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Diabetes Research Article Archives
May 2012
Researchers in Taipei, Taiwan, report that they have identified the top three drugs for reducing A1C levels in type 2 diabetes: biphasic insulin, GLP-1 analogs, and basal insulin. They hedged a little on their endorsement of GLP-1 analogs, however, by saying that although they are not decisively better at controlling A1Cs than other oral diabetes drugs, they have the advantage of helping to reduce weight without adding to the danger of hypoglycemia.
0 comments - Posted May 16, 2012
A successful experiment on mice with type 1 diabetes, which involved "reprogramming" their immune systems to stop attacks on pancreatic beta cells, may point the way to an eventual cure for the disease in humans.
0 comments - Posted May 15, 2012
With tens of millions of American facing life with type 2 diabetes and many millions more at risk of the disease, scientists are scrambling to unravel novel treatments. The latest breakthrough could come from California's Salk Institute.
0 comments - Posted May 13, 2012
Novo Nordisk's new variety of long-lasting insulin, insulin degludec, reduces low blood sugars while improving overall control, according to a pair of studies published in the prestigious journal The Lancet on April 27.
0 comments - Posted May 8, 2012
April 2012
On April 19, the US Food and Drug Administration issued a warning to diabetes patients not to combine the blood pressure medication aliskiren (Tekturna) with ACE inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers. The warning also applies to patients who have renal impairment.
2 comments - Posted Apr 30, 2012
As an orthopedic surgeon, I have many patients with diabetes who tell me, "I can't have surgery because I won't heal." That is certainly not the case, however. Diabetes does affect the small blood vessels and the function of immune cells when blood sugar is high, but with proper nutrition and blood sugar management, people with diabetes are very safe to undergo knee replacements, abdominal surgery, and many elective procedures.
1 comment - Posted Apr 28, 2012
My oldest nephew, James, has a double whammy to deal with. His aunt, yours truly, has type 1 diabetes, and so does his father. I was in the room when my sister had an ultrasound during her pregnancy with James, and I clearly remember the doctor asking her if anyone in her family had diabetes. We shared a look as she informed the doctor of my diabetes and her husband's diabetes. I know we also shared a silent prayer as the reality hit us that diabetes might be passed on to her children.
3 comments - Posted Apr 27, 2012
The US Food and Drug Administration has okayed US sales of Bayer HealthCare's CONTOUR® Next EZ blood glucose monitoring system. The new BGM, currently available in other countries as the CONTOUR XT, will be available in the US market this summer.
1 comment - Posted Apr 25, 2012
NeuroMetrix, Inc., a Massachusetts-based medical device company, has filed a 510(k) form with the US Food and Drug Administration for the SENSUSTM, a pain therapy device for people who suffer diabetic neuropathy. A 510(k) is a "premarket notification" of a company's intent to market a medical product. The FDA then tests the product and provides feedback to the manufacturer. Once the FDA clears the product, its maker can introduce it to the US market.
1 comment - Posted Apr 24, 2012
As we approach the summer season, our thoughts turn to barbecues, picnics, amusement parks, and road trips to the beach. It is a season of fun, but it can be hard for people with diabetes to enjoy the festivities and still maintain healthy eating habits.
1 comment - Posted Apr 23, 2012
Just a 1 percent weight loss in older people with type 2 diabetes can improve their physical mobility by up to 7 percent, according to a new study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
0 comments - Posted Apr 16, 2012
North Carolina-born chef Sam Talbot first came to national attention when he placed third in the Season 2 run of Bravo's Top Chef TV competition. Sam, who has type 1 diabetes and wears an insulin pump, held the executive chef position at several New York City restaurants, including Black Duck, Williamsburgh Cafe, and Punch, before opening his current restaurant, the acclaimed Surf Lodge, in Montauk on Long Island.
0 comments - Posted Apr 11, 2012
To discover the relationship between potassium levels and type 2 diabetes, a Johns Hopkins University study looked at more than 12,000 participants in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study (ARIC), performed in 1987 and 1996. The study found that as potassium levels went up, the incidence of diabetes among study participants went down. The more than 2,000 African Americans in the study had lower average potassium levels than the 9,000 Caucasians and were twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Apr 8, 2012
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says that Levemir is safe for use by pregnant women and does not increase the risk of harm to children in the womb.
1 comment - Posted Apr 4, 2012
March 2012
Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet, an international network of researchers exploring ways to prevent and delay the progression of type 1 diabetes, has reached an important milestone: screening 100,000 people to detect who among is at risk of developing type 1 diabetes. This is a major achievement because it has helped researchers better predict who will develop diabetes and when it will require treatment. Earlier diagnosis helps patients avoid a severe, life-threatening condition called diabetic ketoacidosis.
0 comments - Posted Mar 28, 2012
The FDA has approved the start of outpatient trials of a smart phone-based monitoring device that functions as an artificial pancreas. If the device, which automatically measures blood glucose levels and adjusts them with insulin, is successful, several million type 1 patients could enjoy a whole new level of convenience.
25 comments - Posted Mar 27, 2012
Long-term use of metformin as a weight loss aid is both safe and effective in preventing or delaying the onset of type 2 diabetes, says the Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group.
2 comments - Posted Mar 25, 2012
A little more than 25 years ago, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
6 comments - Posted Mar 21, 2012
Massachusetts researchers have found that even years after they are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, some people continue to possess functioning beta cells. This finding departs from the conventional thinking that in type 1 diabetes beat cell activity inevitably ceases--the result of attacks on the cells by the body's immune system.
1 comment - Posted Mar 19, 2012
On September 26, 1992, my daughter Kaitlyn was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Since that time, we have immersed ourselves in the world of diabetes with two goals: First, to ensure that Kaitlyn has the very best tools, both medical and emotional, to manage her diabetes, and second, to dedicate our unyielding efforts in pursuit of a cure. For us, it's not either/or: It's both.
7 comments - Posted Mar 18, 2012
If you are newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and don't take insulin, a new study says that you are likely to have better A1Cs if you have access to blood glucose testing supplies and use them. The finding comes from a large Cochrane review of previous studies that took place in many countries.
1 comment - Posted Mar 17, 2012
Everyone needs vitamin D to be healthy and maintain strong bones, but a new study has found that it may also protect against stroke. In the study, 21,000 people aged 45 and older answered a food questionnaire. According to the findings, presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference, there was an 11 percent reduction in stroke among those who consumed the most vitamin D.
0 comments - Posted Mar 16, 2012
There are more than 200 diabetes camps in North America, offering more than 400 programs to more than 30,000 youths and young adults with diabetes and their families. One in 400 children has type 1 diabetes, and type 2 diabetes in children, once rare, is increasingly common due to obesity. Education and motivation are vital to healthy management of the disease. Diabetes camps empower children and their families to meet the rigorous demands of diabetes, allowing them to be healthy, active, and motivated to reach their dreams.
0 comments - Posted Mar 15, 2012
According to a study of patients newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, 35 percent of the time their physicians did not follow the American Diabetes Association (ADA) guideline that calls for prescribing a generic drug first. The study, conducted by researchers from CVS Caremark, Harvard University, and Brigham and Women's Hospital, reviewed the pharmacy claims of 254,000 patients who were started on a diabetes medication in January 2006 and December 2008. One-third of the treatment regimens did not adhere to the ADA guideline.
0 comments - Posted Mar 13, 2012
One quarter of patients with diabetic neuropathy undergo unnecessary, expensive tests, according to a study by Brian Callaghan, MD, of the University of Michigan Medical School. When Dr. Callaghan and his team looked at 1996-2007 Medicare claims of patients diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy, they found that the most common test performed was an MRI of the brain or spine. There were far fewer instances of glucose tolerance tests. Other tests that were done, but much less often, included fasting glucose levels, A1Cs, vitamin B12 levels, and serum protein electrophoresis.
0 comments - Posted Mar 12, 2012
When it comes to diabetes, people often blame the patient instead of the disease. I cannot think of another chronic illness for which this is the case. Much of the public seems to believe that we bring diabetes on ourselves. When people with diabetes are diagnosed with complications, uninformed observers often insist that it happened because they were "bad diabetics." Comments like "She didn't take care of herself" make me instantly defensive and angry. How can anyone know what that person went through on a day-to-day basis with her diabetes?
31 comments - Posted Mar 8, 2012
For people with diabetes, elevated blood sugar adversely affects the ability to heal. Their slow-healing wounds invite hard-to-treat infections that can eventually lead to amputation. In fact, they are 15 times more likely to undergo limb amputations than people without diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Mar 7, 2012
Sometimes I feel like an idiot. It usually happens when I read a blog by one of my favorite "D" parents telling about how their children are handling life with type 1 diabetes. These brave kids put up with the same things that adults with diabetes do, and some are literally too young to even understand what's going on. Reading about these little warriors makes me regret even more the fact that I wallowed in self pity all afternoon just because my blood sugar didn't cooperate flawlessly during my daily walk.
2 comments - Posted Mar 6, 2012
The latest clinical guidelines for treating type 2 diabetes from the American College of Physicians (ACP) indicate that when diet, exercise, and weight loss fail to control blood sugar levels in early type 2 patients, physicians should prescribe metformin as the first drug therapy.
1 comment - Posted Mar 1, 2012
February 2012
During my 14 years with type 1 diabetes and my time spent interacting with the diabetes online community, I constantly hear the same theme: Doctors aren't listening to their patients, and their bedside manners are deteriorating. Every day, it seems, I hear about people who have been treated as if they are simply a number or dismissed as uneducated in their own health conditions.
3 comments - Posted Feb 26, 2012
British researchers say that metformin, the drug most often used to treat prediabetes and type 2 diabetes, could provide potential protection against endometrial cancer in women.
0 comments - Posted Feb 24, 2012
As a woman with diabetes, you may have noticed that you face unique challenges, from where to place your insulin pump, to pregnancy, to hormone fluctuations. Many diabetes books offer general diabetes advice, but few focus on women beyond just a short chapter. That is, until now.
3 comments - Posted Feb 20, 2012
Up to seven years before she becomes pregnant, a woman's risk of developing diabetes during pregnancy can be identified based on routinely assessed measures of blood sugar and body weight, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published in the online issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
2 comments - Posted Feb 19, 2012
Try doing this at the age of 64:
0 comments - Posted Feb 18, 2012
You've heard of the blockbuster drug Byetta, a daily injection for type 2 diabetes? Byetta's sister product, Bydureon, which is injected just once a week, has just been approved by the FDA and is available in pharmacies.
2 comments - Posted Feb 17, 2012
There are lots of articles about diabetes, as well as all kinds of information about anemia. But what if you have both? About 25 percent of people with diabetes have some level of anemia. This article explains how the two conditions interact.
2 comments - Posted Feb 16, 2012
Using a log book can be cumbersome, but it has many benefits. Tracking your blood sugars allows you to spot trends and provides a landscape view of how your body reacts to changing circumstances. It’s crucial to understand your body’s responses to food, illness, stress, and simply over-indulging in festive activities. Keeping track of these variables helps you better manage your diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Feb 15, 2012
Wiped out and dejected, that's my state of mind this morning. I had a really low blood sugar, and it's left me feeling like I've been in a fight. My arms and legs feel heavy, and my "low" headache lingers, but I remind myself that it could be worse. I'm fine, I treated it, and my day will go on.
12 comments - Posted Feb 14, 2012
My son learned to crawl last month. As a part-time stay-at-home dad, I found it both exciting and terrifying. Through crawling, my son has entered a new stage in life. He might have rolled or scooted a few feet before, but now he can see something in another room and make up his mind to go there.
1 comment - Posted Feb 10, 2012
Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that foot and leg amputations decreased dramatically between 1996 and 2008. Over those 12 years, amputations dropped from 11 out of every 1,000 diabetic adults to only four-a decrease of almost 64 percent. Over the same period, however, the number of people officially diagnosed with diabetes tripled.
