The Internet hosts more information about diabetes than anyone can digest. Here you can find the best sites to check. You should be able to get answers online to just about any questions that you have, but you must be cautious about the source of the advice. Don’t make any major changes in your diabetes care without checking with your physician.
To determine whether information you find on a website is really useful, you need to discuss it with your physician, your diabetes educator, or other members of your team. You can rely on any website here, but sometimes free advice is worth no more than you pay for it.
Getting started
You can start your search for information at Dr. Rubin’s website. You can find general information and advice about diabetes, daily tips, new developments, and answers to questions. You also find all of the sites listed in this article, so you need only click on them to see them for yourself.
Perusing general sites
These sites tell you about diabetes from A to Z. The site sponsors run the gamut from well-known organizations to individual doctors who specialize in diabetes.
The American Diabetes Association
The huge website for the American Diabetes Association has just about everything you need to know about diabetes and then some. If the information becomes a little technical in places, you’ve probably gotten into the professional section by mistake. You can order all the ADA’s publications from here.
Online Diabetes Resources by Rick Mendosa
Rick Mendosa, who has diabetes himself, has cataloged just about everything there is on the web concerning diabetes. Collecting all this info is a huge project, and he manages to bring it off beautifully. He also has some excellent articles that he has written on various topics in diabetes.
National Diabetes Education Program
The federal government sponsors the National Diabetes Education Program to improve treatments and outcomes for people with diabetes, to promote early diagnosis, and to prevent the onset of diabetes. It’s a vast undertaking.
National Diabetes Education Initiative
Through the National Diabetes Education Initiative, the federal government is determined to teach physicians about the importance of meeting the standards of diabetes care and how to go about doing so. You can discover a lot by looking at its programs.
Medscape Diabetes and Endocrinology Home Page
At the Medscape Diabetes and Endocrinology website you can find numerous articles about diabetes from medical literature, as well as free access to the files of the National Library of Medicine.
The Diabetes Monitor
The Diabetes Monitor is the creation of diabetes specialist Dr. William Quick. He discusses every aspect of diabetes, including the latest discoveries.
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation prides itself on its contribution to research in diabetes. At its website you can find what you want to know about the latest government programs that emphasize finding a cure for diabetes.
Children with Diabetes
The site Children with Diabetes is the creation of a father of a diabetic child. It has an enormous database of information for the parents of children with diabetes.
Joslin Diabetes Center
The Joslin Diabetes Center has been one of the world’s leading pioneers in diabetes care, and the information on this site reflects that fact. The site also tells you how you can join Joslin, do research, or go to diabetes camp.
Canadian Diabetes Association
If you’re Canadian, you want to visit Canadian Diabetes Association because a lot of its information (obviously) pertains to the special needs of Canadians with diabetes. However, much of the information is general and of use to everyone. A major benefit is that the information is in French as well as English.
The International Diabetes Federation
This organization, representing more than 100 countries, meets every three years and can be a source for knowledgeable diabetes experts around the world. Check out www.idf.org.
Behavioral Diabetes Institute
If you have a psychological issue relating to your diabetes, you may find help at the Behavioral Diabetes Institute website, which claims to be the “first organization dedicated to tackling the unmet psychological needs of people with diabetes.”
Contacting companies that make diabetes products
This section helps you find the companies that make the products you need to control your diabetes. If you have questions about the proper use of a drug or a device, you can usually find answers here. But keep in mind that the companies are very limited (by the FDA) with respect to the uses of their products. Often doctors use drugs in ways that have proven to be successful but have not yet received FDA approval.
Glucose meters
The following companies make the meters used by the largest number of people with diabetes. You can expect that these companies will still be around if you start having problems with your meter after a year or two of use.
Lancing devices
A company that has a very large share of the market for lancing devices is Owen Mumford.
Insulin pumps
Six companies dominate the market for insulin pump devices. They are
Insulin
These three companies dominate the insulin market in the United States:
Insulin syringes
If you want to find the major company for syringes, go to the website for Becton, Dickinson, and Company.
Insulin jet-injection devices
Jet-injection devices provide “painless” insulin injection. The only company that seems to still be making this device is in the Netherlands. It’s called the European Pharma Group.
Oral medications
This list includes only six companies, but the market for oral medications is heating up, so if you read about diabetes advancements or talk to your doctor or specialist, you’ll likely hear about several more.
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AstraZeneca (Byetta)
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Bristol-Myers Squibb (Glucophage, Glucovance, Glucophage XR, Onglyza
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Eli Lilly (Tradjenta)
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Merck (Januvia)
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Pfizer (Glucotrol)
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Sanofi-Aventis (Amaryl)
Getting Info from government websites
These sites provide lots of authoritative information in their many online publications about diabetes. They also tell you about the latest government programs to eradicate the disease.
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National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease: This site is loaded with great publications about diabetes.
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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: If you want to know all the latest statistics about every aspect of diabetes, the CDC has you covered.
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Healthfinder: This site is a service of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It has information about many important diseases and has a large section about diabetes.
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PubMed search service of the National Library of Medicine: This website is where you go to use the National Library of Medicine. The site is easy to use and gives you (for free) a large number of the latest scientific papers on any medical topic of interest.
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Nongovernment website for searching the National Library: Although not a government site, MedFetch is excellent for creating repeated searches of the National Library on a topic like diabetes over time. The information arrives by email, and the results are delivered in one of six languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, or Portuguese.
Obtaining diabetes information in other languages
At this site for Diabetes UK, a charity based in the United Kingdom, you find diabetes educational information in numerous languages.
Visiting sites for the visually impaired
Diabetes has a major impact on vision when the disease isn’t controlled. You can find huge quantities of information on every issue relating to visual impairment at the sites listed in this section.
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American Foundation for the Blind: The American Foundation for the Blind has resources, information, reports, talking books, and limitless facts and wisdom about dealing with visual impairment.
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Blindness Resource Center: This site for the Blindness Resource Center points you in the right direction for information on every aspect of blindness. It’s a guide to other sites about visual impairment.
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The Diabetes Action Network (National Federation of the Blind): This national organization is another major source of information about every aspect of blindness.
Helping animals with diabetes
Yes, your dog and cat and many other animals can get diabetes, and websites exist that can help.
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Dogs and other pets: This site tells you everything you need to know to manage your canine with diabetes.
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Cats: This site is packed with helpful information for the pet owner who has a diabetic cat.
Finding recipes for people with diabetes
You can find a number of excellent recipes on the web, but approach them with caution. Although you can generally count on the recipes in books to contain the nutritional information they list, when you find a recipe on the web, you need to evaluate its source to be sure the listed nutritional information is accurate.
You can trust these sites. They’re currently the best of the available websites that provide recipes appropriate for a person with diabetes. Things change so frequently on the web that keeping up-to-date is difficult, so check back often.
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Check out the nutrition section of the American Diabetes Association website. Here you find discussions of nutrition as well as lots of recipes.
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“Children with Diabetes” includes a large amount of information on meal planning, sugar substitutes, and the food guide pyramid, as well as many recipes.
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The Joslin Diabetes Center points out that “There is no such thing as a diabetic diet.” That’s one of the many statements you find about diabetes at this site.
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“3 Fat Chicks on a Diet” has complete calorie counts for most fast food restaurants.
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The Vegetarian Resource Group maintains a large site filled with information for vegetarians who have developed diabetes.
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Diabetic Gourmet Magazine offers a valuable site that contains information about diagnosis and treatment, as well as numerous recipes that you can use.
Here are some of the best sites for Mediterranean recipes on the Internet: