Diabetes means your blood glucose it too high. Sometimes people can control their diabetes with just food and exercise, but many are left to take diabetic medications for their entire life. Diabetes is something we will deal with every day as an RN. No matter what field you choose, you seem to see diabetes as a common diagnosis. I wanted to research valid information that explains the drugs available to keep diabetes under control, and basic information on how the drugs work and the disease itself. I also wanted to give other options to the diabetic for controlling their blood sugar.
I found all of my resources by checking though either a research database or directory, or an expert topic/content directory like MedlinePlus. When looking for my Internet Resources I used the criteria from http://olinuris.library.cornell.edu/ref/research/webcrit.html. They suggest focusing on five different areas when looking at any Internet Resource. These areas are: Accuracy, Authority, Objectivity, Currency, and Coverage.
National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse (NDIC)
What you need to know about diabetes medications
http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/medicines_ez
This is a resource database I found from the National Library of Medicine which has good, quick, basic information for diabetes medications. This page is even available in Spanish which could be valuable to many people. The page starts with basic information explaining what diabetes is and a basic overview of what medications do and how they work. This would be a good site for people who are newly diagnosed with diabetes (Type 1 or Type 2).
American Diabetes Association
Herbs, supplements and Alternative Medicines
http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabetes/treatment-and-care/medication/herbs-supplements
This is a resource database that gives alternatives to pills or insulin. People are always looking for a “natural way” of helping the body cope with a disease. Our bodies have that ability and this site gives good, solid information on those alternatives. It is also a very good resource for anything else that you would want to know about diabetes. This would be a good resource for those considering a “natural alternative” to controlling their diabetes.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Diabetes
This is an excellent website that has any question you can think of that relates to Diabetes. It also has a lot of information on prevention of diabetes. This site would be good for someone who might be at risk for diabetes but hasn’t yet been diagnosed. Many people have diabetes in their family history, and this information is good to keep them from being a statistic of diabetes.
Joslin Diabetes Center
Fine Tune Your Diabetes Management
Joslin Diabetes Center is a teaching and research partner of Harvard Medical School. There are many Joslin Centers all over the United States. I hadn’t heard of this research group until doing my webliography. They are dedicated professionals with a passion to find a cure to diabetes. This was a very interesting site and could be helpful to anyone that is diagnosed to someone just researching the disease itself.
National Diabetes Education Program
I have Diabetes
This site is a program developed in 1997, and is federally funded by the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services’ National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This program is made up of a group of partners on a federal, state, and local level. You can search their database for select topics such as age, diabetes status, ethnicity/race, and language. They have many resources you can download or view. This site would be for anyone who has any question about diabetes, from a patient to a medical professional.
Discovery Fit and Health
How Diabetes Works
http://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/diabetes/diabetes.htm
This website has tutorials and colorful diagrams, for us visual learners, which are very informative on diabetes issues. This site was a mixture of all the above sites as far as information is concerned. It just has a simple, easy to follow, instruction, and definition for every aspect of this disease with a different approach at getting the information across. This site would be good for someone who wanted to get the visual aspect of how this disease affects the body.