0 comments - Posted Feb 9, 2012
Diabetes doesn't confine itself to a single week or month. It's a year-round condition, and each season offers its own challenges and opportunities for those of us with the disease. We should be prepared to change and evolve as the seasons shift--not only to stay healthy, but also to enjoy all the fun that our dynamic world offers.
1 comment - Posted Feb 7, 2012
Barley has more beta glucan fiber than any other grain, and it has repeatedly established positive clinical results with regard to diabetes control. It not only boosts immune function by supporting macrophages and neutrophils, lowers blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and helps control obesity, but also attenuates postprandial glucose levels, improves insulin sensitivity, and promotes a feeling of satiety.
6 comments - Posted Feb 5, 2012
After several years of delays and setbacks, Amylin Pharmaceuticals has received FDA approval to begin US marketing of BydureonTM. The first once-a-week type 2 therapy to be offered in the US market, Bydureon is expected to be available by February. Amylin says that its wholesale price will be about $4,200 a year.
2 comments - Posted Feb 3, 2012
Two years ago, I was a different woman. I was just beginning to come out of my diabetes shell, assessing my confidence with strangers by testing in public and telling friends about my disease. I can still feel the panic rising in my throat as I told people that I have diabetes and need to take injections multiple times per day. I was afraid of rejection, afraid that they would treat me like a sick person. But after eleven years of fighting for my life with type 1 diabetes, I was tired of being afraid. The more people I told, the easier it got.
7 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2012
January 2012
The first time I worried about traveling with diabetes was after the 9/11 tragedy. I had been offered a trip to New York to attend a writer's conference. I jumped at the chance, looking forward to the conference, sightseeing, shopping, and seeing the musical The Producers on Broadway.
9 comments - Posted Jan 30, 2012
Animas Corporation, a division of Johnson & Johnson that manufactures insulin pumps, has been reprimanded by the FDA for not reporting serious problems resulting from use of its equipment. The parent company was warned that it could face fines and more for selling faulty insulin pumps and failing to disclose serious injuries to diabetic patients who used the OneTouch Ping and 2020 insulin pumps. According to reports, J&J continued to sell the pumps even after the company knew that some had failed.
1 comment - Posted Jan 29, 2012
Until now, drawing blood has been an unavoidable component of being tested for prediabetes and diabetes. Nobody enjoys the process, and it probably makes many people shy away from undergoing diagnosis at all.
1 comment - Posted Jan 28, 2012
Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston report that they have discovered a naturally occurring hormone that can direct the body to burn more calories and increase its insulin sensitivity. Their results, based on lab experiments with mice, could potentially lead to therapies for diabetes, obesity, and even muscular dystrophy.
2 comments - Posted Jan 23, 2012
The FDA has given Roche the go-ahead to market its Accu-Chek® Nano SmartView blood glucose monitoring system. The Nano, which uses Accu-Chek SmartView test strips, will be available to US consumers within the first half of this year. It is part of the same product line as the Accu-Chek Aviva Nano and Accu-Chek Performa Nano systems, which Roche has already launched in several overseas markets.
3 comments - Posted Jan 22, 2012
A young man in his early thirties struggles through traffic on his small Honda motorbike. As he enjoys a short break at a traffic signal, one foot on the road, his eyes are attracted to a billboard picturing a succulent burger. While he gazes, fantasizing about lunch, his vision starts to blur.
3 comments - Posted Jan 21, 2012
I wake in the morning with the taste of sour milk on my tongue. I'm sweating, extremely weak and disoriented. My muscles ache at the thought of moving. I have a sick feeling in my stomach, and it's threatening to come up my throat. I'm not sure what day it is. Nausea hits in a wave, sending chills down my spine.
28 comments - Posted Jan 17, 2012
Ethan Lewis, diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 12, founded GlucoBrands only 11 years later. The company produces a portable, inexpensive, tasty, fast-acting glucose gel that people can take to quickly restore healthy blood sugar levels when they experience hypoglycemia.
1 comment - Posted Jan 16, 2012
LifeScan has introduced the OneTouch® VerioTM IQ, a meter that not only tracks and displays blood sugar patterns, but also announces them with messages, such as "Looks like your blood sugar has been running LOW around this time."
2 comments - Posted Jan 15, 2012
Australian scientists have discovered that when a complex sugar crucial to the survival of insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells is degraded by the body's immune system, the beta cells die.
0 comments - Posted Jan 14, 2012
Recently, there has been a great deal of discussion on the subject of testing your blood sugar and taking insulin shots in public. A shocking number of people on social networks have commented that their family members don't want them to test their blood sugar or take their shots in public. They report having to inject in restrooms or even through their clothing to avoid drawing attention or offending their families. One hypersensitive husband even objected when his recently diagnosed wife took a shot in the relative privacy of their car.
38 comments - Posted Jan 12, 2012
Professional snowboarder Sean Busby started competing at age 14 and began training for the Winter Olympics at 16. But in 2004, at age 19, Sean's troubling bouts of thirst and weariness were revealed as symptoms of type 1 diabetes.
1 comment - Posted Jan 10, 2012
A dietary supplement, also known as a food supplement or nutritional supplement, contains a "dietary ingredient" intended to supplement the diet by providing an element that might not otherwise be consumed. "Dietary ingredients" include vitamins, minerals, herbs and other botanicals, amino acids, and substances such as enzymes, organ tissues, and metabolites. Dietary supplements, which may be extracts or concentrates, come in many forms, including tablets, capsules, soft gels, gelcaps, liquids, powders, and bars.
0 comments - Posted Jan 7, 2012
Some women who drink two of more sugary beverages daily are lucky: their consumption of sweetened drinks doesn't put on extra weight.
0 comments - Posted Jan 5, 2012
Spring Health Solutions, Inc., has released an instructional video describing its Spring Universal Infusion Set, recently approved by the FDA and Health Canada. The video, at www.SpringUniversal.com, is designed to help consumers properly use the product.
0 comments - Posted Jan 4, 2012
Canadian researchers report that just 30 minutes of intense exercise per week can reduce blood sugar levels for up to 24 hours after each exercise session and help prevent post-prandial spikes in patients with type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jan 3, 2012
What's it really like to have type 1 diabetes? Every morning I start the day with a finger prick and two insulin injections. It doesn't matter if I don't feel like it. It doesn't matter if I'm tired. There is simply no room for pre-coffee dosage errors, excuses, or whining. Some mornings are good and some are bad, based upon my blood glucose reading. Its level varies greatly depending on whether my liver has released large stores of glucose during the dawn hours.
25 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2012
December 2011
Throughout pregnancy and all the way up until labor, I was adamant that I was not having a cesarean section. I was terrified of being cut open because I know that my healing time is longer due to my lowered immune system. In 2009, I had to go to the emergency room for an infection caused by cutting my leg while shaving, so how could I possibly heal after being opened up to birth a baby?
0 comments - Posted Dec 30, 2011
Vaginal yeast infections are annoying, not dangerous, but they can seriously hamper your sex life, especially if you have diabetes. What's the connection, and what can you do to prevent and treat yeast infections?
3 comments - Posted Dec 29, 2011
Diagnosed with diabetes at age 15, Brandy Barnes went on to a successful career as a pharmaceuticals salesperson, but she deeply missed having other diabetic women in her life to whom she could relate. Finally, after a difficult pregnancy, long thought, and prayer, she founded DiabetesSisters (www.diabetes.sisters.org), a North Carolina-based nonprofit organization that provides education and support to women of all ages with all types of diabetes. DS offers conferences, websites, blogs, and a "sister match" program, all designed to lessen feelings of isolation and deepen bonds of connection among women with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Dec 28, 2011
Editor' Note: This article continues Katherine Marple's series on pregnancy with diabetes as a complicating factor. For previous articles, enter her name in the search feature at the top right-hand of this website. The next installment, "Birthing Options," will appear on December 30.
1 comment - Posted Dec 27, 2011
Diabetic retinopathy is caused by damage to blood vessels of the retina. Almost everyone who has had diabetes for thirty years or more has some sign of the condition. Now, retinopathy researchers have come up with a device that will be implanted behind a patient's eye to deliver medication on demand. "We wanted to come up with a safe and effective way to help diabetic patients safeguard their sight," said lead author Mu Chiao, a mechanical engineering associate professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, in Science Daily. "This new device offers improvements upon existing implantable devices for drug delivery."
2 comments - Posted Dec 26, 2011
Forty-three year old stage and TV actor Stephen Wallem is a jack of all trades when it comes to entertainment. Best known for his one-man musical review, "Off the Wallem," he is also a playwright, composer, and director. Currently, he plays Thor, a gay nurse with type 1 diabetes, on the Showtime series "Nurse Jackie."
1 comment - Posted Dec 25, 2011
An article in an Indiana newspaper documents an alarming rise in diabetes among Arizona's Hispanics, especially along the US border with Mexico. The Republic, published in Columbus, Indiana, reports that 13.5 percent of residents in Arizona's Yuma County had diabetes in 2010. Almost 60 percent of the border county's nearly 200,000 residents are Hispanic.
0 comments - Posted Dec 24, 2011
Health experts are unanimous that obesity or being overweight are major factors in the onset of type 2 diabetes. So it's no surprise that researchers here and abroad are working to develop weight-loss drugs that can help people shed pounds and lessen their susceptibility to diabetes.
1 comment - Posted Dec 23, 2011
Diabetes Health readers who are Amanda Lamb fans can watch her first-ever Christmas single, "Christmas In Love," on YouTube.
0 comments - Posted Dec 22, 2011
We are a tight-knit community. I'm not talking about my neighbors in my hometown of Chicago. I'm talking about my worldwide neighbors in the diabetic online community. Anyone dealing with diabetes knows the bond that it brings. When a person with diabetes is wronged, the rest of us feel the sting. Most of us living with diabetes have stories about people badgering our diet choices, saying inappropriate or insensitive things, and, sadly, crossing the line even further.
5 comments - Posted Dec 20, 2011
On July 21, Claire Duncan was one of three people with type 1 diabetes on a six-person relay team that swam across the English Channel. The team, swimming to raise funds for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, covered the 22-mile route in 13.5 hours, starting from a beach between Folkestone and Dover in England and finishing in France near Cap Gris Nez, between Boulogne and Calais.
0 comments - Posted Dec 17, 2011
"I have type 2 diabetes, diagnosed five years ago, and am 67 years old. I have worked very hard to manage this disease, but without the success I would like."
0 comments - Posted Dec 16, 2011
Here's good news for people who love nuts and Greek yogurt! Replacing even one serving of red meat with these tasty foods can substantially lower your risk of type 2 diabetes, according to a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health.
1 comment - Posted Dec 11, 2011
Drug company Merck aims to give people with type 2 diabetes two treatments for the price of one. The new therapy, called Juvisync, was just approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. It's not a radical new treatment, but instead a helpful combination of two familiar standbys: Juvisync unites the active ingredients in blood sugar-lowering Januvia and cholesterol-lowering Zocor in a single tablet.
0 comments - Posted Dec 10, 2011
Many people with diabetes admit to keeping their diabetes a secret. Less than two years ago, I was one of them. I hated the way people treated me when they found out about my diabetes. I hated being told that I wasn't allowed to eat things by people who didn't have a clue about diabetes. I hated the horror stories people told about their acquaintances with diabetes. I hated people asking me if I had the "bad" kind of diabetes.
10 comments - Posted Dec 9, 2011
Will the federal government kill the artificial pancreas? The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) is raising the alarm over FDA guidelines that could stifle the technology necessary for the development of an artificial pancreas.
11 comments - Posted Dec 8, 2011
Women are better at coping with problems than men, right? Not when it comes to being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. According to a new survey, that diagnosis had a greater negative impact on women's emotional outlook and adherence to diet and exercise than the same diagnosis given to men. The survey was conducted in September 2011, and included 831 completed responses from 458 women and 373 men.
1 comment - Posted Dec 6, 2011
Forensic scientist Mark Ruefenacht, who has type 1 diabetes, tells Diabetes Health publisher Nadia Al-Samarrie how he realized that dogs can be a major defense against life-threatening episodes of hypoglycemia. That insight led him to found Dogs for Diabetics ("D4D"), a Concord, California-based organization that trains dogs to alert their masters when they sense low blood sugar. D4D's website is located at www.dogs4diabetics.com/
3 comments - Posted Dec 4, 2011
This year's DREAM Award, presented by the Disability Rights Legal Center (DRLC), was given to Nick Jonas, the musician and actor best known as one of the three Jonas Brothers. He was among the special recipients at the DRLC's annual Franklin D. Roosevelt Dinner, held this year on November 17, 2011.
2 comments - Posted Dec 3, 2011
Jeff O'Connell is the author of "Sugar Nation: The Hidden Truth Behind America's Deadliest Habit and the Simple Way to Beat It." I discovered his book while browsing the shelves of my local library, and I could hardly put it down. Though I have type I diabetes and O'Connell's book focuses on type 2, I found many of his thoughts applicable to my own health. His book is no doubt controversial, so I wanted to delve deeper into his daring claims and share his responses with the diabetic community. After reading my interview with Jeff, please leave a comment below to let Diabetes Health know what you think.
10 comments - Posted Dec 2, 2011
Just take a look around. It's pretty clear that many of us are carrying more weight than we used to. Obesity has skyrocketed in recent years, and it's not about to stop. Roughly one in three adults is obese today, and researchers now predict that 164 million adults will be obese by 2030. That's half of all adults in the country.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2011
November 2011
Earl "the Pearl" Monroe was one of the greatest guards in the history of the National Basketball Association, playing from 1967 through 1980 for the Baltimore Bullets and the New York Knicks. A member of the NBA's 50th Anniversary All-Time Team, he was enshrined in the league's Hall of Fame in 1990. The Knicks retired his jersey number, 15, in 1986.
0 comments - Posted Nov 29, 2011
In one of Devon Inglee's artworks, a teddy bear, the symbol of childhood innocence, lies flat on its back with three menacing syringes piercing its furry tummy. In the background, the bear's owner, a small girl, stands above the teddy eating an apple. Inglee writes, "In ‘Tit for Tat,' a sweet girl contently eats an apple while hiding a large syringe behind her back, oblivious to her beloved, yet murdered toy. This piece deals with the process of anger, mourning, and denial associated with my personal diagnosis of a chronic disease." For the 33-year-old art student, this work is about mourning and letting go of preconceived notions and ideas of what the future will be.
0 comments - Posted Nov 22, 2011
People with diabetes may want to have their hearing checked, based on a study that found hearing problems twice as common among them as among people without diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Nov 19, 2011
Heather Shields was thrilled when she got the opportunity to dance with the famous Joffrey Ballet School in New York City. At 11 years old, she dreamed of one day becoming a professional ballerina, and this trip would bring her dream a little closer. A long way from home for this California girl, Heather traveled with her family to the "Big Apple" for the month of July. During that month she remembers dancing six to seven hours a day in the heat of the summer. She began losing weight, but shrugged it off, assuming she'd caught her mom's stomach bug.
0 comments - Posted Nov 17, 2011
When I was first diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, I recall the numerous comments that people blurted out in an attempt to make me feel better about my situation. But the truth was that I just needed to be treated like everyone else. I was in the midst of a confusing, depressing, and life-altering diagnosis. The last thing I needed was a pat on the back that felt more like a slap in the face.
11 comments - Posted Nov 15, 2011
Want a simple way to find out if you or someone you know is likely to develop type 2 diabetes? Just answer these three simple questions!
0 comments - Posted Nov 13, 2011
Final weeks of pregnancy! The third trimester brings about many more ultrasound scans and measurements taken to judge the growth and health of your child. You'll likely be visiting your OB/GYN or maternal fetal medicine office twice per week for non-stress tests to ensure that your baby is healthy and active.
3 comments - Posted Nov 9, 2011
The search for a cure for diabetes is a noble pursuit, but a cure always seems to be another ten years down the road. Finding a way to be healthy in the here and now is what matters for people with diabetes. In 2005, Peter Nerothin started Insulindependence (IN), a nonprofit organization that aims to "revolutionize diabetes management" by leading experiential diabetes education expeditions for type 1 youths.
0 comments - Posted Nov 8, 2011
Sometimes it feels like diabetes is driving you crazy. But what if the disease is actually changing your brain? That's the disturbing suggestion of a new study from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The study suggests that both high and low blood sugars affect the brain development of young people with diabetes, but in different ways.
4 comments - Posted Nov 7, 2011
By now you're halfway through pregnancy. You've managed to get through the stresses of insulin shock in the first trimester and insulin resistance beginning in the second trimester, and you're well on your way toward your third trimester. Congratulations! A moment of applause, please.
1 comment - Posted Nov 2, 2011
When doctors hand out a diagnosis of diabetes, I wish they'd give you a list of tips that can make life happier living with the illness. After my diagnosis, I felt ashamed of my diabetes, ashamed of my inability to control it with diet and exercise even though I literally worked out every single day for nine months straight. I skipped nearly all carbohydrates and didn't eat meat at the time, so all I ate was nuts, cheese, eggs, and vegetables. The doctor didn't put me on insulin right away because I was eighteen, and she wasn't sure if I had type 1 or type 2. But nothing I did was working. It was soon apparent that I was type 1 and that insulin injections were unavoidable. I had no idea that it wasn't my fault. I felt hopeless, hungry, exhausted, and alone.
2 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2011
If you've had diabetes for a number of years, chances are that you remember when there was no Internet access and no diabetes online community. You had no way to look up information online and no instant connection to millions of others around the world living with diabetes. Unless you had a friend nearby with diabetes, there was no one to understand how you felt when your blood sugar numbers were less than stellar, and no one to sympathize with how hard it can be to get your A1C down.
3 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2011
October 2011
October is my diagnosis month. At 14 years old, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes just a few weeks before Halloween. I remember thinking, at least I'm too old for trick or treating. My younger sister had been diagnosed six months earlier, however, and at 10 years old, she still loved to trick or treat. To ease her pain, my parents got creative and shifted the emphasis of Halloween off sweets and onto scary: Haunted houses, hayrides, and parties with bowls full of smushed tomatoes for witches hearts and cold grapes for eyeballs became our annual tradition. My sister and I still said no to most of the sugary sweets, but we were the first ones to say yes when the doors of the haunted house opened.
0 comments - Posted Oct 31, 2011
The one time I needed a glucagon injection, I didn't have any. I had never been given a prescription for it, had no idea how to use it, and was absolutely clueless about what it did.
1 comment - Posted Oct 29, 2011
All blood tests are tools. Some are to diagnose diabetes, some are to help you manage your diabetes on a daily or long term basis and some are to keep you safe.
0 comments - Posted Oct 28, 2011
Technology now under development would allow people with diabetes to monitor their blood sugar through their contact lenses. Researcher Babak Parviz of the University of Washington in Seattle invented the lenses, which monitor the amount of glucose in tear fluid. That fluid tracks blood glucose levels closely, and Parviz hopes to have the lenses communicate wirelessly with some sort of auxiliary meter.
0 comments - Posted Oct 23, 2011
Trying to lose weight as an insulin-injecting person with type 1 diabetes couldn't be more frustrating. It gets on my last nerve that exercise can trigger mind-numbing lows, lows that cause me to inhale a portion of those recently burned calories. That said, I don't skip exercise to avoid lows. I just check my blood sugars more often, use caution with my insulin dosing, and follow the advice of my doctors.
22 comments - Posted Oct 21, 2011
I'm just going to come out and say it, the way people do in addiction meetings when they have hit "rock bottom." Hi, my name is Meagan. I was a very uncooperative diabetic for a great many years. I felt lonely, and I hated being different. I rarely checked my blood sugars. In fact, there were times where I didn't even know where my meter was.
12 comments - Posted Oct 17, 2011
Using stem cells that they extracted from the brains of diabetic lab rats, and turning them into insulin-producing pancreatic cells, Japanese scientists may be on the road to a virtual cure for diabetes that comes from people's own brains.
5 comments - Posted Oct 16, 2011
A brand new insulin will soon be on pharmacy shelves in the United States if Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk has its way. The company has filed for approval from the Food and Drug Administration to sell insulin degludec, an original formulation that lasts an extra-long time. Insulin degludec is injected only once a day. Once under the skin, the dose of insulin is absorbed slowly and consistently, allowing for better nighttime control, according to Novo. Most importantly, test subjects had a low rate of hypoglycemia on the drug.
2 comments - Posted Oct 15, 2011
My mother died unexpectedly this summer. While her loss was sad and sudden, I have many reasons to celebrate her life and the guidance she offered me. When I was diagnosed with diabetes as a child, she took it upon herself to learn the ins and outs of diabetes care. For most of the next decade, she oversaw my treatment.
6 comments - Posted Oct 6, 2011
September 2011
The Seattle-based Nordstrom department store chain will donate $5, up to $75,000 total, for each Diabetes Risk Test taken as part of the American Diabetes Association's Hispanic Heritage Month through October 15, 2011.
0 comments - Posted Sep 30, 2011
What if we could stop the body's immune system from attacking the pancreas in the first stages of type 1 diabetes? What if we could keep the pancreas producing insulin, all the while helping it recover from the autoimmune barrage?
7 comments - Posted Sep 29, 2011
A couple of factors lead to increased risk of insulin shock comas during the first trimester. For many, insulin sensitivity increases and the pancreas isn't yet producing the hormones associated with insulin resistance. In addition, many type 1s will be taken off of their current basal insulin if it is not yet approved for use during pregnancy.
4 comments - Posted Sep 27, 2011
Imagine if there were a cure for diabetes that could be found inside your own body? Wouldn't it be nice if instead of depending on durable medical equipment, we could one day heal ourselves?
1 comment - Posted Sep 24, 2011
Scientists have found a protein that plays an important role in allowing our bodies to absorb glucose from our blood. What's more, lower levels of that protein may contribute to type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Sep 23, 2011
So, you're pregnant! Many who are in your shoes have worked very hard and diligently to begin this excursion. Others have reached this milestone unintentionally. Either way, you are about to embark on a journey that will completely challenge everything you know about your type 1 diabetes management. These next few months will challenge your motives, your emotions, your determination, and everything that makes up who you are. So sink your heels in. Take each step one at a time.
5 comments - Posted Sep 20, 2011
Scientists have found a protein that plays an important role in allowing our bodies to absorb glucose from our blood. What's more, lower levels of that protein may contribute to type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Sep 19, 2011
A recent report from the US Centers for Disease Control says that 12 states now have adult obesity rates of 30 percent or higher. Seven of those states are in the South. The CDC data are from the Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System, a 2010 phone survey of 400,000 US adults. Obesity is defined as a body mass index of 30 or more.
0 comments - Posted Sep 15, 2011
I want to thank you all for the many comments that you have posted. As I said in the article, it does bother me that so many promises have been made and not kept regarding a cure. This has resulted in people just giving up hope and coming to believe that there will never be a cure for diabetes. Such promises are still being made today.
20 comments - Posted Sep 13, 2011
August 2011
US Action Follows Stop-Ship That Began in June
0 comments - Posted Aug 27, 2011
Will there be a cure for diabetes? Is an artificial pancreas a cure? Was insulin a cure? Let's begin on the correct platform. You may have an opinion on what a cure is that completely differs from mine, and that's okay.
39 comments - Posted Aug 24, 2011
Will there be a cure for diabetes? Is an artificial pancreas a cure? Was insulin a cure? Let's begin on the correct platform. You may have an opinion on what a cure is that completely differs from mine, and that's okay.
0 comments - Posted Aug 20, 2011
Low doses of metformin and rosiglitazone seem to delay the onset of type 2 in prediabetic people who have impaired glucose tolerance, according to a Canadian study. However, although the drug combination was effective over the first year of the study in helping to control glucose levels and insulin resistance, it was not effective subsequently in delaying the onset of insulin resistance and pancreatic beta cell deterioration.
0 comments - Posted Aug 7, 2011
A Boston-based study has found that vitamin D supplements can reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in people with prediabetes by improving their beta cell functioning.
2 comments - Posted Aug 3, 2011
July 2011
A recent article in the New York Times says that such old prescription diabetes drugs as metformin and generics such as glimepiride are often as effective as or even more effective than newer, more expensive drugs.
9 comments - Posted Jul 20, 2011
Body fat is like two twins: one evil and one good. In this case, white fat-the kind that likes to cluster around the abdomen and hang on to calories-is the bad stuff. The "good" fat is brown, and it has been found to assist the body in burning calories, thus helping keep weight down.
0 comments - Posted Jul 15, 2011
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York is working on a new approach to blood sugar monitoring that could open the door to an artificial pancreas. The plan is to develop an automated monitoring system so sophisticated that it can take into account the often great differences in blood sugar levels and insulin sensitivity among people with type 1 diabetes.
4 comments - Posted Jul 9, 2011
The Internet allows consumers to shop for deals on anything imaginable, even prescription drugs. The economic struggles that many currently face, paired with the increasing cost of healthcare and prescription drugs, have created an environment in which counterfeit drug makers can prosper.
1 comment - Posted Jul 7, 2011
Roger Hurdsman lives in Roy, Utah, surrounded by women. His wife of four years, Hilary, is there, along with his two young daughters, Bonnie and Tess. He seems to be handling the estrogen well though, perhaps because he devotes his days to designing software for the Department of Defense. He is able to spend time with computers and gadgets before being inundated with tea parties and dress-up when he gets home.
1 comment - Posted Jul 4, 2011
Say goodbye to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's old Food Pyramid. The tapered food guide is giving way to MyPlate, a colorful visual aid that shows the rough proportions of fruit, vegetables, protein, grains, and that dairy people should consume at every meal.
0 comments - Posted Jul 2, 2011
"Good news," my diabetes nurse educator says to me. "Your new insurance covers continuous glucose monitoring supplies!" I give her a half-smile as my brain screams at me, "CGM? Really? Something else to deal with on top of this damn disease, an insulin pump, exercise, and nutrition?" But I comply, and a CGM is added to the rest of my paraphernalia.
26 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2011
June 2011
One of the classic effects of cannabis on people is raging hunger-the "marijuana munchies." The drug has been used to good effect on people with diseases that diminish appetite, helping them to regain a healthy interest in food. So it is a bit ironic that British drug maker GW Pharmaceuticals has created a cross-bred cannabis plant whose appetite-suppressing qualities could be used to treat type 2 diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Jun 30, 2011
A new report shows that increasing numbers of consumers are using the Internet to track medical information that they can apply to their own health. The report, "The Social Life of Health Information," was issued by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and the California HealthCare Foundation.
0 comments - Posted Jun 29, 2011
Lap-Band manufacturer Allergan has asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to allow surgeries using the device on overweight teenagers as young as 14 years old.
3 comments - Posted Jun 27, 2011
The main question that doctors---and patients---ask about a prescription drug is simple: Does it work? Does this medicine improve the condition it's prescribed for?
0 comments - Posted Jun 25, 2011
An Australian researcher who deliberately fed his lab rats a high-sugar/high-fat diet says that a flavonoid called rutin helped block the growth of fat cells in their abdomens and kept them from putting on weight despite their bad diet. Flavonoids are plant pigments that researchers are finding have beneficial metabolic effects because of their antioxidant capabilities.
0 comments - Posted Jun 21, 2011
Over the last decade, dramatic changes have occurred in our understanding of the onset and progression of prediabetes. Lightning speed changes have also occurred regarding the therapies available to achieve optimal blood glucose control. Even with all of this change, however, many old dogmas hang on. It's time to become aware of the new realities. In this article, I focus on two common old dogmas and the new realities.
2 comments - Posted Jun 16, 2011
Statistics from the 2011 Medco Drug Report show that diabetes drugs accounted for 16.1 percent of the overall increase in U.S. spending on therapeutic drugs in 2010. The report states that the increase is due to the growing number of Americans who have diabetes.
5 comments - Posted Jun 15, 2011
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said that starting on November 18, 2011, it will restrict retail pharmacy sales of three diabetes drugs manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline: the stand-alone Avandia (rosiglitazone) and the combination drugs Avandamet (rosiglitazone and metformin) and Avandaryl (rosiglitazone and glimepiride).
0 comments - Posted Jun 11, 2011
As prices rise, Americans are beginning to pay almost as much attention to the cost of food as they do to its taste. That's one of the findings of the 2011 Food & Health Survey, recently published by the International Food Industry Council Foundation (IFICF).
0 comments - Posted Jun 9, 2011
Amylin Pharmaceuticals has announced that it will collaborate with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation to test a combination of Symlin and insulin in injectible form as a type 1 therapy.
0 comments - Posted Jun 3, 2011
May 2011
"Nutrient Depletions" is a new smart phone app that allows users to see which of their prescription medications may be draining nutrients from their body. The app, available at iTunes stores for $1.99, works on Apple's iPhone, iTouch, and iPad products.
4 comments - Posted May 31, 2011
A monitor attached to a mobile device helps people with type 2 diabetes lower their blood pressure more than simply having a blood pressure monitor available in the home. That's the conclusion of a year-long study conducted by the University Health Network in Toronto, Canada. The study showed that type 2 patients whose blood pressure was actively reported to their doctors via a Bluetooth-enabled device enjoyed lower blood pressure than patients whose readings were not passed on to doctors.
1 comment - Posted May 26, 2011
Meet the latest superfood: maple syrup. Wait a minute...maple syrup? The super-sugary stuff poured on pancakes and waffles and used to glaze hams? That maple syrup?
9 comments - Posted May 24, 2011
French drug maker Sanofi-aventis says that results from a Phase III trial of its experimental type 2 diabetes drug lixisenatide show that the drug successfully lowered patients' blood glucose levels and body weight, but did not increase the risk of hypoglycemia.
0 comments - Posted May 23, 2011
You're heard the doctors. You've read the articles. You know all about tight control.
25 comments - Posted May 20, 2011
New Jersey's Hackensack University Medical Center has announced that it will partner with Dr. Camillo Ricordi to test a surgical procedure that could hold the key to a cure for type 1 diabetes.
11 comments - Posted May 18, 2011
A study just published by VSP® Vision Care, a 56 million-member non-profit vision benefits and services company, reports that VSP has saved its clients $4.5 billion in potential healthcare expenditures via early detection of chronic eye diseases.
0 comments - Posted May 15, 2011
A Danish study of 107,806 adults taking various diabetes medications has found that three drugs are the most effective at lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease and death: metformin, gliclazide (not marketed in the US), and repaglinide (Prandin). Other common diabetes medications, including glimepiride, glibenclamide (glyburide), glipizide, and tolbutamide, were linked to a higher risk of death both from all causes and from heart attack and stroke.
1 comment - Posted May 13, 2011
A new study says that people who consume a "moderate" amount of candy per day have a slightly lower body mass index than people who don't eat candy. They also run a 15 percent lower risk than the general population of developing metabolic syndrome, the cluster of conditions that is often a precursor to type 2 diabetes.
1 comment - Posted May 11, 2011
HOLLYWOOD, FL -- They come from New York, Miami, Milwaukee and more. They have children of all ages with type 1 diabetes - and they're on a mission to find a cure. They're the "Real Moms of the DRI Foundation" and in honor of Mother's Day they're asking millions of moms - and others - to support the Diabetes Research Institute, a world leader in cure-focused research.
2 comments - Posted May 8, 2011
The drug discussed below is for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.
7 comments - Posted May 6, 2011
Recently, we published an article about the implantable pump "A Miracle Technology for Type 1s: Can It Be Saved?" Following the appearance of this article on the Diabetes Health website, over 100 readers commented, most of them expressing a heartfelt desire for access to this technology in the U.S.A. To read the original article click on link below:
A Miracle Technology for Type 1s: Can It Be Saved?
34 comments - Posted May 5, 2011
The rate of foot and leg amputations among people with diabetes fell by as much as 36 percent in one four-year period, according to a study of patients at Veterans Affairs clinics. Taking patients' age and sex into account, amputations-major and minor-dropped from about seven per 1,000 patients in 2000 to between four and five per 1,000 by 2004. The latter figure is a reduction of around 36 percent, with the biggest decrease coming in above-the-knee amputations.
0 comments - Posted May 4, 2011
Imagine knowing that you're likely to develop type 2 diabetes a decade from now. What would you do?
3 comments - Posted May 3, 2011
British researchers say that testosterone replacement therapy for type 2 men with low testosterone levels could reduce their death rate significantly. Over the course of a six-year study by the University of Sheffield, only 8.6 percent of low-testosterone subjects who were given replacement therapy died, compared to 20 percent of low-testosterone subjects who did not receive the therapy.
2 comments - Posted May 2, 2011
April 2011
Canadian scientists have found that nobiletin, a substance found in high concentrations in tangerines, thwarted obesity and the onset of diabetes in lab mice. The researchers at the University of Western Ontario fed the mice a high-sugar, high-fat diet that mimicked the diet of many people in Western societies. One group of animals became obese, developing fatty livers and elevated levels of cholesterol and insulin-typical precursors to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But a second group of mice, given the flavonoid nobiletin, did not develop the symptoms of the first group. The nobiletin prevented fatty buildup in the liver by blocking the genes that control the production of fat.
4 comments - Posted Apr 30, 2011
We all know by now that fat isn't necessarily a bad thing. Enough advertisements and recommendations for fish oil and omega-3 supplements have appeared over the past few years to make that clear. But what if "good fat" isn't just about eating fish or a taking a fishy-tasting supplement? What if that good fat can be found in a common cooking oil?
0 comments - Posted Apr 27, 2011
What is it about salt that brings out so many powerful flavors and strong feelings? Simple sodium chloride, or salt, as it's known to everyone but chemistry teachers, has been applied to food as a seasoning since the beginning of civilization. Unfortunately, the sodium in salt has proven dangerous both to diabetics and to healthy people who have a propensity toward heart disease.
1 comment - Posted Apr 26, 2011
Recently I had the pleasure of attending the Barbara Davis Center's "Management of Diabetes in Youth" conference, held every other year in beautiful Keystone, Colorado. The focus is on all of the latest and greatest in type 1, and it's a real treat to have so many of the best names in this field gathered in one place. The Barbara Davis Center (BDC) is one of the premier programs in the world focusing on type I diabetes management, and the one (Dr. Peter Chase, to be precise) who brought us the famed" Pink Panther" book, Understanding Diabetes - the reliable handbook of type 1 diabetes that many parents of newly diagnosed kids rely on.
3 comments - Posted Apr 25, 2011
Every year four million baby teeth fall out, and 1.4 million wisdom teeth are pulled out of our collective mouth. Until recently, the only entity really interested in all those teeth was the tooth fairy. But all that changed in the year 2000, with the discovery that dental pulp contains adult stem cells. In the not-too-distant future, those stem cells might be used for growing new islet cells to cure diabetes. The problem is, how to keep the teeth nice and fresh until that hoped-for day. That's where Provia Laboratories comes in, with their Store-A-Tooth service.
1 comment - Posted Apr 24, 2011
The National Institutes of Health has awarded a $1.15 million grant to a researcher at Eastern Virginia Medical School to investigate a protein that may prevent obese people from developing type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Apr 22, 2011
Phil Southerland's autobiography is an inspirational coming-of-age memoir about a type 1 baby who wasn't supposed to live. But his doctor's dismal prediction didn't take into consideration his mother's indefatigable determination that her baby would thrive no matter what, and Phil's own fierce drive to conquer every single challenge he encountered, including his diabetes. It's an engrossing book, a sports adventure story with a medical subplot and a roster of dynamic characters, the most dynamic of whom is Phil himself. If we could harness his energy, our dependence on foreign oil would be a thing of the past.
2 comments - Posted Apr 20, 2011
A new study has proven that use of a blood glucose meter with advanced features, when paired with diabetes education, more effectively manages blood glucose than using a basic feature meter. This information was presented at the recent 46th European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) Annual Meeting in Stockholm, Sweden.
4 comments - Posted Apr 18, 2011
What if there were a technology that could make people with type 1 diabetes feel absolutely wonderful, completely healthy, better than they ever realized was possible? And what if it were about to disappear? Well, there is such a technology, and it is in serious jeopardy. It's called the implantable insulin pump, currently made by Medtronic. This is the story of four people who have been using this device for 20 years, and their desperate crusade to keep it from disappearing forever.
117 comments - Posted Apr 17, 2011
Researchers at the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health have found that people with diabetes have a significantly increased risk of developing Parkinson's disease. Despite that finding, they say that there are too few data to support a causative link between diabetes and Parkinson's.
0 comments - Posted Apr 16, 2011
Greetings from Philadelphia International Airport! Airports are fascinating places...great for seeing what people look like and how they act under unusual circumstances. At this moment, I see a lot of truly overweight people. Most folks are treating the moving walkway like a ride at Disney World–just standing there, inching slowly along and staring blankly at the passing drywall. I don’t know…maybe the two sights are related. Have we really become this lazy? Have we “convenienced” our way out of being in shape? Have electronic toilet flushers, soap dispensers, and water faucets taken away our last opportunity to burn any calories at all?
0 comments - Posted Apr 14, 2011
If you have pre-diabetes and live in any of the five boroughs of New York City, get ready to learn a new acronym: YDPP. The initials stand for YMCA Diabetes Prevention Program, a public-private partnership under which New Yorkers can get enroll in a comprehensive low-cost diabetes prevention program at one of the city's 27 YMCA branches and affiliates.
2 comments - Posted Apr 12, 2011
Italian and Greek researchers conducting a meta-analysis* of the diets of more than 500,000 people have concluded that the Mediterranean diet reduces the risk of metabolic syndrome, a cluster of risk factors that are common precursors to type 2 diabetes. Those factors include overweight or obesity, a sedentary lifestyle, high blood sugar, high triglyceride levels, high blood pressure, and high "bad" cholesterol.
The Mediterranean diet is high in fruit, vegetables, whole grain foods, and low-fat dairy products. Proteins include fish, legumes, poultry, tree nuts, and mono-unsaturated fatty acids from olive oil. Alcohol intake is moderate and almost always in conjunction with meals. Red meat is only an occasional menu item.
The scientists looked at 50 studies that involved more than 500,000 people, then extrapolated the effects of a Mediterranean diet from them. Although the meta-analysis pointed to the usefulness of the Mediterranean diet in fending off metabolic syndrome, its authors said that their conclusion is tentative, given the need for more research on the topic.
The study was published in the March 15 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
* A meta-analysis looks at a number of similar studies and tries to derive new and useful results from them by detecting common patterns among them.
0 comments - Posted Apr 12, 2011
After comparing results from 24 studies, researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong found little evidence that increasing soy intake improves people's blood sugar levels.
0 comments - Posted Apr 11, 2011
Taiwanese researchers say that a technology that uses sound waves to stimulate healing in diabetic foot ulcers is almost three times more effective than conventional hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). The technology, called dermaPACE®, is manufactured by SANUWAVE Health Inc., a medical device company located in Alpharetta, Ga.
0 comments - Posted Apr 10, 2011
An Enid, Oklahoma, billionaire and his wife have pledged another $20 million on top of the $10.5 million they had previously contributed to his namesake diabetes center at the University of Oklahoma.
3 comments - Posted Apr 9, 2011
Beta blockers, which many people with diabetes take to control high blood pressure, may be one of the reasons why type 2s often tend to gain and keep weight. That's the conclusion of a study from St. Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, Australia.
0 comments - Posted Apr 8, 2011
While smoking is commonly associated with a higher risk of developing a serious disease, it's not often that second-hand smoke or being an ex-smoker is considered even riskier. If the disease is type 2 diabetes, however, it is.
0 comments - Posted Apr 5, 2011
The Second Annual Native American Healthcare Conference will take place May 23 through 24 at the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The conference will be held in conjunction with the Native American Diabetes Workshop at the same site.
1 comment - Posted Apr 4, 2011
As we wrote back in 2008, the EndoBarrier is a very clever way to simulate the effect of a gastric bypass without the unpleasant scalpel part. It looks like a long clear plastic stocking, and it's simply threaded through the patient's mouth and stomach, down to the small intestine, where it lines the intestine's upper section (the same part that is bypassed in traditional surgery). Food slips right through it, but digestive enzymes are trapped on its other side. The two don't get to join forces until a couple of feet further downstream, so the effect on diabetes is a lot like that of a bypass: It resolves the symptoms of type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2011
March 2011
The recently launched U.S. Diabetes Index (USDI) has revealed that 80 percent of all diabetes cases are located in just 20 percent of zip codes. Dr. Gary Puckrein, USDI developer and CEO of the National Minority Quality Forum, hopes that the USDI will help the United States direct its resources to the most affected areas.
7 comments - Posted Mar 30, 2011
This List defines terms that people with prediabetes commonly encounter as they learn more about the condition.
1 comment - Posted Mar 29, 2011
Researchers at the University of California at Davis have begun a study to see if patients' own adult stem cells can be used to increase lower leg blood circulation and possibly prevent amputation due to arterial disease or diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Mar 27, 2011
A New York University research team has won a pilot grant to see if blood from dental procedures could be used in conjunction with the A1C test to detect diabetes or pre-diabetes. The A1C test, which is becoming healthcare providers' preferred test for detecting the disease, typically uses blood extracted from finger pricks to make its analysis. The NYU team will see if the blood that flows from gum tissue during dental work can be used for the same purpose.
5 comments - Posted Mar 26, 2011
Now that a few months have passed since the New Year, what is the state of your resolution to lose weight? If it is a just a painful memory, you might be pondering the strength of your willpower and concluding that it is shamefully weak. In fact, it's not, according to Daniel Akst, the author of We Have Met the Enemy: Self-Control in an Age of Excess. Although a full two-thirds of us are overweight, our willpower is no weaker than that of the slim generations that preceded us. It's just that we're up against temptations that we never evolved to resist, in an environment that seduces rather than sustains us.
4 comments - Posted Mar 24, 2011
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has accepted an application to review dapagliflozin, a drug for the treatment of type 2 diabetes that is being developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca.
0 comments - Posted Mar 22, 2011
Evolution works in strange ways. What serves as an advantage at one point in time can sometimes prove a problem later, when the world has changed. It looks like that might be the case with type 2 diabetes, according to researchers from San Diego, California.
2 comments - Posted Mar 21, 2011
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified a swath of the southern U.S. as the country's "diabetes belt." In this region, made up of parts of 15 states, some 12 percent of the population has type 2 diabetes, compared with 8.5 percent of people in the rest of the country.
0 comments - Posted Mar 19, 2011
If a prisoner on death row wants to donate his organs, should he be allowed to do it?
19 comments - Posted Mar 18, 2011
Weight loss can help people with type 2 diabetes control their blood sugar and avoid potential health risks associated with the disease. Did you know that losing even seven percent of your body weight can lower blood sugar, reduce blood pressure, and improve cholesterol levels1?
"Consider diabetes as a disease that has different phases--with the central feature a disorder of insulin production and insulin use," said Roberta Anding, MS, RD/LD,CSSD,CDE. Anding is a clinical dietitian and certified diabetes educator at Baylor College of Medicine, as well as a national spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. "To better control and lose weight safely with type 2 diabetes, it is important to consider the type and amount of food on your plate."
4 comments - Posted Mar 12, 2011
A new report recently published in the American Chemical Society's bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry adds a new punch to the power of garlic in the fight against heart disease. The report concludes that garlic has "significant" potential for preventing cardiomyopathy, a form of heart disease that is a leading cause of death in people with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Mar 5, 2011
Novo Nordisk, the world's largest insulin manufacturer, has joined the Diabetes Prevention and Control Alliance (DPCA), a group whose goals are to reduce people's risk of developing diabetes and to work with people who already have it.
1 comment - Posted Mar 4, 2011
February 2011
In two recent head-to-head year-long trials, one testing gastric bypass surgery versus lap band surgery and another pitting gastric bypass surgery against sleeve gastrectomy, gastric bypass came out ahead with regard to resolving the symptoms of type 2 diabetes. Both studies were published in the February issue of the Archives of Surgery.
0 comments - Posted Feb 25, 2011
New University of Georgia research has found that a statin drug that is often known by the brand-name Lipitor may help prevent blindness in people with diabetes. In a study using diabetic rats, lead author Azza El-Remessy, assistant professor in the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy, and her colleagues found that statins prevent free radicals in the retina from killing nerves important to maintaining vision. The results of the study are published in the March edition of the journal Diabetologia.
0 comments - Posted Feb 23, 2011
In order to undergo gastric bypass surgery, you must have a BMI of at least 35. If you have type 2 diabetes and would like to undergo the surgery to alleviate your diabetes symptoms, you are out of luck unless you are also morbidly obese. A few less weighty type 2 patients have taken matters into their own hands by deliberately gaining enough weight to qualify, but now there is a less drastic way to qualify for the operation.
0 comments - Posted Feb 23, 2011
Folks who need that morning cup of coffee to get going may be protecting themselves from type 2 diabetes, a new study suggests. UCLA researchers wrote in the journal Diabetes last month that drinking four cups of coffee a day reduced women's chance of developing type 2 by a bit less than half. What's more, the scientists point to a specific reason why all that java has a beneficial effect: a protein known as sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG). Scientists have suspected for some time that SHBG was connected to diabetes development.
0 comments - Posted Feb 19, 2011
Can't make insulin? That might not be a problem, according to Dr. Roger Unger, the lead researcher on a mouse study out of UT Southwestern Medical Center. As Dr. Unger stated in a press release, his findings "suggest that if there is no glucagon, it doesn't matter if you don't have insulin....In adulthood, at least with respect to glucose metabolism, the role of insulin is to control glucagon. And if you don't have glucagon, then you don't need insulin...If diabetes is defined as restoration of glucose homeostasis to normal, then this treatment can perhaps be considered very close to a ‘cure.' "
1 comment - Posted Feb 16, 2011
The final patient has performed the last visit of the main study period in Diamyd Medical's European Phase III study. Treatment with the antigen based therapy Diamyd® is made to investigate whether beta cell function and thereby blood sugar control can be preserved in children and adolescents with new onset type 1 diabetes. The top line results from this study are expected to be reported as planned, in late spring 2011.
0 comments - Posted Feb 15, 2011
A new analysis from Johns Hopkins University shows that women with diabetes are 50 percent more likely to die if they have breast cancer. Why? The challenges of diabetes management play a role, as well as women's overall health.
0 comments - Posted Feb 14, 2011
Many tragic complications of diabetes, including amputations, heart attack, stroke, and blindness, are due to blood vessel damage. According to Xiaochao Wei, PhD, of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, all that vascular damage may be caused by a shortage of one enzyme: fatty acid synthase, or FAS.
0 comments - Posted Feb 11, 2011
It's hard enough to be pregnant, but pregnancy with diabetes is especially challenging because it's so difficult to keep blood sugar within a normal range at a time when hormones are surging. All women try their best with the tools that they have, but even so, about half of all babies born to mothers with type 1 diabetes are overweight or obese at birth because of too much sugar in their mothers' blood. Mothers with high blood glucose levels also increase their child's risk of congenital malformation, stillbirth, neonatal death, preterm delivery, and neonatal admission.
0 comments - Posted Feb 9, 2011
In a new book, "Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health," Dartmouth researchers and physicians H. Gilbert Welch, Lisa Schwartz and Steven Woloshin argue that the medical establishment's embrace of early diagnosis and treatment as the key to keeping people healthy actually does the opposite.
0 comments - Posted Feb 8, 2011
It's generally thought that a genetic predisposition to type 1 diabetes is not enough to develop the disease, but that an environmental trigger is required to activate it. Researchers are not sure what that environmental trigger is, but enteroviruses have been under suspicion for quite a while. Enteroviruses are the second leading cause of viral colds in children.
1 comment - Posted Feb 8, 2011
A new study published in the journal Clinical Cardiology reveals that a Super Bowl loss for a home team was associated with increased death rates in both men and women and in older individuals.
0 comments - Posted Feb 4, 2011
INDIANAPOLIS and NEW YORK - Eli Lilly and Company and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) today announced that they have signed an agreement to fund early-stage research that could enable patients with type 1 diabetes to regenerate insulin-producing cells destroyed by the disease.
0 comments - Posted Feb 4, 2011
January 2011
After the American Heart Association introduced its heart healthy logo in 1995, manufacturers apparently decided that such "healthy" logos were a pretty good marketing idea. Similar logos, called front-of-the-package labels, or FoP labels, have become popular with several food manufacturers, each of which has developed its own labels using its own criteria. Now, not surprisingly, a study by the Prevention Institute has found that these labels are misleading to customers. According to the Prevention Institute's executive director, Larry Cohen, they "emphasize one healthy aspect to trick [customers] into buying something fundamentally unhealthy." Dora the Explorer Fruit Shapes, for example, prominently labels itself as "gluten free," but does not mention the fact that 58 percent of its calories come from sugar.
0 comments - Posted Jan 31, 2011
The MOLLY and LINDSEY Diabetes Research Foundation at Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC) and the Diabetes Research Institute (DRI), a Center of Excellence at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, have joined forces to find the cure for Type 1 Diabetes. Together they will form the Hackensack-Miami DRI Federation Project, a think tank of East Coast specialists who will fast-track the best research ideas coming out of the labs and put them to the test in clinically meaningful ways, thus shortening the path to a cure for those with type 1 diabetes.
5 comments - Posted Jan 26, 2011
Your young primary care doctor may not know a lot about diabetes, according to a study led by Stephen Sisson, MD, of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. "When I graduated from residency here, I knew much more about how to ventilate a patient on a machine than how to control somebody's blood sugar, and that's a problem," said Sisson in a press release. "The average resident doesn't know what the goal for normal fasting blood sugar should be. If you don't know what it has to be, how are you going to guide your diabetes management with patients?"
2 comments - Posted Jan 26, 2011
The kuriously named Kombiglyze XR, a combination of Onglyza (saxagliptin) and the old reliable metformin, has arrived at pharmacies and is available by prescription to people with type 2 diabetes. It's similar to Janumet, an older medication that's a combination of Januvia (sitagliptin) and metformin.
0 comments - Posted Jan 25, 2011
Keeping the lights on all night might keep away the monsters under the bed, but it also keeps away the "hormone of darkness," melatonin, according to a new study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. Melatonin, which is secreted into the blood by the brain's pineal gland at night, is involved in the circadian rhythm. Scientists believe that disrupting circadian rhythms can contribute to metabolic disease. Specifically, melatonin receptor genes have been linked to type 2 diabetes. Melatonin is also a powerful antioxidant that may help prevent cancer.
3 comments - Posted Jan 19, 2011
On the outskirts of Quito, the capital of Ecuador, meals are likely to be based on white rice, potatoes, sugar, and white bread. Given their reliance on high carbohydrate foods that are low in essential nutrients, many of the residents are overweight and malnourished at the same time. The lack of vitamin C in their diet may contribute to metabolic syndrome, according to researchers from the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (USDA HNRCA) at Tufts University and the Corporacion Ecuatoriana de Biotecnologia. The researchers also concluded that vitamin E may have a protective effect against metabolic syndrome.
0 comments - Posted Jan 18, 2011
Brown fat is an entirely different animal than the white fat that we pack onto our hips to store excess calories. Instead of storing energy, brown fat actually burns glucose to produce heat (thermogenesis). It's brown because it contains special mitochondria that produce heat from the glucose when activated by cold. Adults don't have much of it, unfortunately, just a few grams if we're lucky. If we had about 50 grams and were cold enough to activate it, it would actually burn about 500 calories a day.
0 comments - Posted Jan 14, 2011
Taking your medicine can lead to quite a windfall in reduced medical claims, according to a study recently published in Health Affairs. Over the course of a year, patients with diabetes who took their medications as directed saved their insurance companies a handsome $3,756 compared to people who didn't, even after claiming as much as $1000 for those very medications. The money was saved because the patients spent less time at the emergency room and in the hospital, a nice benefit in itself.
1 comment - Posted Jan 11, 2011
Sitagliptin (Januvia) has long been used to reduce blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes, but a new study indicates that it can do the same for those with type 1 diabetes. Sitagliptin is a DPP-4 inhibitor; that is, it inhibits, or temporarily prevents, the enzyme DPP-4 from destroying a helpful hormone called GLP-1. GLP-1, which is released by the gut when food arrives there from the stomach, lowers blood sugar by causing the release of insulin, reducing the secretion of glucagon, and slowing stomach emptying and nutrient absorption.
3 comments - Posted Jan 7, 2011
My trip began as I flew from Dallas to my home town of Philadelphia and then caught an early Amtrak train to New York City. Growing up in the Philadelphia area had given me an appreciation for U.S. history, but today I was going to learn something new: the history of diabetes. My daughter, Sarah, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2003, yet I didn't know much about the history of the disease. Living every day with the stress and worry that many parents have, I felt I had no time to spend learning how we got to the modern treatments we have today. I had focused only on doing my job as caregiver and supporter of my daughter. I was looking forward to learning something new.
10 comments - Posted Jan 3, 2011
December 2010
The Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York City has received a $600,000 grant from the American Diabetes Association to study the effects of resveratrol on lowering impaired glucose tolerance in older adults.
2 comments - Posted Dec 30, 2010
A new study finds that combining the newer diabetes drug exenatide with insulin provides better blood sugar control in patients with type 2 diabetes than insulin alone and helps promote weight loss.
1 comment - Posted Dec 27, 2010
For those trying to eat a healthy diet, whole-fat dairy and trans fats are usually not on the menu - at least, not yet. Scientists have narrowed in on a trans fat component found mainly in dairy fat that may ward off type 2 diabetes and protect cardiovascular health. While the research is far from conclusive and requires much further study, it suggests fats may play a more complex role in human health than previously thought.
2 comments - Posted Dec 24, 2010
Being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes means a lot of change in your daily life. From blood glucose monitoring to watching what you eat to losing weight, it's hard to keep track of the changes you need to make to keep diabetes under control. One aspect of diabetes care that sometimes falls through the cracks is oral health care, which, if ignored, can lead to serious health complications.
2 comments - Posted Dec 22, 2010
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates-- One in three United Arab Emirates (UAE) residents could have diabetes or prediabetes by the end of the decade, according to a new analysis from international health and well-being company UnitedHealth Group, released at the World Health Care Congress Middle East meeting in Abu Dhabi.
0 comments - Posted Dec 17, 2010
A 10-year study by Harvard University scientists found that diabetes puts people at risk for depression and that depression puts people at risk for type 2 diabetes. The two-way connection between the diseases was discovered in 55,000 nurses surveyed over the decade.
1 comment - Posted Dec 17, 2010
Women who experienced sexual or physical abuse in childhood and adolescence-whether moderate or severe-run a higher risk of type 2 diabetes than women who were not abused, according to results from a study recently reported online in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
1 comment - Posted Dec 16, 2010
With nearly 16 million Americans living today with pre-diabetes, a condition that is the precursor to type 2 diabetes, and half of all Americans expected to have some form of diabetes by the year 2020, healthy eating is more important than ever (1,2). But here is some good news: a recent scientific study shows that incorporating almonds into your diet can help treat and possibly prevent type 2 diabetes, as well as cardiovascular disease.
0 comments - Posted Dec 15, 2010
(Reuters) - Stem cells can be transformed into the pancreatic cells needed to treat diabetes and into complex layers of intestinal tissue, scientists demonstrated in two experiments reported on Sunday.
6 comments - Posted Dec 13, 2010
"Congress passed a multi-year renewal of the Special Diabetes Program (SDP), ensuring that studies on promising diabetes treatments and avenues toward a cure continue uninterrupted. As the father of a son living with type 1 diabetes, and as CEO of JDRF, one of the leading advocates for the renewal of this program, I applaud the U.S. government for its continued commitment to end this disease.
2 comments - Posted Dec 13, 2010
Obese lab rats that have undergone gastric bypass surgery to induce weight loss show a reduced desire for sugar water compared to obese rats that have not had the operation. Researchers at Penn State College of Medicine who observed that outcome also reported that the rats' preferences for salty, sour, or bitter tastes did not change. Lean rats who were given gastric bypass surgery as a control showed no changes in any of their taste preferences.
0 comments - Posted Dec 11, 2010
If you have a new infant in your family and a family history of type 1 diabetes, feeding your baby a special formula when weaning off breastfeeding may protect against the development of the antibodies associated with type 1 diabetes, thus potentially shielding your child from developing the disease itself. This is the finding of a new study, conducted by Finnish researchers, that was published in the November 11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
4 comments - Posted Dec 4, 2010
Celebrate the season with an eCard and help support the Diabetes Research Institute! Send your family, friends or business colleagues A Gift of Love...A Gift of Hope. They will feel special knowing you are supporting research to find a cure for diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Dec 3, 2010
November 2010
The economic recession has hammered people with diabetes, according to a new survey. Many say that their health has been harmed by the crisis, and more expect their health to suffer in the future. What's more, most don't expect the government's health reform bill to improve their situation.
1 comment - Posted Nov 28, 2010
A new drug for type 2 diabetes started showing up in drugstores this week, according to manufacturer Santarus. The FDA-approved drug, called Cycloset, takes an distinctive -- and not well understood -- approach to reducing blood sugar levels. The pill apparently works by increasing dopamine activity in the hypothalamus, a part of the brain. Dopamine is a brain chemical that plays a big role in people's behavior, mood, and ability to sleep. Scientists theorize that glucose intolerance and insulin resistance may in part result from abnormal activity of this chemical, and that upping dopamine activity may iron out these problems.That's the theory, at least: the drug's exact workings aren't known. But it seems to do the trick.
0 comments - Posted Nov 24, 2010
Hundreds of people like you are choosing to Be Part of Cure. They are sharing their personal experiences - both heartbreaking and inspiring - of how diabetes has touched their lives.
0 comments - Posted Nov 13, 2010
WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov. 10, 2010 --- Diabetes experts at a meeting convened by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) took the next step in advancing efforts toward the development of an artificial pancreas: putting forth clinical recommendations to ensure the safe and effective testing of artificial pancreas technology in real-life situations. We are pleased at today's meeting there was a strong consensus among leading clinicians, researchers and industry leaders regarding the path toward outpatient studies for both low-glucose suspend and artificial pancreas systems.
5 comments - Posted Nov 10, 2010
October 2010
Regular physical activity and exercise are recommended for the general population for overall improved health. However, exercise of moderate intensity increases the risk of hypoglycemia during and following exertion in those with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). Accordingly, exercise guidelines for T1DM focus on prevention of exercise-induced hypoglycemia.
0 comments - Posted Oct 31, 2010
In a proof-of-concept study presented at the 2010 Annual Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons, the researchers note that the matrix not only helps to understand the micro-architecture of the pancreas, but also prolongs the survival and preserves the function of the islets. Islets survived longer in the bio-artificial matrix than in conventional transplantation sites, and they produced significantly more insulin when challenged with glucose.
0 comments - Posted Oct 30, 2010
Getting enough magnesium in your diet could help prevent type 2 diabetes. Dr. Ka He of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and colleagues have found that people who consumed the most magnesium from foods and vitamin supplements were about half as likely to develop diabetes over the next 20 years as people who took in the least magnesium.
0 comments - Posted Oct 22, 2010
Reducing the cost of low-carbohydrate foods for people with diabetes could significantly reduce medical costs associated with the disease that affects more than 23 million Americans, according to a recent study.
0 comments - Posted Oct 20, 2010
European researchers have reported that when they transplanted fecal matter from healthy thin people into obese people with pre-diabetes, the latter group's insulin sensitivity notably increased. (Insulin sensitivity is the body's ability to properly use the insulin hormone to regulate the amount of glucose in the bloodstream. Pre-diabetes exists when increasing resistance to insulin creates higher-than-normal blood sugar levels, a precondition to the onset of full-blown type 2 diabetes.)
1 comment - Posted Oct 19, 2010
A meta-analysis* of 87 studies involving 951,083 patients, performed by a Canadian research team, shows that the pre-diabetic condition known as metabolic syndrome increases the risk of heart disease or stroke in patients by a factor of more than two.
0 comments - Posted Oct 17, 2010
University of Michigan scientists have identified events inside insulin-producing pancreatic cells that set the stage for a neonatal form of non-autoimmune type 1 diabetes, and may play a role in type 2 diabetes as well. The results point to a potential target for drugs to protect normally functioning proteins essential for producing insulin.
0 comments - Posted Oct 15, 2010
Cutting back on sleep reduces the benefits of dieting, according to a study published Oct. 5 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
0 comments - Posted Oct 10, 2010
A national epidemiologic study finds a strong, consistent correlation between adult diabetes and particulate air pollution that persists after adjustment for other risk factors like obesity and ethnicity, report researchers from Children's Hospital Boston. The relationship was seen even at exposure levels below the current EPA safety limit.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2010
September 2010
Event Description: The human and economic costs of this epidemic are enormous, diabetes increases the risk for heart disease and other health problems, and therefore it is important to give this disease more attention. The purpose of this forum is to bring together international experts from International health organizations, national health authorities, local diabetic associations, academics, and local, regional and global media to:
0 comments - Posted Sep 28, 2010
Recognising Diabetes as the Global Epidemic of the 21st century and looking at the high prevalence of debilitating diabetes in the region, the First International Diabetes Summit will be Hosted in United Arab Emirates in Dubai on the 8th and 9th of October with the support from the GCC Health Ministers Council and The Council of Nursing and Nursing Specialization for Cooperation Council States.
0 comments - Posted Sep 28, 2010
Diabetes research is on the cusp of new advances in treatment options and in understanding the underlying causes of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Among those are potential treatments using stem cells to regenerate a patient's ability to produce insulin, as well as upcoming clinical trials of a vaccine that potentially could prevent type 1 diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Sep 27, 2010
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced that it will significantly restrict the use of the diabetes drug Avandia (rosiglitazone) to patients with Type 2 diabetes who cannot control their diabetes on other medications. These new restrictions are in response to data that suggest an elevated risk of cardiovascular events, such as heart attack and stroke, in patients treated with Avandia.
0 comments - Posted Sep 23, 2010
For the first time, scientists have found that blood levels of some ribonucleic acids (microRNAs) are different among people with type 2 diabetes and those who subsequently develop the disease compared to healthy controls, according to research reported in Circulation Research: Journal of the American Heart Association.
0 comments - Posted Sep 22, 2010
Children who have a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes might be identified earlier by way of tell-tale genetic indicators known as biomarkers. Some of those new biomarkers might be pinpointed in research led by Nancy F. Butte and funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service's National Institutes of Health.
0 comments - Posted Sep 22, 2010
The presence of amyloid protein may produce a chain reaction which destroys vital insulin-producing cells. Researchers based in Dublin, writing in the journal Nature Immunology, say future drugs could target this process. Amyloid is implicated in many other diseases - most notably Alzheimer's.
0 comments - Posted Sep 17, 2010
The JDRF is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. A lot has changed in the past four decades. One change has to do with the organization's name. JDRF stands for Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Years ago we called what we now know as type 1 diabetes, Juvenile Onset Diabetes Mellitus (JODM). We called it that because we knew (or thought we knew) it was the kind of diabetes that occurred in children. We now know that type 1 diabetes occurs in people of all age groups. There was a lot we didn't know 40 years ago, one of which was that type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease.
0 comments - Posted Sep 16, 2010
In type 1 diabetes, the body relentlessly attacks and destroys its own insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells. But a study by Joslin Diabetes Center scientists now has firmly established that some of these cells endure for many decades in a small group of people with the disease-offering clues to potential treatments for preserving and even restoring the crucial cell population.
0 comments - Posted Sep 14, 2010
The exact cause of type 1 diabetes is still unknown, but international researchers have found a link between the blood sugar disorder and a network of immune system genes.
0 comments - Posted Sep 13, 2010
Long-term weight loss may release into the blood industrial pollutants linked to illnesses like diabetes, hypertension and rheumatoid arthritis, researchers said on Tuesday. These compounds are normally stored in fatty tissues, but when fat breaks down during weight loss, they get into the blood stream, said lead researcher Duk-Hee Lee at the Kyungpook National University in Daegu in South Korea.
0 comments - Posted Sep 8, 2010
Type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer's disease are two distressing, but increasingly common, diseases seen in our aging population. At some point in the future, they may well overwhelm the healthcare system.
0 comments - Posted Sep 5, 2010
The Holy Grail pursued by all diabetes researchers is a complete cure for both the type 1 and type 2 forms of the disease. But until then, the "artificial pancreas," a combination of glucose monitoring and insulin dosing technology, may be as close as they get to a final breakthrough in treating diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Sep 3, 2010
Results of brain surgery on a small group of type 2 diabetes patients point the way to a possible new approach for treating the disease.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2010
August 2010
On Monday, August 23rd, a federal court blocked federal funding of embryonic stem cell research; ruling that the Obama Administration's policy violates federal law.
0 comments - Posted Aug 31, 2010
MannKind Corporation announced that the company will supply its novel, ultra rapid acting insulin AFREZZATM (insulin human [rDNA origin]) for use in a study being conducted by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) as part of its Artificial Pancreas Project. The planned two-year study in patients with type 1 diabetes will leverage the unique rapid action of AFREZZA for use in a closed-loop blood sugar monitoring and insulin delivery system, termed the "artificial pancreas" by the JDRF. The study will be managed in conjunction with the Sansum Diabetes Research Institute and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
0 comments - Posted Aug 29, 2010
Doctors have long known that different populations have different risks for chronic illness. Certain ethnic groups, for instance, are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than others. But why? The National Institutes of Health aims to find out. It's Network on Inequality, Complexity, and Health will take a broad look at factors that influence disease and aim to make positive changes.
0 comments - Posted Aug 25, 2010
PPARy is a protein that regulates the body's production of fat cells. However, obesity can modify how PPARy works, leading to decreased insulin sensitivity and the development of metabolic syndrome. (Metabolic syndrome is the cluster of factors, including insulin resistance, overweight, high blood pressure, and abnormal blood sugar levels, that is a precursor to type 2 diabetes.)
0 comments - Posted Aug 22, 2010
Gene variants associated with an increased risk for type-1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis may confer previously unknown benefits to their human carriers, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. As a result, the human race may have been evolving in the recent past to be more susceptible, rather than less, to some complex diseases, they conclude.
0 comments - Posted Aug 21, 2010
(Reuters) - Genetic testing might have helped identify people who would become depressed or suicidal while taking Sanofi-Aventis' weight loss drug Acomplia, which might have helped keep the drug on the market, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
0 comments - Posted Aug 19, 2010
"The objective of this clinical trial (research study) is to determine if the medications can rescue the few beta cells that remain soon after the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes; and whether new beta cells can even be regenerated," commented Alex Rabinovitch, MD, Principal Investigator of the trial and Associate Director of The Sanford Project. "The investigational combinations of these medications could possibly allow patients to decrease or no longer need to inject insulin to keep their blood levels under proper control."
0 comments - Posted Aug 12, 2010
And wouldn't it be great if that pill weren't something advertised on late-night TV, but rather a legitimate treatment? A drug called rimonabant, introduced in Europe, seemed to fit the bill at first, but it was pulled from the market in late 2008 due to concerns about psychiatric side effects.
0 comments - Posted Aug 10, 2010
The Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC) - a coalition of chief executives representing all sectors of American healthcare - announced the formation of the National Dialogue for Healthcare Innovation (NDHI), a forum in which leaders from private sector healthcare, government, academia and patient and consumer organizations can work toward consensus on the most important issues affecting healthcare innovation.
0 comments - Posted Aug 6, 2010
Novo Nordisk presented results demonstrating that once-daily Victoza® (liraglutide [rDNA] injection) achieved significantly greater improvements in blood sugar control compared to placebo among African-American patients with type 2 diabetes. The meta-analysis of phase 3 data from the Liraglutide Effect and Action in Diabetes (LEAD) trials were presented at the 2010 National Medical Association Annual Convention & Scientific Assembly.
0 comments - Posted Aug 5, 2010
July 2010
Bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego and GlySens Incorporated have developed an implantable glucose sensor and wireless telemetry system that continuously monitors tissue glucose and transmits the information to an external receiver. The paper, published in the July 28, 2010 issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine, describes the use of this glucose-sensing device as an implant in animals for over one year. After human clinical trials and FDA approval, the device may be useful to people with diabetes as an alternative to finger sticking, and to short-term needle-like glucose sensors that have to be replaced every three to seven days.
0 comments - Posted Jul 31, 2010
NEW YORK, NY, July 26, 2010 - Recalling the desperate fight for life that used to be waged by juvenile diabetes patients, and commemorating the events of 1921 that inaugurated a new era of hope for them and their families, the New York Historical Society will present the exhibition Breakthrough: The Dramatic Story of the Discovery of Insulin from October 5, 2010 through January 31, 2011. Exploring the roles of science, government, higher education and industry in developing and distributing a life-saving drug, the exhibition will bring to life the personalities who discovered insulin and raced to bring it to the world and will tell the story of one extraordinary New York girl-Elizabeth Evans Hughes, daughter of the leading statesman and jurist Charles Evans Hughes-who was among the very first patients to be saved.
0 comments - Posted Jul 26, 2010
A long-term study on the safety of a popular diabetes drug was put on hold Wednesday by the Food and Drug Administration, while the FDA considers whether it's too dangerous to continue. Several large studies have linked the drug, Avandia, to a higher risk of heart attacks and other heart problems. While other studies have not found the same risk, last week an FDA advisory panel recommended that the drug not be sold without a stronger warning label or possibly limits on who could receive it.
0 comments - Posted Jul 23, 2010
We have known for several years that Hepatitis C, a common cause of liver cirrhosis and cancer, also makes people three to four times more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes. In studying the insulin resistance of 29 people with Hepatitis C, Australian researchers have confirmed that they have high insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes. However, almost all insulin resistance occurs in muscle, with little or none in the liver, a very surprising finding given that Hepatitis C is a liver disease.
