Diabetes and Liberal Democrats who throw their toys out ...

... of their buggy while the adults get on with the job of parliamentary reform.

The little people of Britain believe that there are too many politicians at Westminster;  and this feeling cascades down to the devolved administrations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.  Might this feeling from the birthplace of democracy be felt by the little people of the world I wonder ?

Unfortunately Cleggy, the deputy Prime Minister, said on Monday that his party could not support the boundary changes because the Conservatives have dropped reforms to the House of Lords.

 In response yesterday our erstwhile Prime Minister, David Cameron, told the world (well, those within 20 meters of him as the majority have better things to do with their summer day), that he would be challenging the politicians of both sides of the house to support reforms we (the electorate) are demanding.

So Cameron has challenged the Lib Dems to grow up, he has challenged them to explain in Parliament why reducing MP's is bad democracy, they will also have to explain to the electorate why they intend to vote in the face of public opinion, that's the opinion that places Bankers and Politicians into the very same box with Schrödinger's cat, 

Brining the debate to Wales the proposal is for 30 MP's in 30 equal sized constituencies, this should be extended to the Assembly having 30 constituencies matching the parliamentary boundaries, it would be admirable if the Assembly then had 30 constituencies of two AM's dumping the regional nonsense where AM's are divorced from the people they are elected to represent.





And Diabetes .......... it seems the secret to living with Type 2 is to ...

"learn to live with hunger !"

... less is indeed more, trust me its true, eventually the hunger goes and you are rewarded with a smaller appetite.

McDonald’s strawberry ...

... (medium) milkshake has 103g or 20.6 teaspoons* (*Using the approximation of 5g of sugar = 1 teaspoon) , if you are brave and go for the Strawberry Triple Thick Shake (large) it comes with a whopping 168 g of sugar, that equates to almost 34 teaspoons of the waste thickening gunk.

To put this horrific information into perspective the UK Department of Health recommends that men consume on average no more than 70g of sugar a day, the equivalent of 14 teaspoons, and women no more than 50g per day, or 10 teaspoons.


So if you indulge yourself with that milkshake from McDonald's on the way to work think "sugar", and remember the remainder of the day when you choose from the following :

• A jar of Dolmio Original Bolognese pasta sauce (750g): 50.2g or 10 teaspoons
• Can of Coke classic (330ml): 35g or 7 teaspoons
• Small Galaxy bar (46g): 25.5g or 5.1 teaspoons
• Bottle of Glacéau Xxx Vitamin Water (500ml): 23g or 4.6 teaspoons
• Tesco Simply Pepperoni deep crust pizza (450g): 22.4g or 4.5 teaspoons
• Glass of Tropicana 100 per cent orange juice (200ml): 20g or 4 teaspoons
• A pot of Müller Light Cherry yogurt (175g): 3g or 0.6 teaspoons
• Serving of Special K Red Berries cereal (30g): 13g or 2.6 teaspoons
• Nutri-Grain cereal bar (any flavour): 12g or 2.4 teaspoons

Last year, Robert Lustig, a leading expert in childhood obesity at the University of California, called for measures such as a tax on sweet food and drinks, limiting sales during school hours or even stopping children from buying them below a certain age. He believes our excessive consumption of sugar – not just sucrose, but specifically the high fructose corn syrup often added to food – is the primary reason that the numbers of those who are obese and/or diabetic has sky-rocketed in the past 30 years. The challenge is that many of us simply don’t know how much sugar already exists in our food. (source The Times, 21 April 2012)

 McDonald's nutritional facts for the "Brave Hearts" amongst us.

As a diabetic I should be very concerned but I'm not, very early on after diagnosis I worked it out that if I wished to keep my sight, limbs and kidney functions it was best to eat what I cooked myself, so McDonald's are just a passing fancy, I pass them by without a second thought.

I do wonder how culpable the food manufacturing companies have been in the rise of type 2 diabetes in the world at large, is type 2 diabetes an industrial injury in this respect ............

A new "Ion" lady who ...

... deserves the thanks of so many people !

