Colorado news letter for T1DOC the Type 1 Diabetes Optimist Club

A sweet diabetes advocate has been working hard in her community for Diabetes and getting the word out. We met her at a Denver Diabetes convention and have stayed in contact with her ever since. She is working on monthly newsletters that discuss Diabetes and Diabetics Type 1 and strong supporter of the local community in Colorado.

This news letter contains information about upcoming events coming in May, special interviews with Hannah Hoogenboom, a Bowling social that will be taking place at the Denver Athletic Club March 15th 2014. Also information about the JDRF Funded Medalist Study. They give a medal to everyone living over 50 years with T1D. Here is a little information directly from the news letter and I highly recommend taking a look at the attachment at the bottom of this blog for more information.

” With over 4,000 of the 50-Year Medals awarded to date, we continue to recognize individuals around the world for their courageous achievement of fifty or more years of insulin-dependent type 1diabetes. Our research study on the Medalists has now surpassed 850 participants, making our goal of 1,000 unique participants well within reach for the next year.

The participants of the Medalist Study group have an average age of 69.8 years, and were diagnosed with type 1diabetes at the average age of 11.2 years old. The average duration of diabetes is 58.6 years, and the group about half women and half men (48.6% male). As a group, the current HbAlc averages 7.2%. In terms of complications, we see very low rates of micro albuminuria (kidney disease) at 11.7%. About half of the group has proliferative diabetic retinopathy (53.4%), and less than half have cardiovascular disease and neuropathy (43.3% and 41.9%, respectively).

The Medalist Study, begun in 2005, has led to many new projects. First, our investigation of residual beta cell function among the Medalist group has turned into a followup study to measure the patterns of insulin production over time. Many of you have had a Mixed Meal Tolerance Test (MMTT) while you were here for your study visit, and some have had a second helping with this new study. In a different test of residual insulin production, we are now determining if we can stimulate that production further with the use of an amino acid, arginine. This is still a very new protocol; we have tested 11Medalists. Since we are still in the pilot stage, keep an eye out for future updates on this exciting research. “

Please see the PDF file here for the full news letter ! — -> Colorad Diabetes News February 2014