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Welcome to our newest Board Member - Ruby McGill

The Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa is thrilled to welcome Ruby McGill (Te Ātiawa) as a new member of the Board of Trustees.Ruby is a well known advocate for people with diabetes, particularly Type 1.  Her bio describes her as "Blogger, business owner, mum and Type 1 diabetes (T1D) warrior who is determined to live a long, full and healthy life, while sharing her experience to help others thrive with T1D. Ruby was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 14 years old. And has become a...

Workplace wellness and staying home when sick

The Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa Workplaces programme aims to keep employees healthy through improved lifestyle behaviours and developing a work environment that encourages the healthier choice. Healthy employees are less likely to get sick, and less likely to suffer from presenteeism or absenteeism. But when sickness does strike, it's often the case that unwell employees feel social pressure to come to work.   Te Whatu Ora have been promoting this campaign which is encouraging people ...

Publication - DCSS - Cardiovascular disease and heart failure with IGT

The title of this article in Cardiovascular Diabetology using analysis of the DCSS Quality Improvement Audit data is "Effect of onset of type 2 diabetes on risks of cardiovascular disease and heart failure among new Zealanders with impaired glucose tolerance over 25 years: tapered-matched landmark analysis".   Go here for the paper.  The aim of the study was to "examine the association between the incident onset of T2DM and 5- and 10-year risks of CVD and HF in people with IG...

Throwback - going through the photo albums...

We've been going back through some of the photos we have taken over the years.  Yes, these are the pre-digital era photos, they've been stored in actual albums on a shelf in the office.   It's been wonderful though taking a journey down memory lane so we thought we'd share a few pictures starting from the 1990's, back when Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa was still South Auckland Diabetes Project, even before it became Diabetes Projects Trust.   It's really nice to reflect o...

NZSSD Conference 2023

As always, a trip to the NZSSD (New Zealand Society for the Study of Diabetes) conference in May is a high point of our year.  This year we were privileged to send three of our team to the Wellington event, Kate Smallman, Kanchana Perera and Karen Pickering.  Thank you to Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa and NZSSD for funding towards this.   The NZSSD conference is always an excellent opportunity to catch up with the latest of what has been happening around New Zealand and overse...

Poster Success at NZSSD Conference

Congratulations Kanchana Perera on the award for your poster at the 2023 NZSSD (New Zealand Society for the Study of Diabetes) poster.The poster is titled "Ethnic differences in young adults with non-insulin treated Type 2 Diabetes".    The analysis is from data from the DCSS Quality Improvement Audit carried out by Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa in Auckland.Acknowledgements to University of Western Sydney and Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa. Thanks to the NZSSD Organising committee for opp...

Research - These Wize Women, Catch them if you can - NZSSD Poster

Karen Pickering presented a poster on some qualitative research she and Kate Smallman were working on looking into what makes older women take on physical activity above and beyond what their contemporaries are doing.  Preliminary analysis of data gathered from interviews and online questions from a small group of women over the age of 50 who do well beyond what is considered 'the usual' in terms of physical activity was put into poster format and presented at the 2023 NZSSD conference in W...

Publication - DCSS - Adverse clinical outcomes and socioeconomic and ethnic disparities

Just published, another paper from the long running DCSS audit.   This multiple linked cohort study aimed to "examine the separate population-level contributions of the ethnic and socioeconomic disparities among people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and residence in New Zealand (NZ)".  Go here to read.  Some fascinating observations around deprivation and ethnicity having impacts on different complications.     https://www.dovepress.com/articles.php?artic...

An absolutely inspiring young woman

In 2020 the Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa took on a research partnership with Middlemore hospital, funded by the Perpetual Guardian Trust and the Freemasons Foundation, to recruit and work with  20 young people with Type 2 diabetes, or pre-diabetes in the Counties Manukau Health DHB area.    It's been a long and challenging journey for all involved, not least the young people involved.    Our onsite research team...Kate, Trish, Diana have seen a lot of growth and cha...

Introducing Kanchana Perera and her PhD topic

Hello there! My name is Kanchana Perera and I am a University of Auckland graduate having obtained a M.Sc. in medical statistics exactly TWENTY years ago! Since then, I have worked as a biostatistician in Perth, Auckland and am currently with the US Uniformed Services University for the Health Sciences located in Maryland, USA.  I am however based in Auckland and working with Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa as I embark on an exciting (and eye opening!) PhD journey with Western Sydney Universit...

Publication - Community Awareness Project for new Diabetes medications

Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa community awareness project taking a practical approach to making sure that the newly funded Diabetes Type 2 medications, Empagliflozin and Dulaglutide get to where there are most needed.   In 2021, Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa, with funding from Foundation North, worked with Blackland PR to design and run a campaign to increase inquiries by patients to doctors about whether the medications were a better option for them.  There is more information on t...

Throwback...the original exercise groups for health - DPT Lifestyle

Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa, like any community based organisation has evolved over the years in terms of the services being delivered.   Based in the Otara community, for years the team ran well  attended exercise groups in a number of community venues, the last two still run by the Foundation team finished in 2014.   These groups were part of the then DPT Lifestyle Programme, funded by the Ministry of Health (or predecessor).  They were seen as an important part ...

