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Advocates in Action
ADA Signs on to Support Proposition 29 in California
Proposition 29 is a qualified ballot initiative that will be placed before voters in June 2012. Through a $1 per-pack tax on cigarettes, Proposition 29 will deliver over $700 million every year for cancer research, smoking prevention and smoking cessation programs.
The American Diabetes Association’s Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes, 2012, link smoking to an increased risk for cardiovascular disease, a major cause of death in individuals with diabetes. In addition, there is some evidence that smoking may have a role in the development of type 2 diabetes. The funds collected by Proposition 29 will be deposited directly into the California Cancer Research Life Sciences Innovation Trust Fund, and the money will be used to fund research related not only to cancer, but also cardiovascular disease.
Research of the Month
ResearcherLeigh Perreault, MD- Endocrinology Researcher, University of Colorado–Denver School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado
FocusPrediabetes
ADA Research FundingCareer Development Grant
The biggest risk factor for type 2 diabetes is not obesity. Nor is it genetics, gender, race, or diet.
It’s prediabetes, a collection of conditions that show up as high blood glucose levels.
In America alone, 79 million people—a quarter of the entire population—have prediabetes. For doctors and public health experts, it’s a terrifying number. “Not everyone who has prediabetes gets to [type 2] diabetes, but 50 to 70 percent of them will,” says Leigh Perreault, a researcher at the University of Colorado–Denver School of Medicine.
Yet recent research has shown that not all prediabetes is created equal. Though the results—high blood glucose and insulin resistance—look similar, the underlying causes are different. About a third of Americans with prediabetes, or about 27 million people, have impaired fasting glucose, something the American Diabetes Association (ADA) recognized as a prediabetic condition in 2004.
Leigh Perreault, MD |