Clinical Director

It’s that time of year again-the time where we all consider making positive changes in our lives for the coming calendar year. And, what better than to make a diabetes-related new year’s resolution? We’ve curated a list of tips to help improve your diabetes self-management based on the last year of research articles reviewed by the CWD Team. 1. Get a CGM if You Can All signs point to Time-In-Range as the new standard of care for diabetes management, and it’s quite difficult to get an accurate measurement of your glucose’s time in range (TIR) without the use of a […]

For years, people will diabetes have been faced with many challenges, including finding insulin that helps prevent post-meal spikes in blood sugars. While many pump users can try to bolus up to 30 minutes before eating or try extended bolusing, not everyone uses a pump. As an alternative to giving oneself multiple injections of fast-acting insulin, there is one other option: inhaled insulin. First developed in 2006, inhaled insulin at that time was not widely used because there were several issues, including a bulky device to deliver the insulin. Over time, more research was conducted leading to development of the […]

Type 1 diabetes is a lot of work – it requires almost constant management to keep blood glucose levels close to recommended targets. This workload can be even more challenging when you are responsible for managing your child’s diabetes because you only have so much control over their food intake, activity, and everything in between that can affect blood glucose levels. And when it comes to managing diabetes for the child in the family, research shows that most often it is the mother who is handling the diabetes management.1 Once again, the pandemic and lockdowns have illuminated underlying challenges in […]

There have been many varieties of low carbohydrate diets and, most recently, there are many people who adhere to restrictive regimens, such as ketogenic diets. But how do you know what is right for your child with type 1 diabetes? We’ll explain the most recent data on carbohydrate recommendations for youths with diabetes. In the pre-insulin days, everyone with diabetes was on a very restrictive diet, very low in carbohydrates and often very low in calories.1 This was extremely challenging, especially for children who did not fully understand why they could not eat, despite feeling so hungry. Luckily for us, […]

The Impact of Implicit Bias on Prescribing Habits in Type 1 Diabetes Do you remember first learning about insulin pumps or continuous glucose monitoring? Maybe your doctor or someone on your diabetes care team brought it up as a suggestion to help you or your child with diabetes management. You decided to check with your employer-paid health insurance to see if these technologies would be covered and then chose which devices would be best for you or your child. After the learning curve of figuring out the technologies, you did have better outcomes just as study after study shows happens […]

With the holiday season upon us, you may find yourself being offered more wine, beer, and mixed drinks than usual. If you have diabetes, there’s a bit more to consider than whether you prefer red or white wine. It’s important to understand how alcohol affects the body and what that means for your diabetes care. When alcohol is processed in the body, the liver stops sending out glucose into the blood stream as it normally does, and, therefore, the blood sugar can drop. In people without diabetes, the pancreas will then decrease the amount of insulin it’s sending out to […]

Missed the week of live events at our Friends for Life Fall 2021 virtual celebration? No problem! We have the recordings ready for replay on CWD’s website. Here is a quick rundown on what the sessions covered so you can pick which you want hear or listen to in the background while you’re working (we won’t tell if you won’t). If you’re a health care provider looking for resources for your families with diabetes – feel free to share as well! It’s all here and all free in hopes that it helps people learn, feel empowered, and thrive with diabetes. […]

Since continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems were introduction many years ago, when a person with diabetes first got one, they would receive in-person training to be sure they understood how the CGM worked. This included learning how to insert the device, calibrate if needed, that traditional finger-stick blood sugar measurement is a different from interstitial fluid, and how to trouble shoot the device. But recently, with newer CGMs, it’s common that the only training is a video in an app on your phone. Researchers recently conducted surveys on twenty-two adults living with type 1 diabetes to find out how people […]

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune illness in which the body attacks the cells that make insulin, called beta cells. For the last few decades, scientists have been researching ways to interrupt this autoimmune process. The two main focuses for this research are preventing or delaying diagnosis and slowing the disease progression for people who are already diagnosed. TrialNet, a global research effort, has collected data on over 160,000 people with a relative with type 1 diabetes. Their work has been critical for helping researchers understand more about type 1 diabetes and autoantibodies, as well as continuing to work towards […]