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An emerging field in the area of nutrition and cancer is the role of whole grains in cancer prevention. In a world where carbohydrates, particularly refined sources, are increasingly viewed as the culprit for obesity and associated chronic disease, are whole grains the safest carbohydrate to recommend for cancer prevention? Currently, consuming a plant-based diet containing whole grain foods is part of the American Cancer Society

The post Whole grains for cancer prevention? Take the evidence with a grain… of salt appeared first on OUPblog.

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There are perils to being a children’s librarian. This never occurred to me until I took grandson Robby to story time. At one session, the head came off of the turkey puppet that was helping to illustrate a story and song about Thanksgiving. While the librarian was trying to stick the head back on the turkey and sing simultaneously, the felt board fell over. The 3-and 4-year-olds seated in a circle erupted in laughter. The librarian was quick on his feet and rescued this “turkey” by playing his guitar and singing I’m a Little Turkey to the tune of I’m a Little Teapot as they all strutted around like Thanksgiving gobblers. My grandson thought it was the best thing ever.

This November when children’s librarians are strutting their stuff by cutting Thanksgiving turkeys out of construction paper, singing songs and playing with puppets, there is another important observance to headline: It’s National Diabetes Awareness Month.

Years ago, Type 1 diabetes was rare in children and Type 2 did not exist. A nationally representative study[i] now has confirmed that from 2001 to 2009 the incidence of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes drastically increased among children and adolescents across racial groups in this country. The study found that the prevalence of Type 1 diabetes increased 21 percent among children up to age 19. The prevalence of Type 2 diabetes among ages 10 to 19 rose 30 percent during the same period . Nearly 30 million children and adults in the United States have this disease.

As an author and journalist with a background in health care communications, I am passionate about writing books that empower and help children deal with medical conditions. The most recent effort is a self-help book for children with diabetes, Maddy Patti and the Great Curiosity. Dr. Stan Borg, a family physician, and I collaborated to write this story across the miles—354.8 to be exact—to help youngsters understand and manage their diabetes.

A special section in the book is for teachers and parents. Teachers especially may benefit from this information because it helps them understand why, for example, a child with diabetes may need more bathroom breaks because of high blood sugar levels, or they may need to eat periodically throughout the day.

Informational links for librarians:

• http://professional.diabetes.org/ResourcesForProfessionals.aspx?cid=91777
• http://ndep.nih.gov/diabetes-facts/
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24041677
• http://jdrf.org/
• http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabetes/we-can-help/?referrer=https://search.yahoo.com/

Discussion Questions:

Q. What special tools will help illustrate and promote National Diabetes Month for youngsters at our libraries?
Q. How can librarians find help and support for children and parents who are dealing with a diabetes diagnosis in our community?
Q. How can we use National Diabetes Awareness Month to garner publicity for our library?

Despite the occasional perils of falling felt boards and headless puppets, I believe that children’s librarians are important and necessary advocates for youngsters not only with diabetes but all children because you are fluent at knowing and interpreting their needs to teachers, parents and the community. So amid the sing-a-longs about gobblers and the Thanksgiving tales this November, National Diabetes Awareness Month might be a good topic to feature at your library, too.

[1] ] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health , Search for Diabetes in Youth, 2008-2009, multicenter, continuing  study to examine diabetes (type I and type 2) among children and adolescents in the United States from 2000 to 2015.

******************************************************************

Mary Abel has been a professional writer for more than 40 years and is the recipient of multiple writing awards, including the Sigma Delta Chi Mark of Excellence Award in journalism. She holds a BA in journalism from The Ohio State University. Contact her at: [email protected].

Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.

If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at [email protected].

 

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The International Diabetes Foundation has marked 14 November as World Diabetes Day, commemorating the date that Frederick Banting and his team first discovered insulin, and the link between it and diabetic symptoms.

