Diabetes Living Today® radio program, provides listeners with education, inspiration and motivation to live healthy and well with diabetes.  Whether you have diabetes or know someone who does Diabetes Living Today® radio program offers experience, insight, education and tips to manage life with diabetes.  Through interviews, including “World Class” Research Scientist, physicians and people living with diabetes, living well tips and questions from the listening audience, host Kitty Castellini and Endocrinologist Dr. Joseph J. Fallon, Jr. are there every step of the way to offer guidance, advice, and most of all, support.

This week Kitty and Dr. Fallon will interview Father and Son, Robert and Greg Bauer who are living with diabetes.  A fascinating story of how a father and his son started insulin pump therapy together.  Listener’s are invited to call in with their questions and comments. Tuesday Evening 8:00PM ~ 9:00PM (EST) Cruisin 92.1 FM~WVLT, streaming live on the web at www.wvlt.com Call In: 856-696-0092

Greg Bauer

Greg Bauer is a 34 year old sales representative who works for a Bio-Pharmaceutical company covering Philadelphia and Southern Jersey; his sales focus is on diabetes management.  He has been working in the Diabetes industry for 5 years.  He began his career selling insulin pumps and then moved to Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. who market two medications that help treat both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.  It was not by chance that Greg found himself working in the Diabetes industry; it was a choice he made.  Greg has a special inertest in helping people with Diabetes; he has had Type 1 for over 20 years.

He remembers the day that he was diagnosed like it was yesterday.  “I had all of the classic symptoms of the disease: unquenching thirst, frequent urination, lack of energy and losing weight.  I remember asking my Dad if something was wrong with me.”  He said, “Why do you ask?”  I told him, “I LOVED WATER and could not get enough of it.”  My Dad didn’t know how to respond so to be on the safe side he scheduled an appointment with my family doctor.  When they tested my blood glucose it read “HIGH”.  We were sitting in my doctor’s office when he told me that I had Diabetes; I remember thinking that I was going to die!  Needless to say my life changed forever on June 7, 1988.

Growing up with a disease like Diabetes presented a number of challenges for me and family.  For example, low blood glucose, high blood glucose, trips to the hospital, poor control, better control, and now great control - last 4 A1C’s under 6.5!  Throughout my 20 years of living this disease I have experienced it all, the highs of success and blood glucose, the lows and severe hypoglycemia.

When people discover that I have Diabetes the typical response is, “I feel bad for you or that stinks.”  My response is always the same, “I feel fortunate that I have a manageable disease, that does take a lot of discipline, but that’s fine with me.”   There are so many other unmanageable diseases that are killing people everyday.  I was told that I would be able to live a “normal” life; that helped me keep focus.

Most importantly, I truly believe that we are all dealt a hand in life; what you choose to do with that hand is up to the individual person.  Diabetes was one of the cards that were dealt to me; with the help of my support system of family and friends, I am able to manage the ups and downs of the disease to live a normal life. I currently live in West Chester, Pennsylvania with my wife, Valerie, and our dog, Hana.  We enjoy traveling and spending time with our family and friends.

Robert F. Bauer

Bob Bauer is a 70 year old who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 1992, at age 53.  He had knowledge about the disease because his youngest son, Greg, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes a few years earlier, in 1988.

Bob works full-time for an energy management company that offers billing services for water, gas, and electricity usage to residential apartments and condominiums, office buildings, and industrial sites.

Bob is a brittle diabetic.  Even with good body weight, good nutrition, exercise, checking blood glucose 5 to 9 times a day, and wearing an insulin pump, his good A1Cs are 7.1.

And his Diabetes Educator and his Endocrinologist tell him that aiming for a lower A1C would not be a good idea because his number of lows would increase and that would be dangerous.  Prior to the pump and a good Diabetes Educator his A1Cs were in the 8 range.

He attributes his Diabetes Educator and his son Greg for helping him manage his diabetes more successfully.

Photo Above: Greg & Robert F. Bauer

 Diabetes Living Today presents an “exclusive guest post” written by Dr. Sheri Colberg for our reader’s:

What You Really Need to Know about Exercise and Diabetes

By Sheri Colberg, Ph.D.

Even though I have personally been living with diabetes since I was four years old (in 1968), I knew even back then-more than a decade before the era of home blood glucose monitoring began-that exercise did good things for my blood sugars.  How could I tell without a blood glucose meter?  Mainly I knew because being active always made me feel better, physically and emotionally, in ways that nothing else could.  In fact, as I went through my teenage years without any way to know what my blood sugars were, exercising regularly gave me the only sense of control that I had over my diabetes.  There are some things that I know now about exercise that I wish someone had told me years ago.  Luckily, times have changed, and you have access to information now about exercise and diabetes (any type) that I did not.

