Cyclist Lance Armstrong has a new passion: Diabetes

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The American Diabetes Association (diabetes.org) offers different tools for improving your diet, including rating your plate. Here's how it works. When you sit down for a meal, draw an imaginary line through the center of your plate. Draw a line to divide one section into two.

Grains: 1/4

About one-fourth of your plate should be filled with grains or starchy foods. Choose whole-grain foods over processed ones. Try brown rice with your stir-fry, or whole-wheat spaghetti with your favorite pasta sauce.

Protein: 1/4

Another fourth should be protein lean meat, fish, poultry, beans or tofu. Include fish two or three times a week. Choose lean meats such as pork loin and sirloin. Remove the skin from chicken and turkey.

Vegetables: 1/2

This half of your plate should be filled with vegetables. Pick from the rainbow of colors available to maximize variety. Eat non-starchy vegetables such as spinach, carrots, broccoli or green beans.

Other

Add a glass of non-fat milk and a small whole-grain roll or piece of fruit.

Now the seven-time Tour de France winner and cancer survivor is directing his star power and reputation for vitality at another disease: diabetes.



On Monday, Armstrong introduces a feature called MyPlate D on his popular website, Livestrong.com. It is an extension of Livestrong.com's current tools that let users track food intake and exercise and encourage visitors to communicate with others who have similar health and fitness objectives.

"Much like with cancer survivors or those who have HIV, people with diabetes have been dealt this hand, a health challenge," he says. "Ultimately, we wanted to be there to help them achieve a healthy quality of life, help them live to their fullest."

MyPlate D was developed for people who have type 2 diabetes to help them break food down to its nutritional components - beyond just calories, to include carbohydrates, fats, proteins and sodium. It also lets people track insulin use and monitor glucose.

"Users will start to recognize trends in their diet that may lead to spikes in glucose levels and be able to change their daily habits," says registered dietitian Alyse Levine, a nutrition consultant for Livestrong.com who helped develop MyPlate D.

Playing to their strengths

Armstrong says he wasn't motivated to focus on diabetes because of a personal or loved one's struggle with the disease, as he has done for cancer-related causes. He just likes the idea of making a difference in one of the USA's fastest-growing health problems. The American Diabetes Association estimates 23.6 million children and adults in the USA - 7.8% of the population - have diabetes. Complications of type 2 diabetes can include blindness, kidney disease and nerve damage.

"We decided to play to our strengths," says Dan Brian, general manager of Livestrong.com, developed by Demand Media with Armstrong. He says the website's "Daily Plate" application - which is popular with people trying to lose weight - has been a success, so the company tailored a similar tool for people with diabetes.

The site is free and is the largest food and fitness database online, Levine says.

"Monitoring your diet by tracking food is the most important way to prevent spikes in glucose levels for a diabetic and prevent type 2 diabetes for anyone predisposed," she says.

Barbara Nash of Jonesboro, Ga., who was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes four years ago, says she first used Livestrong.com to drop pounds and in October joined a MyPlate D test group. "I've lost 85 pounds over the last year using the tools," says Nash, who visits MyPlate D at least several times a day either to check a meal's nutritional content or to see a summary of the day's intake. Learning the carbohydrate count of one favorite candy led her to ditch it - it was much higher than she realized.

One of Nash's favorite features is connecting with others. "I have a community - a support group on the site - that keeps me motivated," she says.

Accuracy and simplicity draw people with diabetes to tools such as these, says Duke endocrinologist Susan Spratt, who has not tried the new Livestrong diabetes tool. "For the system to be useful, it needs to have accurate carbohydrate information and be user-friendly," she says.

A Calorie Tracker mobile app for iPhone and BlackBerry syncs with MyPlate D accounts, Levine says.

Spratt notes there are several other iPhone apps, such as mynetdiary, that have been designed to capture similar data.

"I don't know how the Lance Armstrong model will improve on this process. Just having options helps," she says.

Comfort with technology

But a tool like this might offer more data than an endocrinologist has time to review during a patient appointment, says Serge Jabbours, associate professor of medicine in the division of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolic diseases at Jefferson Medical College

Another Jefferson endocrinologist, Martha Zeger, says she'd value the spreadsheet information. "But most people won't make the effort to put all that info in on a daily basis," she says.

Whether patients will use a tool like this depends on the person's comfort level with technology, says Duke registered dietitian Susan Totten. "I have had more and more patients asking for recommendations on dietary tech tools or websites that can make recording and storing their information easier," she says.

For Armstrong and MyPlate D's developers, it's ultimately about helping people.

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Additional information:

Health Care News Information, Daily Videos Nutrition Diet
Daily Nutrition Vitamins Minerals by Buried Treasure
How to Understand and Use the Nutrition Facts Label
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Bloodindex Daily Nutrition Requirements Calculator
Meal Food
Vitamins What Should You Eat The Nutrition Source Harvard
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