As we approach the festive season, a time of year when indulgence and comfort are positively encouraged, keeping track of, or even thinking about blood glucose levels can become a difficult and annoying task. If good diabetic practice relies on building routines suited to the way your blood sugar levels change throughout the day, then the holidays can prove a big disruption to the task of keeping diabetes firmly in the background. With this in mind, take a look at this list of tips, facts, and advice taken from Diabetes by David Matthews, Niki Meston, Pam Dyson, Jenny Shaw, Laurie King, and Aparna Pal to help you stay in control and happy throughout the festive months:

• Eat regularly. When big occasions cause your portion sizes to increase alarmingly, it’s tempting to skip or put off other meals. But eating large amounts at irregular intervals can cause blood glucose levels to rise significantly. For many, it’s better to snack throughout the day, including some starchy rather than sugary carbohydrates, promoting slow glucose release into the bloodstream.
• Alternate drinks. Big dinners, big nights, and family days are likely to mean you consume more alcohol than normal. Alternating alcoholic drinks with diet drinks, soda, or mineral water can minimize their effect on blood glucose levels, so you can stay out, and keep up, without worrying.
• Help your liver. Alcohol is metabolized by the liver, an organ that also helps release glucose into the bloodstream when levels start to drop. After drinking, the liver is busy processing alcohol, so cannot release glucose as effectively. This increases the risk of hypoglycaemia, especially in people who take insulin or sulphonylurea tablets. To combat this risk, try to avoid drinking on an empty stomach, or eat starchy foods when drinking. You may also need to snack before bed if you’re drinking in the evening.
• Eat more, exercise more. Regular activity can have major benefits on your diabetes, making the insulin you produce or inject work more efficiently. Both aerobic and anaerobic exercise will have positive effects, and are excellent ways of giving you a mental boost (though blood glucose levels should be monitored). Many symptoms of hypos are similar to those of exercise, such as hotness, sweating or an increased heart rate. Check blood glucose levels regularly and make necessary adjustments; fruit contains natural sugar and is a healthy way of quickly raising levels.
• Go for your New Year’s resolution. Losing five to ten percent of your starting weight can have a positive impact on your diabetes, not to mention your overall health. Although exercise and eating well are of course promoted by all as the best way to lose weight, there is no medical consensus on one ideal way to achieve weight loss. The key lies in finding an effective approach that you can maintain. Remember that insulin can slow down weight loss, and if you are trying to lose weight, but find you’re having hypos, you’ll need to adjust your medication. Discuss this with your healthcare team.
• Check Labels. Sodium isn’t synonymous with salt, but many food manufacturers often list sodium rather than salt content on food packaging. To convert a sodium figure into salt, you need to multiply the amount of sodium by 2.5. (For example: A large 12 inch cheese and tomato pizza provides 3.6 g of sodium. 3.6 multiplied by 2.5 is 9, so, the pizza contains approximately 9g of salt; one and a half times the recommended maximum of 6g.)
• Don’t worry! Although a good routine is important, occasional lapses shouldn’t have a drastic effect on blood glucose levels (though this varies from person to person). Pick up a healthy routine in the New Year, when you’ll feel most motivated, and stick to it. The World Health Organization estimates over 200 million people will have type 2 diabetes by the year 2015, but (according to the international diabetes foundation) over 70% of cases of type 2 diabetes could be prevented by adopting healthier lifestyles. Healthy living is not just a supplement, but part of the treatment of diabetes.

Heading image: Christmas Eve by Carl Larsson. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The post On World Diabetes Day, a guide to managing diabetes during the holidays appeared first on OUPblog.

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This month, it was reported that scientists at Harvard University have successfully made insulin-secreting beta cells from human pluripotent stem cells. This is an important milestone towards a “stem cell therapy” for diabetes, which will have huge effects on human medicine.

Diabetes is a group of diseases in which the blood glucose is too high. In type 1 diabetes, the patients have an autoimmune disease that causes destruction of their insulin-producing cells (the beta cells of the pancreas). Insulin is the hormone that enables glucose to enter the cells of the tissues and in its absence the glucose remains in the blood and cannot be used. In type 2 diabetes the beta cells are usually somewhat defective and cannot adapt to the increased demand often associated with age and/or obesity. Despite the availability of insulin for treating diabetes since the 1920s, the disease is still a huge problem. If the level of blood glucose is not perfectly controlled it will cause damage to blood vessels and this eventually leads to various unpleasant complications including heart failure, stroke, kidney failure, blindness, and gangrene of limbs. Apart from the considerable suffering of the affected patients, the costs of dealing with diabetes is a huge financial burden for all health services. The prevalence of type 2 diabetes in particular is rising in most parts of the world and the number of patients is now counted in the hundreds of millions.

