Greg Gutfeld and the gang from "Red Eye" tore David Shuster apart Saturday morning as they imagined how the MSNBCer must have reacted to Tuesday’s PPP poll declaring Fox the most trusted name in news.

After discussing some of the numbers, Gutfeld said he felt sad for the other networks, "especially for the folks at MSNBC like David Shuster."

"I wonder how he took the news," Gutfeld said as the screen morphed into Robot Theater with "Meanwhile At MSNBC…" boldly displayed (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

ROBOT MSNBC EMPLOYEE: Have you seen the newest poll on television news?

ROBOT DAVID SHUSTER: No, I was busy tweeting about how much I miss the "Gilmore Girls."

EMPLOYEE: The polls says Fox News is the most trusted name in news.

SHUSTER: Well, they are just idiot, Nazi, rightwing racists.

EMPLOYEE: Well, actually, they polled Democrats and found that even among them, twice as many people trusted Fox News as MSNBC. 

SHUSTER: That’s wrong. You should talk to my viewers about this.

EMPLOYEE: We tried. We only found one and it was a box turtle.

SHUSTER: You found Admiral Fluffles. Tell me, how is he?

EMPLOYEE: Not well. Also, David, please stop using Media Matters as your source of news.

SHUSTER: But I love Media Matters.

EMPLOYEE: We know.

SHUSTER: I wish Media Matters was my older step-sister. Then I would watch her shower.

Hehehe. 

2 diabetes medications have helped some patients control their weight.

Barbara Oster has had diabetes for 15 years, and her medication wasn’t working so well, reported WBAL-TV in Baltimore.

“It just blows you up, makes you feel like you’re gaining all this weight,” she said.

The Food and Drug Administration recently approved two new diabetes drugs — Byetta and Symlin — that studies have proved help patients control their illness and cut back their eating.

“One of the lovely side effects of both drugs is people tend to lose weight,” said Dr. Paula Yutzy, a diabetes educator at Baltimore’s Mercy Medical Center.

Byetta comes from the saliva of a scary-looking lizard — the Gila monster. The drugs mimic the effects of hormones, helping to regulate the disease by controlling liver functions and digestion, as well as making patients feel more full.

Yutzy said she’s glad the medications have reached the public.

“When you have diabetes, you don’t have cruise control, and so you have to monitor your blood sugar, watch what you’re eating, take your medicine — there’s a lot more involved in staying at the right speed,” Yutzy said.

The drugs have to be injected, but Oster said it’s no big deal for most diabetics because the needles are tiny.

“The girls at work, when I stick my fingers, say, ‘OK, let me get out of the room!’ But it doesn’t hurt,” she said.

Patients still have to watch their diet, exercise and monitor their other drugs.

“It has taken a long time to bring this drug to market, but those of us in the diabetes world are very excited about it,” Oster said.

Oster has only been taking Symlin for two weeks, but she said she already feels positive results.

Related Posts

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2. Top Gun Training Tactics Result In Better Care For Inner-City Diabetes Patients
3. What Does the Diabetes Drug Byetta and the Gila Monster Have in Common with Causes Weight Loss?

It may come as quite a shock to those type 2 diabetics who regularly consume caffeine to hear that studies are now showing that caffeine raises blood sugar levels in type 2 diabetics.

I’m a regular diet coke drinker and I thought that because there is no sugar in diet coke it was safe for me to drink regularly…I was wrong.

The American Diabetes Association announced the findings of a Duke University study which showed that caffeine raised the blood glucose levels of type 2 diabetics throughout the day and especially after meals. But I thought caffeine was ok for diabetics?

Previous studies on the link between caffeine and diabetes had shown that caffeine consumption lowered the risk of type 2 diabetes. Those who drank the most caffeine were the least likely to develop type 2 diabetes. It was these finding that may have lead to the misconception that caffeine had no ill effect on diabetics.

What the Duke University study is now showing is that in people who have type 2 diabetes, caffeine raised their blood sugar levels throughout the day. So even if they drank caffeine in the morning it had an effect on their blood sugar level throughout the entire day making it difficult to keep it under control.

So what is suggested? Well, if you are a type 2 diabetic such as myself, and you are finding it difficult to keep your blood glucose levels in the normal range you may want to examine the amount of caffeine you are consuming.

Like I said, I am a diet coke drinker. This is the source of any caffeine that I consume. I have been having a hard time controlling my blood glucose levels lately and I have been examining all the parts of my life: fitness, diabetes friendly diet, stress reducing tai chi…stuff like that. What I didn’t take into consideration was the amount of caffeine I was consuming daily.