For starters, did you know that exercise can virtually erase your blood sugar mistakes?  I knew it helped me, but it wasn’t until I got my first monitor in the mid-1980s that I found out how much.  Why?  Exercise acts as an extra dose of insulin by getting the sugar out of your blood and into your muscles without insulin (through an insulin-independent mechanism related to muscle contractions themselves).  When you’re not being active, your body needs insulin to stimulate that uptake.  Being regularly active makes your muscles more sensitive to any insulin in your body as well, so it takes less to get the job done.  What better way to help erase a little overeating of carbs (or a slight lack of insulin or insulin resistance) than a moderate dose of exercise to lower your blood sugar?

Something else I wish I’d known is that exercise doesn’t always make your blood sugar come down, at least not right away.  When you do really intense exercise, the glucose-raising hormones that your body releases (like adrenaline and glucagon) can actually raise your blood sugar somewhat instead, albeit usually only temporarily.  This phenomenon in true for people with type 1, type 1.5, type 2, and gestational diabetes, and even for anyone without diabetes.  However, even if a workout raises it in the short run, over a longer period of time (2-3 hours), the residual effects of the exercise will bring your blood sugar back down while you’re replacing the carbs in your muscles that you used.  If you take insulin, be careful to take less than normal to correct a post-workout high or your blood sugar will likely be crashing low a few hours later.  If you don’t take insulin, just give it some time to come back down or do a cool-down of less intense exercise (like less-than-brisk walking) to help bring it back to normal.

Another thing to know is that how much muscle you have really makes a big difference.  Exercise helps you build and retain your muscle mass, which is the main place you store carbs after you eat them.  Almost any type of exercise uses up some of those stores-known as muscle glycogen-but if you don’t exercise regularly, your muscles remain packed with it.  There is a maximal amount that fits in muscles, which is why building up your muscle mass helps with being able to handle the carbs you eat more effectively.  Your liver stores some glucose as glycogen, but not that much relative to your muscles’ total storage capacity.  Thus, being sedentary ensures that no amount of insulin is going to be able stimulate more blood glucose uptake into your muscles.  Without regular exercise to use up some of that glycogen, you really have nowhere to store carbs, so your blood sugars go up and some of the excess gets turned into body fat instead (since still works to stimulate fat storage even when your muscles are insulin resistant).  You can’t lose body fat if your insulin levels are high (or you take large doses).  Having more muscle-which is an insulin sensitive body tissue-is definitely a good thing, but something you have to work at since aging causes you to lose the muscle fibers you don’t use regularly.  Doing resistance or weight training is critical to maintaining the muscle mass you have and offsetting the effects of getting older as much as possible.

I have an even longer list of all the things I wish I had known about exercise and diabetes, but let me share just a few more tidbits with you to whet your appetite for more.  Exercise is probably the best way to control emotional stress and to stave off depression-far better than antidepressant medications and with no bad side-effects!  What’s more, exercise naturally bestows your body with antioxidant effect, which is why regular exercisers are less likely to develop most types of cancer; why they generally feel and act younger than their chronological age; why they’re less likely to even get a cold if doing moderate amounts of regular exercise; and why exercise is about the best medicine that there is for so many other health conditions (so don’t forget to take your daily dose).  Finally, there are many different ways to exercise, including standing up more, taking extra steps during the day, fidgeting, and just generally being on the move whenever and wherever possible.  Knowing that hopefully takes away all of your excuses for not being more active.  If you can’t get in a “planned” workout on any given day, you can certainly add in more steps or other activity all day long instead (or do it in addition to your usual exercise).  Every bit of movement you do during the day counts, so fidget away!

If you need motivation or tips for getting started on an exercise program, check out my book entitled The 7 Step Diabetes Fitness Plan.  For people with any type of diabetes who are already more active but want more in-depth information, my latest book released in November 2008, Diabetic Athlete’s Handbook, is for you; it’s packed with good information for type 1 and type 2 exercisers, along with real-life athlete examples, athlete profiles, and over 100 sports and recreational activities.  For inspiration about living long and well with diabetes, consider reading 50 Secrets of the Longest Living People with Diabetes.  For all sorts of other tips on exercise, fitness, diabetes, nutrition, and more, please visit my Web site and exercise blog at www.shericolberg.com. 

Photo Above: Dr. Sheri Colberg

This week Kitty and Dr. Fallon will host an open forum. Listener’s are invited to call in with their questions and comments. Tuesday Evening 8:00PM ~ 9:00PM (EST) Cruisin 92.1 FM~WVLT, streaming live on the web at www.wvlt.com Call In: 856-696-0092

Photo Above: Dr. Joseph J. Fallon, Jr. & Kitty Castellini