To get perfect control of blood glucose, insulin injections will never be quite good enough. The beta cells of the pancreas are specialised to secrete exactly the correct amount of insulin depending on the level of glucose they detect in the blood. At present the only sources of beta cells for transplantation are the pancreases taken from deceased organ donors. However this has enabled a clinical procedure to the introduced called “islet transplantation”. Here, the pancreatic islets (which contain the beta cells) are isolated from one or more donor pancreases and are infused into the liver of the diabetic patient. The liver has a similar blood supply to the pancreas and the procedure to infuse the cells is surgically very simple. The experience of islet transplants has shown that the technique can cure diabetes, at least in the short term. But there are three problems. Firstly the grafts tend to lose activity over a few years and eventually the patients are back on injected insulin. Secondly the grafts require permanent immunosuppression with drugs to avoid rejection by the host, and this can lead to problems. Thirdly, and most importantly, the supply of donor pancreases is very limited and only a tiny fraction of what is really needed.

This background may explain why the production of human beta cells has been a principal objective of stem cell research for many years. If unlimited numbers of beta cells could be produced from somewhere then at least the problem of supply would be solved and transplants could be made available for many more people. Although there are other potential sources, most effort has gone into making beta cells from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC). These resemble cells of the early embryo: they can be grown without limit in culture, and they can differentiate into most of the cell types found in the body. hPSC comprise embryonic stem cells, made by culturing cells directly from early human embryos; and also “induced pluripotent stem cells” (iPSC), made by introducing selected genes into other cell types to reprogram them to an embryonic state. The procedures for making hPSC into beta cells have been designed based on the knowledge obtained by developmental biologists about how the pancreas and the beta cells arise during normal development of the embryo. This has shown that there are several stages of cell commitment, each controlled by different extracellular signal substances. Mimicking this series of events in culture should, theoretically, yield beta cells in the dish. In reality some art as well as science is required to create useful differentiation protocols. Many labs have been involved in this work but until now the best protocols could only generate immature beta cells, which have a low insulin content and do not secrete insulin when exposed to glucose. The new study has developed a protocol yielding fully functional mature beta cells which have the same insulin content as normal beta cells and which secrete insulin in response to glucose in the same way. These are the critical properties that have so far eluded researchers in this area and are essential for the cells to be useful for transplantation. Also, unlike most previous procedures, the new Harvard method grows the cells as clumps in suspension, which means that it is capable of producing the large number of cells required for human transplants.

These cells can cure diabetes in diabetic mice, but when will they be tried in humans? This will depend on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the USA. The FDA has so far been very cautious about stem cell therapies because they do not want to see cells implanted that will grow without control and become cancerous. One thing they will insist on is extremely good evidence that there are absolutely none of the original pluripotent cells left in the transplant, as they would probably develop into tumours. This highlights the fact that the treatment is not really “stem cell therapy” at all, it is actually “differentiated cell therapy” where the transplanted cells are made from stem cells instead of coming from organ donors. The FDA will also much prefer a delivery method which will enable the cells to be removed, something which is not the case with current islet transplants. One much discussed possibility is “encapsulation” whereby the cells are enclosed in a semipermeable membrane that can let nutrients in and insulin out but will not allow cells to escape. This might also enable the use of immunosuppressive drugs to be avoided, as encapsulation is also intended to provide a barrier against the immune cells of the host.

Stem cell therapy has been hyped for years but with the exception of the long established bone marrow transplant it has not yet delivered. An effective implant which is easy to insert and easy to replace would certainly revolutionize the treatment of diabetes, and given the importance of diabetes worldwide, this in itself can be expected to revolutionize healthcare.

Featured image credit: A colony of embryonic stem cell. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

The post Stem cell therapy for diabetes appeared first on OUPblog.

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If a “revolution” in our field or area of knowledge was ongoing, would we feel it and recognize it? And if so, how?

I think a methodological “revolution” is probably going on in the science of epidemiology, but I’m not totally sure. Of course, in science not being sure is part of our normal state. And we mostly like it. I had the feeling that a revolution was ongoing in epidemiology many times. While reading scientific articles, for example. And I saw signs of it, which I think are clear, when reading the latest draft of the forthcoming book Causal Inference by M.A. Hernán and J.M. Robins from Harvard (Chapman & Hall / CRC, 2015). I think the “revolution” — or should we just call it a “renewal”? — is deeply changing how epidemiological and clinical research is conceived, how causal inferences are made, and how we assess the validity and relevance of epidemiological findings. I suspect it may be having an immense impact on the production of scientific evidence in the health, life, and social sciences. If this were so, then the impact would also be large on most policies, programs, services, and products in which such evidence is used. And it would be affecting thousands of institutions, organizations and companies, millions of people.