In the News

It's a striking headline, "7 out of 10 adults in Counties Manukau overweight or obese".  According to Local Democracy reporter Stephen Forbes (published 1 News), Dr John Baker, who is Board Chair of Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa and is an endocrinologist who has been working in the area for over 40 years, finds the statistics from this report to Parliaments health select committee unsurprising.   Key to this article though is Dr Baker reiterates that overweight and obesity "isn't a...

Publication - Stratified glucose-lowering response (WORTH Study)

Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa team members Kate Smallman and Patricia Harry worked on recruiting for and delivering part of this randomized crossover trial.    Some results published in January of this year under the heading "Stratified glucose-lowering response to vildagliptin and pioglitazone by obesity and hypertriglyceridemia in a randomized crossover trial" are here.https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36699039/...

Throwback... Workplace wellness in 2005

Calling all who remember the Auckland Special K Women's Triathlon!   It was 2004, and someone in the team (I won't mention names) said "lets do a triathlon as a workplace".  It doesn't sound much looking through the lens of today, particularly given every summer now there are entry level events all over the country, but back then, this was a new thing. And the idea that you could do a supported women only event which had no barriers to age, size, ability, fitness...the point was g...

What a year it's been

So we are at last nearing the end of 2022 and what a year it's been.    At Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa we've had so much happen, and I think we can all agree that this year on top of the last couple have brought real challenges.    How far we've come though!   We couldn't have achieved a fraction of what we have without amazing people.  On behalf of our Board and team, we'd like to say a huge and heartfelt THANK YOU to all of the people we've worked with or al...

Publication - DCSS - Ethnic differences in 25-year risk of incident chronic kidney disease

Publication in BMJ of another paper with more analysis of DCSS data from Professor Simmons and Team.  Paper titled "Ethnic differences in 25-year risk of incident chronic kidney disease among people with type 2 diabetes in New Zealand".   The abstract describes the paper as containing "Insights into ethnic differences in the natural history of chronic kidney disease (CKD) among people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) might inform clinical strategies to address disparities in h...

Language matters when talking about diabetes - DNZ Podcast

This significance of this topic is increasingly being recognised in health, how does language impact people as far as their health, wellbeing and experience of the world?  We are seeing the debates in nutrition, education and health about how the communication experience can lead to improvements, or be to the detriment of people's health.   This is an excellent episode of Diabetes New Zealand's (DNZ) video/podcast series talking about the types of language we use and how it can ha...

Annual Activity Report - 2021-2022

The Annual Activity report for Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa covering the April 2021 to March 2022 year.  Financial information is in a separate document, or see Charities Commission website.   Special thanks to funders, donors and supporters over the year....

The new Branding - a 30 year journey to where we are now

Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa...previously 'Diabetes Projects Trust'...previously 'The South Auckland Diabetes Project'... was originally started back in the early 1990s by David Simmons and others.  In the subsequent time, there's been a lot of change, development, progress, and a huge amount of passion and mahi on behalf of many, many amazing people to end up where we are today.  And today, as the next step to rolling out our new public face (new branding, colour template, new we...

Throwback - How things have changed!

We found one of our FIRST websites!   Now that the new website is operational and looks amazing, it's hard to remember how far things have come. Just have a look back at this (we think) 2005 version!  It's seems there's nothing that can't be found on the internet ...so...it was timely that our old website, long gone, turned up in a search as being held in the National Library.   This is a screenshot of the front page, sadly non-functional because we really want to push t...

In the News

There's a supply issue with Trulicity (duaglutide) medication for people with diabetes, and the concern has been around accessing replacements while the supply issues are resolved.In this Stuff article by Stephen Forbes, Local Democracy Reporter, Pharmac has assured that patients won't be paying for an alternative.  That's good news to Graham King (Ngāti Tai) , Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa Board member, who describes his experience with the medications concerned as "life changing", he...

Getting ready to Push Go for the new website!

We've got exciting news. We've been rolling out our fresh new branding for a little while but now our gorgeous new website is almost ready to go thanks to Claire and her team from The Renew Room.  The Renew room couldn't have been a better fit for our organisation when we started working with them back in 2021.  They have been endlessly patient with finding out what would reflect the unique nature of a community based charitable organisation, and done an amazing job with our full brand...

Our team at the ANZMOSS Auckland Bariatric Meeting

Congratulations to John Baker, Patricia Harry and Diana Anderson who had the opportunity to present to the ANZMOSS (Australian & New Zealand Metabolic and Obesity Surgery Society) Auckland Bariatric Meeting held at Ko Awatea Learn, Middlemore hospital. The presentation was on the special research project we have been running in collaboration with Middlemore Hospital, for teens with pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes, from the local DHB area.  The project is now in its second year and the p...

Gardens4Health Information Sheets

Here are some of the popular Gardens4Health information sheets.  Please check back occasionally as we will continue to update and add over time.   Note that these sheets are for information only.   It is still important to talk to someone to get the right advice for your area and growing conditions, and particularly where safety is concerned, check the latest official guidelines around health and safety.If you have an idea for a particular information sheet that might be...