Now that studies have shown caffeine raises blood sugar levels in type 2 diabetics I will have to monitor the amount of caffeine I consume. Of course, the ideal amount would be zero and that is what I’ll shoot for. But hey, no one is perfect.

So what if you drink tons of caffeine throughout the day but you have no problem keeping your blood glucose level under control? Well, my opinion would be not to change a thing. You have found the right combo of diet, exercise, medicine and whatever else you do to control your diabetes and shouldn’t tinker with it. You know the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it”.

1. Jolt Cola

2. Red Bull

3. Bawls

4. Water Joe

5. Afri-Cola

This caffeine diabetes link is one more example of how research and information can make living with diabetes more manageable. I think it was GI Joe that said “Now you know and knowing is half the battle…Go JOE!”.

Related Posts

1. Lower Your Blood Sugar With These 3 Daily Tips and Understanding the Glycemic Index
2. Natural Foods and Supplements to Reduce Your Blood Sugar
3. Two Herbal Teas That Can Help Lower Blood Sugar

NPR talk show host Diane Rehm was lionized in the Washington-area newspaper The Beacon ("In Focus for People Over 50") as "the queen of talk radio." It became quite clear in Barbara Ruben’s profile that this queen’s most amazing career moments on the radio were spent in the presence of the Clintons:

"To have an opportunity to interview a sitting president in the Oval Office [Bill Clinton], to have Hillary Clinton come in here two or three times…those were all amazing experiences," she said with her distinctive leisurely cadence and careful enunciation.

"Leisurely cadence" is a very kind definition of Rehm’s broadcast voice, which we could also kindly suggest is not universally pleasing (like an older female version of Bob Woodward). The Clintons made a point of schmoozing the local NPR folks at WAMU and telling them they were regular listeners.

As you might expect, Rehm’s list of politician guests leans to the left, as well.

Whenever I think of actress Lily Tomlin now, I think of her animal-rights plea in 2008: "The word, ‘zoo,’ is sort of elephant-speak for Guantanamo. They’re really, they are suffering and being tortured."

When Time looked into "Lily Tomlin’s Short List," readers found endorsements of hard-left radio hosts and authors:

Stephanie Miller as commentator-comic Mama and her irreverent two-man band of merrymaking mischief monkeys get me laughing every morning. Then I get deeply serious with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!

Miller calls herself "Mama" – ironically, since she’s not a mother. Her authors are also radical:

When I need an infusion of feminism, I read Robin Morgan to remind me of what I always want to remember….When I want to be hit upside the head, I turn to Richard Dawkins. It’s that glimmer of seeing what he’s getting at that brings me back each time with determination.

Dawkins is the splenetic atheist who starred in the Ben Stein film Expelled, reading his own rants against God:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, blood-thirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

Morgan’s latest tome is a "toolkit for combating the religious right." She sells herself as a "flamboyant guerrilla," which is an especially interesting label. Her most infamous work is The Demon Lover, which came out in 1989 with the subtitle The Sexuality of Terrorism. (Read: male). They changed it in a 2001 edition to The Roots of Terrorism. She explored what she called the "acute terminal testosterone-poisoning" theory of "patriarchal history."

It may come as quite a shock to those type 2 diabetics who regularly consume caffeine to hear that studies are now showing that caffeine raises blood sugar levels in type 2 diabetics.

I’m a regular diet coke drinker and I thought that because there is no sugar in diet coke it was safe for me to drink regularly…I was wrong.

The American Diabetes Association announced the findings of a Duke University study which showed that caffeine raised the blood glucose levels of type 2 diabetics throughout the day and especially after meals. But I thought caffeine was ok for diabetics?

Previous studies on the link between caffeine and diabetes had shown that caffeine consumption lowered the risk of type 2 diabetes. Those who drank the most caffeine were the least likely to develop type 2 diabetes. It was these finding that may have lead to the misconception that caffeine had no ill effect on diabetics.

What the Duke University study is now showing is that in people who have type 2 diabetes, caffeine raised their blood sugar levels throughout the day. So even if they drank caffeine in the morning it had an effect on their blood sugar level throughout the entire day making it difficult to keep it under control.

So what is suggested? Well, if you are a type 2 diabetic such as myself, and you are finding it difficult to keep your blood glucose levels in the normal range you may want to examine the amount of caffeine you are consuming.

Like I said, I am a diet coke drinker. This is the source of any caffeine that I consume. I have been having a hard time controlling my blood glucose levels lately and I have been examining all the parts of my life: fitness, diabetes friendly diet, stress reducing tai chi…stuff like that. What I didn’t take into consideration was the amount of caffeine I was consuming daily.