The physiologist Professor Frances Ashcroft, 60, discovered the ‘ion channel’ that causes infant diabetes, paving the way for new treatments ..... Interview by Sue Choularton Published: Sunday Times 25 March 2012

Frances’s rural childhood helped inspire her curiosity about the natural world (Tom Pilston)

I get up about 6.15 and the first thing I do is look over the fields behind my house. I live in the countryside in Oxfordshire and I love to watch the seasons change. At this time of the year, if I’m lucky, I might see hares out boxing in the grass. I’ll then have a cup of tea, get ready, grab a banana and drive to the university for about 7.

I’m based at Oxford’s department of physiology, anatomy and genetics, and I lead a team of 12 to 15 scientists who carry out research into diabetes and obesity. The scientists are at different stages of their careers — some are undergraduates and PhD students, and some are post-doctoral researchers and senior scientists who’ve been with me for years.

A lot of our day-to-day research involves measuring the tiny electric currents that flow through “ion channels”. These channels are found in every cell of our body and every organism on Earth. They work like tiny pores, opening and closing to allow ions (such as potassium) to move in and out of our cells. This underlies the electrical signals in our hearts and brains and is the basis of our ability to see, hear, think and feel — everything we do. 

The currents we’re recording are a million million times smaller than, say, the current needed to run an electric kettle, so we need to use specialist equipment — such as amplifiers to boost the signal and filters to allow us to find the signal in the noise. We also use powerful microscopes to see the cells we’re recording from, and a vibration isolation table so people walking past don’t ruin the experiment.

These days, the rest of the team carry out most of the experiments because I spend a lot of time in my office writing papers and trying to get funding. But through the day, I’ve a stream of them coming in and saying things like “Come and see this result”, or, “I’ve just found something exciting!”

If I’m at the lab I usually have lunch at my desk, but about once a week I’ll walk over to Trinity and eat there because of the glorious gardens — they remind me of growing up in Dorset. I used to love roaming the fields where we lived, to look for wild orchids and watch birds; that’s what first gave me a curiosity about the natural world. My parents were inspirational to me. My father was an art teacher and my mother head teacher at the village school where I went with my sister. She become an accountant and our brother a naval captain. I went to Cambridge to do a degree and PhD in zoology, then post-doctoral work at Leicester University.

I don’t consider what I do as work because the idea of making a discovery is as exciting to me now as it was when I started

The particular ion channel we study is crucial for insulin secretion from the pancreas. Insulin lowers your blood sugar after meals, and if too little insulin is released you get diabetes.

Soon after I arrived in Oxford, in 1983, I discovered an ion channel that prevents insulin secretion when it is open and stimulates it when it is shut. It was one of the most exciting moments in my life — I had to ring everyone and tell them straight away.

The channel turned out to be important as it can cause people to be born with diabetes. Right now we’re still trying to understand how it works and what it looks like. But that breakthrough went on to transform the lives of children with diabetes; in the past they were treated with insulin injections but now more than 90% of them are on tablets.

All scientists hope their work will have an impact on people’s lives, but you never think it will happen in your lifetime, so I have been unbelievably privileged.

Some days, I’m away from my office at a conference or visiting a school to give a talk — it’s always wonderful to be able to inspire young people by what we do. To be honest, I don’t consider what I do as work because the idea of making a discovery is as exciting to me now as it was when I first started.

If I’ve been in the lab all day, I’ll finish about 7. I’m often busy in the evenings — at meetings, out with friends, having a working dinner. But if I’m just heading home, I’ll make something simple when I get in — maybe a salad, poached fish or an omelette. I’ll occasionally watch TV — a good science programme on BBC4 — and usually head up to bed about 10.30 or 11 to read for a while. I’ve just finished a PG Wodehouse, which was hilarious.

I try not to reflect on the day too much because I’ll stay awake trying to figure out something that’s puzzling us in the lab. And as every scientist knows, there’s always something that needs to be solved.

Professor Ashcroft will receive the L’Oréal-Unesco Women In Science European Laureate for 2012 in Paris on Thursday

It amazes me that this story is not today's headline, instead we are subjected to the pathetic nature of politics in Britain where people who contribute so little wish to influence governance to feather their own pathetic and rather squalid nests ..........................