I read an interesting article on the BBC News feed that spoke about a link between diabetes complications and a Vitamin B-1 (thiamine) deficiency.   According to the article, diabetics expel Vitamin B-1 from their bodies at a rate 15 times that of non-diabetics.  Thiamine apparently helps ward off common diabetic complications such as heart disease and eye problems.

Obviously, you should not attempt to treat yourself of starting taking vitamin supplements without first speaking to your doctor.  The point here is that if you are a diabetic or a patient afflicted with any other chronic condition, you should use the power of the Internet to learn about new developments and treatments – both in the United States as well as elsewhere in the world.

Google, Yahoo and numerous other free services allow you to subscribe to alert services whereby you can receive an email notificaiton if a news story appears that includes specific "key phrases" you choose.  You can and should also learn about RSS feeds – another way to keep up to date with information.   I use the Google Alert service to keep up with developments in the Social Security disability area among other topics. 

If you have a favorite trusted source for medical or health care information, please comment on this post – I’ll create a page on this blog with a repository of those links.

[tags] diabetes and thiamine deficiency, health care information on the Internet, Google Alerts, RSS feeds [/tags]