One example: at present, in clinical and epidemiological research, every week “paradoxes” are being deconstructed. Apparent paradoxes that have long been observed, and whose causal interpretation was at best dubious, are now shown to have little or no causal significance. For example, while obesity is a well-established risk factor for type 2 diabetes (T2D), among people who already developed T2D the obese fare better than T2D individuals with normal weight. Obese diabetics appear to survive longer and to have a milder clinical course than non-obese diabetics. But it is now being shown that the observation lacks causal significance. (Yes, indeed, an observation may be real and yet lack causal meaning.) The demonstration comes from physicians, epidemiologists, and mathematicians like Robins, Hernán, and colleagues as diverse as S. Greenland, J. Pearl, A. Wilcox, C. Weinberg, S. Hernández-Díaz, N. Pearce, C. Poole, T. Lash , J. Ioannidis, P. Rosenbaum, D. Lawlor, J. Vandenbroucke, G. Davey Smith, T. VanderWeele, or E. Tchetgen, among others. They are building methodological knowledge upon knowledge and methods generated by graph theory, computer science, or artificial intelligence. Perhaps one way to explain the main reason to argue that observations as the mentioned “obesity paradox” lack causal significance, is that “conditioning on a collider” (in our example, focusing only on individuals who developed T2D) creates a spurious association between obesity and survival.

The “revolution” is partly founded on complex mathematics, and concepts as “counterfactuals,” as well as on attractive “causal diagrams” like Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs). Causal diagrams are a simple way to encode our subject-matter knowledge, and our assumptions, about the qualitative causal structure of a problem. Causal diagrams also encode information about potential associations between the variables in the causal network. DAGs must be drawn following rules much more strict than the informal, heuristic graphs that we all use intuitively. Amazingly, but not surprisingly, the new approaches provide insights that are beyond most methods in current use. In particular, the new methods go far deeper and beyond the methods of “modern epidemiology,” a methodological, conceptual, and partly ideological current whose main eclosion took place in the 1980s lead by statisticians and epidemiologists as O. Miettinen, B. MacMahon, K. Rothman, S. Greenland, S. Lemeshow, D. Hosmer, P. Armitage, J. Fleiss, D. Clayton, M. Susser, D. Rubin, G. Guyatt, D. Altman, J. Kalbfleisch, R. Prentice, N. Breslow, N. Day, D. Kleinbaum, and others.

We live exciting days of paradox deconstruction. It is probably part of a wider cultural phenomenon, if you think of the “deconstruction of the Spanish omelette” authored by Ferran Adrià when he was the world-famous chef at the elBulli restaurant. Yes, just kidding.

Right now I cannot find a better or easier way to document the possible “revolution” in epidemiological and clinical research. Worse, I cannot find a firm way to assess whether my impressions are true. No doubt this is partly due to my ignorance in the social sciences. Actually, I don’t know much about social studies of science, epistemic communities, or knowledge construction. Maybe this is why I claimed that a sociology of epidemiology is much needed. A sociology of epidemiology would apply the scientific principles and methods of sociology to the science, discipline, and profession of epidemiology in order to improve understanding of the wider social causes and consequences of epidemiologists’ professional and scientific organization, patterns of practice, ideas, knowledge, and cultures (e.g., institutional arrangements, academic norms, scientific discourses, defense of identity, and epistemic authority). It could also address the patterns of interaction of epidemiologists with other branches of science and professions (e.g. clinical medicine, public health, the other health, life, and social sciences), and with social agents, organizations, and systems (e.g. the economic, political, and legal systems). I believe the tradition of sociology in epidemiology is rich, while the sociology of epidemiology is virtually uncharted (in the sense of not mapped neither surveyed) and unchartered (i.e. not furnished with a charter or constitution).

Another way I can suggest to look at what may be happening with clinical and epidemiological research methods is to read the changes that we are witnessing in the definitions of basic concepts as risk, rate, risk ratio, attributable fraction, bias, selection bias, confounding, residual confounding, interaction, cumulative and density sampling, open population, test hypothesis, null hypothesis, causal null, causal inference, Berkson’s bias, Simpson’s paradox, frequentist statistics, generalizability, representativeness, missing data, standardization, or overadjustment. The possible existence of a “revolution” might also be assessed in recent and new terms as collider, M-bias, causal diagram, backdoor (biasing path), instrumental variable, negative controls, inverse probability weighting, identifiability, transportability, positivity, ignorability, collapsibility, exchangeable, g-estimation, marginal structural models, risk set, immortal time bias, Mendelian randomization, nonmonotonic, counterfactual outcome, potential outcome, sample space, or false discovery rate.