Now that studies have shown caffeine raises blood sugar levels in type 2 diabetics I will have to monitor the amount of caffeine I consume. Of course, the ideal amount would be zero and that is what I’ll shoot for. But hey, no one is perfect.

So what if you drink tons of caffeine throughout the day but you have no problem keeping your blood glucose level under control? Well, my opinion would be not to change a thing. You have found the right combo of diet, exercise, medicine and whatever else you do to control your diabetes and shouldn’t tinker with it. You know the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it”.

1. Jolt Cola

2. Red Bull

3. Bawls

4. Water Joe

5. Afri-Cola

This caffeine diabetes link is one more example of how research and information can make living with diabetes more manageable. I think it was GI Joe that said “Now you know and knowing is half the battle…Go JOE!”.

Related Posts

1. Lower Your Blood Sugar With These 3 Daily Tips and Understanding the Glycemic Index
2. Natural Foods and Supplements to Reduce Your Blood Sugar
3. Two Herbal Teas That Can Help Lower Blood Sugar

U.S. regulators have now approved the continuous glucose monitoring device made by Medtronic, Inc. for use in children ages 7 t0 17.

The continuous glucose monitoring device, which was approved for adult use last year, alerts diabetics to potentially dangerous fluctuations in their blood sugar levels and provides more frequent readings than finger stick tests.

Dips and spikes in a diabetes patient’s glucose level can lead to complications such as loss of vision, kidney function or limbs. The monitoring technology in Medtronic, Inc.’s continuous glucose monitoring device displays realtime glucose levels and provides an alert when there is a dip or spike in the glucose level.

Nearly 21 million Americans have diabetes. That is roughly 7 percent of our country’s population. Thanks to research being done into this disease we are heading towards a cure. In the meantime the continous glucose monintoring device created by Medtronic, Inc. is certainly a step in the right direction.

Related Posts

1. What is The Best Glucose Meter For Your Needs?
2. Double Diabetes – Placing Your Kids at Even More Risk
3. Hypoglycemic Alert Dogs

I have Type 2 diabetes which, like a lot of people out there, I struggle to control. Along with diet and exercise I was taking Metformin as a way to control my blood sugar level. All of a sudden it wasn’t cutting it. What do you do when your current treatment no longer works?

It’s real easy to overlook the warning signs that your blood sugar levels are not under control unless you stick to a very strict sugar level testing regimen. Like a lot of people, once my blood sugar levels were under control for a long period of time…I kind of slacked off with the frequency of testing my sugar levels.

Complacency is a huge factor in the denial associated with diabetes. Unfortunately I fell into this trap. I didn’t start with regular blood sugar level testing again until I was feeling the side effects of having a high blood sugar level. We all know that having a high blood sugar level for a prolonged period of time will cause diabetic related complications in the future.

So once I got back on track with regular blood sugar level testing I was alarmed to find that I had elevated levels. Just waking up in the morning my sugar level was around 280. That is really high for not having eaten anything since dinner time the evening before.

The Warning Signs Of Elevated Sugar Levels Were There

There are a few telltale signs of elevated sugar levels that you need to be on the look out for. Here is the thing, if you are not actually testing your blood sugar level and seeing that it is raised, some of these warning signs can seem to be due to other factors…at first.

• constantly tired
• body aches especially upon waking
• thirst
• shooting pain in your body
• frequent urination
• feeling confused

Now you may look at these warning signs and say “how did you not make the connection between any of these and diabetes?”. Well, the mind is a powerful thing. Since I was convinced that I was doing all the right things to battle diabetes I guess my mind just wouldn’t allow me to make the connection.

The tiredness and body aches in the morning I blamed on my mattress. Feeling confused went along with being tired. I figured I just wasn’t getting a good nights sleep and so this must be causing the confusion. The thirsty thing…hey it’s summer. Who doesn’t get more thirsty in the summer?

What it boils down to is that if I had stayed on top of my blood sugar level testing I would have known right away that my current diabetes treatment was no longer working.

Byetta Was My Solution

After being seen by my doctor it was decided upon that I would begin taking the Byetta drug to help control my blood sugar level. So, that’s good news right? I can just start a new drug and all will be well. But, what I didn’t realize is that Byetta is taken in the form of an injection. What, what, what?

Is this the beginning of the end for me? Are insulin injections right around the corner? Well, according to my doctor…no. Starting Byetta injections does not mean that I will have to do this for the rest of my life or that soon I will be giving myself insulin injections. It means that for right now, Byetta will be used to help control my blood glucose level. We can revisit my options again in the future.

Daily Injections!!!

