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NOTE: It is important to keep in mind that the readings people get on glucose tolerance tests may be lower at two hours after consuming the glucose than the readings they get while eating meals containing carbohydrates that require digestion. The speedy absorption of the glucose that occurs during a glucose tolerance test often causes reactive hypoglycemia in people with prediabetes, giving them what look like normal numbers. But in daily life they may be experiencing blood sugars well above normal for an hour or two after slower-digesting meals. Unless you live on a diet of pure glucose, this is an important finding. Because it is the number of hours your nerves spend exposed to high blood sugars that appears to damage them.

Sadly, there are no studies where subjects with neuropathy were given meal tests rather than the highly artificial oral glucose tolerance test. However, anecdotal reports from people with neuropathy who have lowered their post meal blood sugars suggest that keeping blood sugars under 140 mg/dl (7.8 mmol/L) at one hour after eating meals can slowly reverse neuropathy.

Unfortunately, since most doctors are not aware that it is possible reverse neuropathy by lowering blood sugars to normal levels or believe it is impossible for people with diabetes to lower their blood sugars to normal levels at all, few doctors suggest that patients with neuropathy treat it by striving to achieve normal blood sugars. Instead, they prescribe the very dangerous brain drugs, gabapenin (Neurontin) and pregabalin (Lyrica) which may relieve neurological pain to some extent but don't in any way heal damaged nerves. These drugs can have devastating side effects, so before you try one, try lowering your blood sugars to normal levels for a few months. You can learn how to do that HERE

Further down, added:

The reason slightly elevated fasting blood sugars correlate with beta cell dysfunction and/or destruction is almost certainly that people with slightly elevated fasting blood sugars who eat high carbohydrate meals are experiencing high, and often long lasting, blood sugar spikes after each meal they eat.  ...  It is almost certainly those high post meal readings that go along with elevated fasting levels that cause the glucose toxicity that damages organs and causes complications, not the slightly higher than normal fasting blood sugars.This conclusion is backed up by the experience of those of us with diabetes who have kept our post-meal blood sugars under 140 mg/dl after meals for a decade or more. We generally find that our diabetes does not progress and that we do not develop the classic diabetic complications.

Other minor changes have been made and dead links repaired.

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This calculator will not prescribe a diet of under 1000 calories a day, because very low calorie diets are not healthy or sustainable over the long term for most people.

Very low calorie diet do take off the pounds, however they tend to result in the dieter burning off too much muscle tissue. This can harm the heart. If you diet at a sub-1,000 calorie level you are also likely to slow your metabolism. That makes it difficult to get to your goal, and worse, it makes it much easier to regain weight even if you start eating at a more reasonable calorie level.

The very low calorie diet also is very likely to change your brain chemistry in a way that raises the hormones that make you hungry. When this happens you will only be able to maintain your weight loss by living in a state that feels like you are always starving.

Losing weight on a higher calorie low carb diet, though it may take more time to get to goal, ensures that you will be able to maintain your weight loss by eating at the level predicted for maintaining your new weight. It also keeps you from experiencing the rebound hunger that explains why so many people who lose a lot of weight on low calorie diets gain it all back and more.

Tresiba is worth a try if you are having problems with controlling your fasting blood sugar

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Added text: Another alternative is to try the new insulin, Tresiba, if your insurance will cover it. Some people are reporting much smoother blood sugars when taking this new basal insulin.

Lixinitide approved in the U.S. under the name Adlixin not Lyxumia

Page Changed: GLP-1 Agonists

Changed references to Lyxumia to "Adlixin" as that is the name that is being used for this dangerous, not particularly effective "me too" drug in the U.S. generic name lixisenatide, which was just approved by the rubber stamp FDA. It is not being trade named Lyxumia, which is its name in the rest of the world. The change suggests it hasn't been selling well or getting good reviews under the old trade name.

A Large Epidemiological Study Confirms Actos/Bladder Cancer Link

Page Changed:Actos and Avandia: Dangerous Diabetes Drugs
Text Updated: Actos Is Proven to be Associated with A Higher Rate of Bladder Cancer
On Sept 17, 2010, the FDA announced that it was conducting a safety review of Actos, because prelimnary (5 year) results from a 10 year study found "...there was an increased risk of bladder cancer in patients with the longest exposure to Actos and in those with the highest cumulative dose of the drug.

In June of 2011 the FDA confirmed FDA confirmed that there was a heightened risk of bladder cancer with Actos. Years later, in May of 2016 a study published in the high impact British Medical Journal, which studied the records of 145,806 patients again concluded that "Piaglitazone [Actos] is associted with an increased risk of bladder cancer." This association was only true for Actos, not Avandia, suggesting something about the drug itself, not the class of drugs, was at fault.

Pioglitazone use and risk of bladder cancer: population based cohort study. Marco Tuccori, et al.
BMJ 2016; 352 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i1541. However, doctors can still prescribe Actos.

FDA Warns Onglyza and Nesina Raise Risk of Heart Failure Confirming Earlier Study

Page Changed: DPP-4 Inhibitors Januvia, Onglyza, Trajenta, Combiglyze, Janumet, and Jentadueto

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In April of 2016 After another year of dallying around, during which unknown numbers of patients were probably injured by this drug and a new one in the same class, Nesina, the FDA issued a safety alert stating,

An FDA safety review has found that type 2 diabetes medicines containing saxagliptin and alogliptin may increase the risk of heart failure, particularly in patients who already have heart or kidney disease. As a result, FDA is adding new warnings to the drug labels about this safety issue.

However, in line with the FDA's policy of putting the business interests of the companies it regulates ahead of the interests of the people who take these drugs, the FDA's recommendation to doctors was merely,

Health care professionals should consider discontinuing medications containing saxagliptin and alogliptin in patients who develop heart failure and monitor their diabetes control.

This is shameful! Why should any doctor wait until a patient taking a suspect drug has already developed heart failure--a condition that usually limits their life expectancy to a few years--before taking them off it. There are multiple studies confirming that these drugs appear to be promoting the developement of heart failure.You can read the FDA's safety alert noting the label change HERE

If you are prescribed any of these drugs, remember that few busy doctors are able keep up with changes to the labels of all the drugs they prescribe. And as the FDA allows these suspect drugs to be sold, they will continue to be prescribed. This kind of FDA response is in line with its policy of putting the business interests of the drug companies it is supposed to regulate above those of drug users. 

Metformin Protects Diabetic Women with Cancer Better than Other Anti-diabetic drugs

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A second large epidemiological study, which examined data from the Women's Health Initiative, found that though women with diabetes had a higher rate of cancer than the general population, "Metformin users, particularly long-term users, may be at lower risk of developing certain cancers and dying from cancer, compared to users of other anti-diabetes medications." That study is found here:

Diabetes, metformin and incidence of and death from invasive cancer in postmenopausal women: Results from the women's health initiative. Zhihong Gong et al., International Journal of Cancer, Volume 138, Issue 8, pages 1915–1927, 15 April 2016