You may say: “And what about textbooks? Are they changing dramatically? Has one changed the rules?” Well, the new generation of textbooks is just emerging, and very few people have yet read them. Two good examples are the already mentioned text by Hernán and Robins, and the soon to be published by T. VanderWeele, Explanation in causal inference: Methods for mediation and interaction (Oxford University Press, 2015). Clues can also be found in widely used textbooks by K. Rothman et al. (Modern Epidemiology, Lippincott-Raven, 2008), M. Szklo and J Nieto (Epidemiology: Beyond the Basics, Jones & Bartlett, 2014), or L. Gordis (Epidemiology, Elsevier, 2009).

Finally, another good way to assess what might be changing is to read what gets published in top journals as Epidemiology, the International Journal of Epidemiology, the American Journal of Epidemiology, or the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. Pick up any issue of the main epidemiologic journals and you will find several examples of what I suspect is going on. If you feel like it, look for the DAGs. I recently saw a tweet saying “A DAG in The Lancet!”. It was a surprise: major clinical journals are lagging behind. But they will soon follow and adopt the new methods: the clinical relevance of the latter is huge. Or is it not such a big deal? If no “revolution” is going on, how are we to know?

Feature image credit: Test tubes by PublicDomainPictures. Public Domain via Pixabay.

The post The deconstruction of paradoxes in epidemiology appeared first on OUPblog.

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& book giveaway!

When Gloria Loring began writing about turning points in her life she realized that coincidence was a key player in many of these events. So she began to wonder . . . what is coincidence? Just a quirky aligning of timing or something more? Soon she found herself on a self-guided trip through scientific theory, religious beliefs, and more as she tried to untangle the mystery we call coincidence.

Coincidence Is God's Way of Remaining Anonymous is Loring's spiritual exploration of how coincidence helped her make sense of life's challenges and uncertainties. Coincidence helped her raise $1 million for diabetes research; it arrived in the form of mysterious letters during her separation and eventual divorce from actor-writer Alan Thicke; and it helped her discover and then heal from the trauma of long-forgotten childhood sexual abuse. It also brought her a chance encounter with the man she is married to today. With eloquence and humor, Loring takes readers on a quest for a deeper understanding of life's journey and the role coincidence plays in all of our lives, revealing that even the most difficult circumstances can be beneficial. Her experiences may be just the evidence readers need to begin watching more closely what they are attracting and what they are running from in their own lives.

While coincidences may appear to come out of the blue, Loring suggests that we can all play a starring role in their appearance. "For years, I'd been waiting for someone else to make (my life) better. You'd have thought I was starring in "The Perils of Pauline." In truth, I wasn't a victim, I was a volunteer. . . . Coincidence gave me an experience of the lesson I needed to learn: You don't have to wait for someone to save you."

Paperback: 264 pages

Publisher: HCI (October 12, 2012)

ISBN-10: 0757316484

ISBN-13: 978-0757316487

Twitter hashtag: #TheGloriaLoring

Coincidence Is God’s Way of Remaining Anonymous is available as a print and e-book at Amazon and Barnes and Noble as well as your local bookstores.



Book Giveaway Contest:

To win a copy of Coincidence Is God’s Way of Remaining Anonymous, please enter using the Rafflecopter form at the bottom of this post. The giveaway contest closes this Friday, March 8 at 12:00 AM EST. We will announce the winner the same day in the Rafflecopter widget. Good luck!

About the Author:

When not starring on the soap opera Days of Our Lives, Gloria Loring found herself expressing herself with music. She is the recording artist of the #1 hit song Friends and Lovers as well co-composer of television theme songs Diff’rent Strokes and Facts Of Life. Gloria’s new musical show TV Tunez, a celebration of television’s best theme songs that earned standing ovations, is in development for a Las Vegas run. She is currently in the studio with producer Ted Perlman and songwriting legends Burt Bacharach and Desmond Child.