In the doctors office I was shown how to properly inject myself in the stomach with Byetta. It didn’t seem like much fun. To stick myself in the stomach two times a day with a needle? I was not feeling good about this.

My doctor explained to me that if I can handle all the pin pricks in the fingers that it takes to test my blood glucose level…this tiny injection would be no big deal. I have to say, I wasn’t buying that right away.

Once I actually injected myself with Byetta I realized that it isn’t painful at all and it is something that I could handle doing to myself. After just one injection it was apparent that Byetta was working to lower my blood glucose level.

It has been one week since beginning Byetta and I have not had any raised blood sugar levels. Every time I test my blood sugar level it is always within the normal range. So for now…Byetta is working to control my diabetes.

Related Posts

1. FDA Warning On Byetta – Is It Safe?
2. BYETTA Let’s Talk in Boston
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The term diabetes refers to higher than normal levels of sugar, or glucose, in the blood. Type II diabetes, also known as NON insulin-dependent diabetes, was commonly referred to as adult onset diabetes until recently when the name no longer accurately describes the population with this disease.

Kids with type 2 diabetes

Type II diabetes, in the past, was relegated to the adult population. However, in the new era of ever rising cases of childhood obesity and heart disease, the term adult onset diabetes is quickly becoming a misnomer. The number of children that are presenting to doctors with this disease is rising at epidemic rates.

Unlike Type I diabetes, where there is little to no insulin being produced by the beta cells of the pancreas, in Type II diabetes there is plenty of insulin. The problem lies in the fact that the cells of the body no longer respond to the insulin. The normal response is to cause gates in the cell membranes to open and letting the sugar in from the blood stream. Since this is not occurring, the sugar levels in the blood remain extremely high and the cells are deprived of the necessary energy that they would normally derive from the sugar.

Additionally, as Type II diabetes is sometimes not diagnosed for many years, the pancreas will sometimes stop producing insulin all together since the body sees no need to make something that can’t be used.

Many professionals are prescribing changes in diet and increased activity levels as the medicine needed to help reverse some of the non-responsiveness of the cells to insulin. Making lifestyle changes can dramatically improve the overall health of the patient as well. To augment adjustments in nutrition and exercise, doctors can also prescribe diabetes medication which assists to increase the responsiveness of the cells to the insulin that the body may still be producing.

If left untreated, Type II diabetes can eventually decrease the quality of life and life span of the patient.

Rachel Dayer runs and operates www.mustask.com, a health related portal.

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2. Newly Diagnosed Type 2 Diabetes – What Do I Do Now?
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Did you know that April marked Foot Issues Related to diabetes Awareness Month, how often are you checking your feet?

April is deemed Foot Issues Related to diabetes Awareness Month. Unfortunately, many people with diabetes are unaware of the importance of routine foot care. Physicians and educators are constantly reminding the public of the importance of measuring insulin levels and making sure to follow a diet and exercise plan. What about checking your feet for ulcers, callous and sores? This is a critically important preventive measure as it can potentially save your limb.

diabetes foot issues like ulcers are important to monitor

Recent statistics show that more than half of the 20 million Americans with diabetes have no idea what a foot ulcer is, yet more than three million (15%) of them will develop a foot ulcer, and 25% of those will require a lower limb amputation as result of their ulcer not healing and becoming infected.

A new study published in the International Wound Journal highlights the effectiveness of a graft made from human tissue which helps the body repair the foot ulcer quickly by providing a means to rebuild the area of missing tissue. The reported data shows that this treatment known as GRAFTJACKET can heal these limb-threatening wounds faster, more effectively as and for less cost than standard wound care alone. The study found that patients are two to three times more likely to achieve complete wound healing when treated with GRAFTJACKET. Additionally, patients treated with GRAFTJACKET also healed more quickly, in five to seven weeks, as compared to six to eight weeks in the control group.

I have used GRAFTJACKET in my patients with compromised diabetic foot ulcers with great success. I have been able to prevent foot and leg amputations in hundreds of diabetic patients. Many patients come into my office seeking a second opinion after they have been told that their foot ulcer cannot be healed and that they must have an amputation. Often I can them tell them that there is an alternative approach that will save their limb. It is a wonderful satisfaction to heal their wound and allow them to continue to enjoy life walking on their own two legs.

As the rate of diabetes increases in this country, it’s important to be educated about preventive care and new medical treatments.

Check your feet daily and if you notice anything suspicious, see your doctor right away. You could be saving not just your limb, but your life.

This is an unpaid guest post By Dr. Jeffrey Niezgoda, medical director of The Centers for Comprehensive Wound Care and Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, St. Luke’s Medical Center, Aurora Health Care, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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