CWD News

People with diabetes are often turning to continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) to help improve their diabetes management. The technology has improved dramatically since the first CGM was on the market in the early 2000’s and has been proven in studies repeatedly to help improve glycemic control for people with diabetes.1,2 When the first commonly used CGMs were available to patients in the U.S., each company had their own proprietary software that would allow people with diabetes and their health care teams to review their CGM Data. This became a barrier in a couple of major ways. First, if you wore […]

Since diabetes is such an individualized experience, it’s important for the people living with diabetes to be involved in making the choices for their diabetes self-management. One of the benefits of having the healthcare system that we have in the United States is having options to choose from with regards to healthcare. But who actually decides what tools or medications you have available to you as a person with diabetes? Your insurance. Most private insurance companies will cover what the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) cover.1 Essentially, private coverage depends on CMS coverage. Diabetes researchers recently looked at […]

Written and clinically reviewed by Marissa Town, RN, BSN, CDCES According to the World Health Organization, heart disease is the number one cause of death worldwide.1 It’s also the number one cause of death in the United States.2 Fortunately, there are many options for reducing risk for heart disease. Similarly to treating diabetes, heart disease prevention is a combination of lifestyle modifications and medications. However, there are inconsistent recommendations for people with type 1 diabetes (T1D),3 and even the 2021 American Diabetes Associations’ Standards of Care notes this in section 10 on cardiovascular disease and risk management.4 It’s often assumed that […]

Written and clinically reviewed by Marissa Town, RN, BSN, CDCES Everyone poops, but talking about it is usually taboo.  (Tab-poo?) But what if we can use poop to alter the microbiome in the intestines and help alleviate symptoms of a variety of illnesses? Could you wipe away the thoughts about the gross factor in order to learn the scientific potential? It’s already being done for other conditions, including a very infectious diarrhea called C. Diff (clostridiodes difficile) that is common in people who have to use long-term antibiotics and among hospitalized people.1 In fact, the Fecal Matter Transplants (FMTs) were so […]

Written and clinically reviewed by Marissa Town, RN, BSN, CDCES Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that causes the body to attack the insulin-producing  beta cells of the pancreas.1 There are many different areas of research related to diabetes, and one of them is preventing type 1 diabetes. There is a large group of healthcare professionals and scientists who are working in collaboration through the group Trial Net (trialnet.org), with the goal of preventing type 1 diabetes. They have been working since 1994 to identify people who have diabetes autoantibodies, and then studying ways to slow or hopefully stop the […]

Written and clinically reviewed by Marissa Town, RN, BSN, CDCES There are many studies showing that insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors help improve blood glucose levels.1,2,3 But one of the things that continues to be a challenge with Automated Insulin Delivery, also called closed loop systems, is the infusion set. If the infusion set does not work properly to deliver insulin, the systems cannot regulate blood glucose levels. Researcher Lutz Heinemann published an article in the Journal of Diabetes Scientific Technology in 2012 calling the Infusion set the “Achilles heel” of insulin pumps.4 When researching ultra rapid insulins used in […]

Written and clinically reviewed by Marissa Town, RN, BSN, CDCES The mythical land of living life with diabetes in the “normal” range of 70-120 is just that: mythical. No matter what type of diabetes you have, it is nearly impossible, with the tools we have today, to maintain blood sugars in the target range 100% of the time. While our goals as people with diabetes may be similar, they are personalized, nuanced, and influenced by a number of different factors. As a mother of young children, avoiding severe lows is one of my main goals in my diabetes self-management. When I […]

Written and clinically reviewed by Marissa Town, RN, BSN, CDCES DIY systems include a range of components, with each patient-designed part integrated into what becomes the system-of-choice for a person with diabetes.  It takes research, patience, and resources to assemble a DIY artificial pancreas or CGM data stream, and your mileage may vary in terms of use.  The systems we’re talking about in this article were created by people with diabetes when they took their data, goals, and expertise into their own hands to create an entirely new way of dealing with their diabetes. Nightscout was created by parents who wanted […]