After her four-year-old son was diagnosed with diabetes, she created and self-published two volumes of the Days Of Our Lives Celebrity Cookbook which raised more than $1 million for diabetes research. She has also written Kids, Food and Diabetes, Parenting a Child with Diabetes, The Kids, Food & Diabetes Family Cookbook, and Living With Type 2 Diabetes: Moving Past the Fear. Gloria was honored by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation with the Lifetime Commitment Award and the Founders Award from the National Disease Research Interchange.

The Miss America Organization gave her the Woman of Achievement Award, an honor she shares with past recipients Barbara Bush, Roslyn Carter, and Hillary Clinton. She is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who of American Women.

Find out more about the author by visiting her online:

Gloria Loring’s website: http://www.glorialoring.com/

Facebook: www.Facebook.com/GloriaLoring

Twitter: @TheGloriaLoring


-----Interview by Jodi Webb

WOW: Coincidence Is God's Way of Remaining Anonymous spans many years of your life? How long did it take you from when you first decided to write your book until its publication?

Gloria: Twelve years. I started the process in 1999, and at first it contained only my stories. Yet I knew I wanted it to be valuable to the readers, so I researched coincidence, reading dozens of books on the subject. And because Albert Einstein said the words that title by book, I began reading about the intersection of scientific observation and spiritual wisdom. What I found fascinated me. Then I read up on lives of the great saints and sages to better understand their spiritual experiences. All of it supported and expanded my perspective on coincidence, and yet even then I couldn’t finish the book.

Some of my hesitancy was the fear that people might think it’s a religious book, because the word “God” is in the title. But when I noticed how many books on the bestseller lists were about spiritual issues, I realized the time had come. Only a few months after completing the writing, I found an agent and a very good publisher, HCI.

WOW: Do I spot another coincidence? You’re writing a spiritual book, spiritual books are popping up on the bestsellers lists? But let’s get back to those twelve years. That is a long time. But of course, since most WOW readers are writer/something else—whether it be writer/teacher or writer/president of the PTA or writer/dog rescuer—we all understand about there not being enough hours in the day. In the beginning, how long did you expect it to take to write your book?

Gloria: I thought it might take a year or so. I was also writing the songs that accompany each chapter at that same time, and imagined them as a “book with its own soundtrack” set. I finished recording the songs and released the CD, but each time I went back to the book, I realized there had to be more depth, more common sense, more expanded understanding. I took titling my book with Albert Einstein’s words and genius very seriously!

WOW: First of all, I’m blown away that you wrote a soundtrack for your book! You have such a busy life: performing, raising money for diabetes, having a family, writing literary soundtracks! How and when did you find time to write?

Gloria: At one intensive writing time, I wrote from 7 to 9 every morning and made quite a bit of progress in those months. But then the fear arose again, “who’s going to read a book by singer and actress Gloria Loring that has 'God' in the title?”

WOW: Oh, we all know that fear, no matter what type of book we're writing. But I'm wondering about the evolution of your book. Coincidence Is God's Way of Remaining Anonymous doesn't feel like a book that was planned. You don't seem like an outline kind of gal. Can you give us some insight into the creation of you book.

Gloria: This book is like Topsy from the “King and I” - “It just growed.” The story in Chapter One, “Expect a Miracle,” prompted me to remark to an interviewer that it was an amazing coincidence, and he replied, “Yes, but coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous. Those words of Albert Einstein’s inspired my writing the book. His words stayed with me and as my life unfolded, I saw the gracious hand of coincidence everywhere I looked. I was also encouraged by a quote in Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way, “We must share the gifts we have been given.”

WOW: So what happened when one year turned into two turned into . . . did you ever feel discouraged about not having enough time to dedicate to your writing? How did you keep yourself enthusiastic for your book . . . did you give yourself pep talks, did you have a group of supportive writers behind you, what made you keep going?

Gloria: Until the last months, when I began to read and share chapters with others, I wrote the book with very little input. I just kept asking myself, is it true, is it real, is it useful? My favorite part was doing the research. I had files of clippings, pages of quotes. Coincidence was always working on my behalf. It seemed every time I picked up a magazine or book, I found something that fed the book.

WOW: It's difficult to pinpoint your book . . . it's part memoir, part inspirational/spiritual, part self-help. It seems there is something for everyone. If you had to describe what type of book you wrote—in ten words or less—how would you describe it?

Gloria: It’s a memoir with a message of healing and inspiration.

WOW: You included many personal stories to help illustrate points throughout your book. Was it difficult deciding what to include and what to cut? Did you worry about telling family secrets or did you find it empowering?

Gloria: Trying to understand my personal stories led me to find the wisdom, the teachings, and the scientific and spiritual perspective I found supported my experiences. My goal was to explain what I had been through and how coincidence leads us to what we need to know and what we need to grow.

Although writing of the inappropriately sexualized contact with my father was difficult, the ways coincidence led me to healing were too powerful to dismiss from my personal storyline. Telling the truth was absolutely empowering. As one brave person told me, “We are only as sick as our secrets.”

WOW: What's the single most important thing you learned during your writing?

Gloria: To never again be afraid to tell my truth.

WOW: That’s a powerful lesson to take away from your writing. I hope we can all gain as much meaning from our work. Can you tell us what will be next for you?

Gloria: I do have the set-asides from this book, a few chapters worth of wisdom I had gleaned, that already has a title as a follow-up book. This summer and fall, I will be conducting workshops based on the healing principles in the book, and am also developing twelve “lessons on coincidence” with Dr. Alvin Jones for a CD set.

I just completed the audio version for Audible.com and after reading through the whole book out loud for three days, I am thinking of creating a one woman show. The songs that begin each chapter so beautifully illustrate and illuminate the stories. I’m excited about all the possibilities ahead of me. It’s as if a new chapter of my life has begun.

WOW: Oh my goodness, that last answer exhausted me! I may have to take sympathy nap! But I would love to see you in a one woman show based on Coincidence Is God’s Way of Remaining Anonymous. Call me when your show comes to Pennsylvania.


----------Blog Tour Dates

Monday, March 4@ The Muffin
Stop by for an interview and book giveaway!
http://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com/

Wednesday, March 6 @ A Writer’s Life
We all face times when we're "on stage" as the center of attention (wanted or not)--everything from work presentations to wedding toasts to a solo in the church choir. Performer Gloria Loring gives tips on conquering stage fright.
http://carolineclemmons.blogspot.com

Friday, March 8 @ Donna’s Book Pub
Learn more about the real person behind the Days of Our Lives character Liz Chandler with an interview of actress (and author) Gloria Loring.
http://donnasbookpub.blogspot.com

Monday, March 11 @ Colloquium
Soap opera star Gloria Loring reveals "The Good Use of Celebrity" and gives away a copy of her latest book Coincidence Is God's Way of Remaining Anonymous.
http://www.jhsiess.com/

Wednesday, March 13 @ Words by Webb
Learn what an old soap fan has to say about Gloria Loring’s venture into the writing world.
http://jodiwebb.com

Friday, March 15 @ Soaps
Stop by soaps.com for an interview with Gloria Loring, including a few questions from her soap opera fans. You'll also get a chance to win a copy of her book Coincidence Is God's Way of Remaining Anonymous.
http://www.soaps.com/

Tuesday, March 19 @ CMash Loves to Read
Learn more about how soap opera star Gloria Loring became a diabetes advocate and author enter to win her memoir Coincidences Are God's Way of Remaining Anonymous.
http://cmashlovestoread.com/

Friday, March 22 @ Lori’s Reading Corner
Gloria Loring, actress, singer and diabetes advocate, tells you how to "Make It Up and Write It Down." She's also giving away a copy of her memoir Coincidence Is God's Way of Remaining Anonymous.
http://www.lorisreadingcorner.com

Wednesday, April 3 @ Tiffany Talks Books
After you read today's review of Coincidences Are God's Way of Remaining Anonymous, you'll jump at the chance to enter and win a free copy!
http://www.tiffanytalksbooks.com

Friday, April 5 @ Thoughts in Progress
We've all had them. Some we remember fondly. Others we wish had been exiled to a deserted island. They're lousy boyfriends and that's what actress, diabetes activist and author Gloria Loring wants to talk about today! Join the fun and get a chance to win her memoir Coincidences Are God's Way of Remaining Anonymous.
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Whilst browsing the Oxford journal Age and Ageing last week, I came across a paper focusing on diabetes in the elderly. Interestingly, it noted that men and women with diabetes aged 65 or over are one and half times more likely to have recurrent falls than people in the same age bracket without diabetes. Having two sets of grandparents in their seventies, one pair with diabetes and one without, I wanted to know about this correlation between diabetes and falling, and how it might apply to them. Here, I speak with Ms. Evelien Pijpers (EP), author of this paper, to learn more. – Nicola (NB)

NB: Your recent paper says that in a three-year study of 1145 Dutch participants aged 65 and over, you discovered an increased risk of recurrent falls associated with diabetes. Can you explain why those with diabetes are more likely to have a fall?
EP: We examined a number of possible contributing factors which led to this increased likelihood of recurrent falls, yet we can only explain about half of the increased risk faced by older patients with diabetes.

