda, California

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Appears in the print issue of February 6, 2021.

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