Highlights

• Higher intake of dietary total branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), leucine and valine in particular, may increase the incidence of insulin resistance by more than 60% in adults and play an important role in the development of diabetes.
• No significant association of was found between the intake of total BCAAs or isoleucine, leucine, and valine individually and the risk of hyperinsulinemia, β-cell dysfunction, or insulin insensitivity in adults.

Highlights

• Hemoglobin A1c should be used with caution in diagnosing diabetes among patients with disorders affecting red blood cell survival or glycosylation.
• The challenge of using HbA1c to diagnose diabetes lies in finding the “right” diagnostic cut-off value because results, to date, are vastly inconsistent.
• Differences in data collection methods in populations from different ethnic groups and with varying clinical characteristics, different assay methods for the measurement of HbA1c, and different reference criteria may all play a part in the inconsistent results.

Highlights

• Vitamin D insufficiency is common in pregnant women, and has been associated with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). However, the effect of vitamin D intake, either from diet or supplements, on the development of GDM remains unknown.
• In a large prospective cohort study, we found that prepregnancy supplemental vitamin D intake was significantly and inversely associated with risk of GDM.
• These results indicate potential benefits of increasing vitamin D intake from supplements in the prevention of GDM.

Highlights

• The sensitivity of HbA1c as a screening test for diabetes in this study was significantly higher than that in other published studies in the literature.
• One reason that could explain the increased sensitivity of HbA1c in this study could be the use of repeat testing to confirm the diagnosis of diabetes.

Highlights

• Zinc deficiency is present in those with prediabetes, and can be corrected by zinc supplementation.
• Zinc supplementation in those with prediabetes reduced blood glucose and insulin resistance while improving β-cell function.
• Disease progression to diabetes was reduced with zinc supplementation.
• Zinc supplementation also had beneficial effects on total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol.

Highlights

• This study demonstrates that genes encoding glutathione S-transferases M1, T1, and P1 are important determinants of susceptibility to type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in Russians.
• This study is the first to show a joint contribution of these genes to the development of the disease, but the effects of these genes on disease risk are gender specific.
• A synergy between the effects of glutathione S-transferase gene polymorphisms and cigarette smoking may increase the risk of T2DM.

Highlights

• Active smoking was associated with an increased risk of prevalent poor glycemic control in middle-aged or elderly diabetic adults.
• Men who quit smoking for <10 years remained at increased risk for prevalent poor glycemic control compared with never smokers, and the risk leveled off after 10 years of smoking cessation.
• Smoking cessation was associated with improvement in glycemic control compared with current smoking.