The factors which we did link with the increased risk of recurrent falling in patients with diabetes included the use of four or more medications; higher levels of chronic pain, mostly experienced in the muscles and bones; poorer self-perceived health; lower physical activity, grip strength and sense of balance, combined with greater limitations in the performance of daily activities such as bathing and dressing; and more significant problems with cognitive impairment.

Fortunately for the patients, we didn’t record enough major injuries or fractures over the three-year study period to be able to track any correlation between diabetes and fracture risk in older people.

NB: What are the consequences of recurrent falling?
EP: As a geriatrician, I see a lot of mobility problems in older patients. They are present in older people in the accident and emergency department, the hospital wards, and the care and nursing homes. When I visit my older patients at home, it is both the mobility difficulties and the fear of falling which stop them from walking to the shops or strolling through the cobblestone streets of Maastricht.

My older patients with diabetes seem to be especially prone to fall and injure themselves. Even if they avoid lasting injury, I find that afterwards they try and avoid situations in which they could fall again. This unfortunately limits their social contact and the number of physical activities they are willing to undertake, and as such their physical condition declines, sometimes to the point where disability and loss of independence are inevitable. For those with diabetes who are more likely to fall, it is more likely that they will face this quandary.

NB: So what could be done to prevent the increased fall risk in older persons with diabetes?
EP: To improve the quality of life of this growing group of older patients with diabetes, it is important to keep them physically and mentally active, mobile, and able to avoid falls and injuries. Therefore even though we cannot yet account for the entirety of the increased risk of falling, it is possible to address fall risk factors we now know about. A medication review can help, as can muscle training and activities to improve balance – which in turn may even improve pain induced by osteoarthritis. Improving mobility helps individuals to perform everyday activities, and it is easier to feel positive about your health if you are able to maintain independence. It is important that we teach older patients how to fall with the least risk of injury, and how to pick yourself up (both physically and mentally) when you have fallen without losing confidence. As such, physicians should be in the practice of counselling all elderly diabetic patients about active lifestyles and the importance of mobi

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Frayed Edges, Loose Thread

A Short Story by Amelia M.L. Montes

(originally published in “Saguaro Journal”)

There was diabetes all over my house while I was growing up. There was diabetes in some of the old clothes Mamá wore after my sister Nina died of it. There was diabetes in some of the rags we used to dust the house with because when tío Tan lost his arm, he always gave Mamá the sleeves for us to use on the furniture. There was diabetes in our family photos.

Tía Concha had died long before I was born but I knew her through the yellowed pictures in the green shoe box—the box on the shelf above the hanging clothes in the closet. Tía Concha had no legs and sat in a long chaise lounge with many blankets on top of her so no one could tell, “but of course we all knew,” Mamá would say. Tía Concha posed in her chair, smiling toward the camera, her crooked fingers waving hello, or arranged carefully one on top of the other over the blankets. The close-up of tía Concha didn’t really focus on her long gray braid or front silver teeth. Instead, the camera caught her looking down at her fingers extended over a book. Her fingers reminded me of the twisted trees I saw on the coast of Monterrey—the ones that line the cliffs on the 17 mile drive—the trunks that look like they’re going straight but then curve off, now right, now left, leaning into each other, leaning out toward the sea.

Tía Concha lived by the sea but it wasn’t on the Monterrey coast of California. She lived in Mazatlán, where the trees are long lean palms. Mamá said that she and her cousins would take large palm branches and fan her on hot days. In one of the pictures, Abuela is ho

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  This blue circle is the global symbol for diabetes – developed as part of the Unite for Diabetes awareness campaign. The significance of this blue circle is positive and hopeful. Cross-culturally, the circle symbolizes life and health, with the color blue reflecting the sky that unites all nations and is the color of the [...]

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This is the latest post in our regular OUPblog column SciWhys. Every month OUP editor and author Jonathan Crowe will be answering your science questions. Got a burning question about science that you'd like answered? Just email it to us, and Jonathan will answer what he can. Today: what happens when our immune system doesn’t work as it should?

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