0 comments - Posted Jul 21, 2010
From environmentally friendly hybrid cars and heating with solar power to organic or natural foods, our culture is increasingly embracing green strategies. "Using natural dietary supplements to support healthy blood sugar levels and minimize the impact of glycation is a rational continuation of this green philosophy," says Steven Joyal, MD, vice president of Scientific Affairs and Medical Development for the Life Extension Foundation in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida (www.lef.org). He is also author of the book What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jul 20, 2010
(Reuters) - The first new prescription weight-loss pill in more than a decade failed to win backing from U.S.health advisers, who said safety concerns about the drug outweighed its ability to help obese patients shed pounds.
0 comments - Posted Jul 19, 2010
While teetotaling is the surest way to avoid abusing alcohol, it turns out that moderate alcohol intake may be one way to stave off the development of type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jul 16, 2010
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Joint Meeting of the Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee and Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee has completed their evaluation of the scientific research available on the safety of rosiglitazone. The deliberations of the panel reflected the complexity of the issues, with several members voting to add additional warnings or to withdraw the drug from the U.S. market. Ultimately, the final recommendation was to allow Avandia to remain on the market. Now that the expert panel has concluded its meeting, the FDA will review their recommendations and make the final decision on whether the drug remains available to patients.
0 comments - Posted Jul 15, 2010
Having discovered a dramatic increase of an easy-to-detect enzyme in the red blood cells of people with diabetes and pre-diabetes, Johns Hopkins scientists say the discovery could lead to a simple, routine test for detecting the subtle onset of the disease, before symptoms or complications occur and in time to reverse its course.
0 comments - Posted Jul 15, 2010
A massive study involving 485 people with type 1 diabetes at 30 locations across North America shows that the combination of an insulin pump and a continuous glucose monitor helps patients achieve significantly lower A1c levels than multiple daily insulin injections.
0 comments - Posted Jul 13, 2010
Data from the massive ACCORD study on intensive blood sugar control shows that lowering blood sugar levels in people with longstanding type 2 diabetes to near-normal may delay the appearance of signs that point to damage to nerves, eyes, and kidneys, but does not stop their progression toward it.
0 comments - Posted Jul 9, 2010
A study released in late June has brought some welcome news to the makers of Byetta and Januvia: Users of the two diabetes drugs run no greater risk of developing pancreatitis than people with diabetes who take other drugs. In fact, both drugs seem to put users at slightly less risk for the condition.
0 comments - Posted Jul 8, 2010
A clinical trial that used testosterone gel, a topically applied ointment, to increase muscle strength in older men with low testosterone levels was stopped because adverse cardiovascular events increased significantly among patients receiving the treatment.
0 comments - Posted Jul 7, 2010
AFREZZA TM (insulin human [rDNA origin]) Inhalation Powder, a well-tolerated, investigational ultra rapid acting mealtime insulin, as part of a diabetes treatment regimen, provides long-term glucose control comparable to usual insulin therapy but with a significantly reduced incidence of hypoglycemia and less weight gain in patients with Type 2 diabetes, according to a two-year study presented at the American Diabetes Association's 70th Scientific Sessions.
0 comments - Posted Jul 6, 2010
In a recent study of the relationship between vitamin D deficiency and glucose intolerance in people with type 2 diabetes, more than 90 percent of the type 2 diabetes patients were found to be deficient in vitamin D, with their control over the disease worsening as their deficiency increased.
0 comments - Posted Jul 4, 2010
In people with longstanding type 2 diabetes who are at high risk for heart attack and stroke, lowering blood sugar to near-normal levels did not delay the combined risk of diabetic damage to kidneys, eyes, or nerves, but did delay several other signs of diabetic damage, a study has found. The intensive glucose treatment was compared with standard glucose control.
0 comments - Posted Jul 2, 2010
Depomed, Inc. and Santarus, Inc. announced new data suggesting that patients previously intolerant of metformin may be able to tolerate higher doses of metformin when treated with GLUMETZA® (metformin HCl extended release tablets). The finding will be presented at the 70th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) in Orlando. GLUMETZA is a once-daily, extended release formulation of metformin, and is approved for use in adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus. It is promoted in the U.S. by Santarus.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2010
June 2010
It raises fasting blood sugars. It increases the risk for type 2 diabetes. Millions of people suffer from it. And many don't even know they have it.
1 comment - Posted Jun 30, 2010
A malfunction in the pancreas's "circadian clock*," the built-in timer found in all living things that regulates major biological processes, may be one of the reasons that people develop diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jun 29, 2010
White rice and brown rice are reminiscent of those old dramas about identical twins, wherein one turns out to be angelic and the other turns out to be bad news.
0 comments - Posted Jun 28, 2010
City of Hope researchers have found that bone marrow transplantation with islet cell transplantation shows promise as a treatment for late-stage type 1 diabetes. This combination may enable patients to make their own insulin again. Results from laboratory research led by Defu Zeng, MD, associate professor in the departments of Diabetes Research and Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation at City of Hope, were published online this month in the journal Diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jun 25, 2010
Researchers from the National Jewish Health and University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have found a specific protein fragment, or peptide, that stimulates an immune system attack resulting in diabetes. Their experiments in mice contradict conventional wisdom about such peptides and support work by scientists studying autoimmune diseases.
0 comments - Posted Jun 24, 2010
The American Diabetes Association and the American Cancer Society have issued a joint consensus statement that acknowledges some links between diabetes and cancer but also notes there are numerous questions that have yet to be answered.
0 comments - Posted Jun 23, 2010
IMIDIA ("Innovative Medicines Initiative for Diabetes"), a public private consortium funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), announced today the launch of a project focusing on pancreatic islet cell function and survival. Academia, biotech and pharma industry have joined forces to develop biomarkers and tools to pave the way for improved disease management and ultimately provide a cure for diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jun 18, 2010
One of the factors that increases the risk of acquiring type 2 diabetes is excess body fat. So it makes sense that losing weight has always been one of the first lines of defense against the disease. Yet people who are slender -skinny, even- sometimes develop type 2. Why is that? Does the fact that a slender person can acquire type 2 negate the need for weight control?
0 comments - Posted Jun 18, 2010
Italian researchers have found a link between a common virus and type 1 diabetes that may open the door to answers about what triggers the disease in children.
0 comments - Posted Jun 17, 2010
A Duke University Medical Center study has concluded that obese men who have type 2 diabetes are almost four times as likely to be diagnosed with high-grade prostate cancer during a prostate biopsy as men who do not have diabetes. When ethnicity is taken into account, obese white men run a five-times greater chance of being diagnosed with high-grade prostate cancer.
0 comments - Posted Jun 15, 2010
A Canadian study that tracked 207 patients suggests that a low-dose combination of metformin and Avandia can reduce the development of type 2 diabetes by 66 percent in people at high risk for the condition.
0 comments - Posted Jun 15, 2010
Diabetic ketoacidosis poses enough of a threat on its own. But in a small number of cases, it leaves sufferers open to a potentially fatal infection called mucormycosis.
0 comments - Posted Jun 12, 2010
New guidelines from the American Diabetes Association and two other major medical associations advise not prescribing low-dose aspirin therapy for women under 60 or men under 50 who have diabetes but no other risks for heart disease.
0 comments - Posted Jun 12, 2010
WASHINGTON - In collaboration with Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) launched the Good Health ClubSM Physician Toolkit - unique educational materials designed to foster better communication between pediatricians and their patients on childhood obesity and diabetes prevention. The toolkit will be available to pediatricians in communities across the country.
0 comments - Posted Jun 11, 2010
We all know that certain chemicals in everyday products are harmful: mercury and lead, just to name a couple. But how harmful, and what can we do about it?
0 comments - Posted Jun 9, 2010
Results from a Phase 3 study demonstrate MACUGEN® (pegaptanib sodium) significantly improved vision in patients with diabetic macular edema (DME), a complication of diabetes that is a leading cause of blindness in people of working age.¹ In the study, 37 percent of patients treated with MACUGEN gained two lines, or 10 letters, of vision on the ETDRS eye chart at 54 weeks, compared to 20 percent of patients who received a sham (placebo-like) procedure which consists of anesthesia and a simulated injection in the eye (p=0.0047). The data were presented at the World Ophthalmology Congress in Berlin by Frank G. Holz, an investigator in the trial and director of the University Eye Hospital at the University of Bonn in Germany.
0 comments - Posted Jun 7, 2010
If you take metformin to control your type 2 diabetes, ask your doctor to take a look at your vitamin B-12 levels when you get a chance. A recent British study shows that metformin may cause a deficiency in the vitamin, which is necessary for the regeneration of red blood cells and the maintenance of nervous system health.
0 comments - Posted Jun 5, 2010
Dr. Rutai Hui of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College in Beijing and colleagues found chocolate only helped people who already had risk factors for heart disease and only when consumed in modest amounts.
0 comments - Posted Jun 4, 2010
May 2010
Investigate. Inform. Inspire. This statement is not only our commitment to you, the readers of Diabetes Health, but also a call to action. In our June/July print issue (available online June 1 under the Digital Edition tab), we've done some investigating. We tracked down educational agencies, websites, software, and applications, and we've listed them for you in our 2nd Educational Resource Guide.
0 comments - Posted May 31, 2010
The United States Department of Health and Human Services released The National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy aimed at making health information and services easier to understand and use. The plan calls for improving the jargon-filled language, dense writing, and complex explanations that often fill patient handouts, medical forms, health web sites, and recommendations to the public.
0 comments - Posted May 30, 2010
Both genetic components and environmental factors play a role in most chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes. In the same way that researchers use a Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) to evaluate the role of genetic factors in disease, scientists at Stanford University have used an Environmental-Wide Association Study (EWAS) to evaluate environmental factors on diabetes.
0 comments - Posted May 29, 2010
As awareness of pre-diabetes grows, the list of conditions that can lead to it seems to be growing. Along with obesity and a sedentary lifestyle, researchers may start listing lack of sleep as another danger signal. Two recently published studies conclude that sleep deprivation can lead to insulin resistance-a precursor for diabetes-and even increase the risk of early death.
0 comments - Posted May 26, 2010
A Seattle-based study has found that people with diabetes run a 40 percent increased risk of developing a common type of abnormal heart rhythm known as atrial fibrillation*. The study also shows that as people with diabetes take drugs for the disease, their risk for developing atrial fibrillation increases three percent for each year that they use such medications.
0 comments - Posted May 25, 2010
A new contest, "Give Back. Simply Win." sponsored by Bayer Diabetes Care will shine a spotlight on people with diabetes who are making a difference in their local communities. Three grand prize winners will meet international singing sensation Nick Jonas and Bayer will donate $5,000 to three not-for-profit charitable causes, one selected by each winner.
0 comments - Posted May 24, 2010
Grammy-award-nominated teen pop sensations the Jonas Brothers helped raise more than $250,000 at the annual "Rock For Diabetes" benefit on May 16, held at the home of Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman. More than 200 people attended this year's benefit, which raised funds for the Center for Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.
0 comments - Posted May 22, 2010
Tattoos aren't just an art form or a way of making a personal statement anymore: They are beginning to save lives.
1 comment - Posted May 20, 2010
A husband-and-wife research team at the UC Davis School of Medicine has been awarded a five-year, $3.3 million grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to lead the first prospective, nationwide, multi-site clinical study of how to prevent the neurological injuries and, in rare cases, death caused by brain swelling in children in diabetic crisis.
0 comments - Posted May 19, 2010
On Tuesday, Pathway Genomics announced that their personal genetic testing kit (InsightTM Saliva Collection Kit) would soon be available at the pharmacy chain Walgreens. The next day, the FDA released a letter it had sent to Pathway Genomics on Monday saying hold on, there was no approval on record for Pathway's Genetic Health Report. By Thursday, Wallgreens announced that it was delaying the sale of the genetic testing kits.
0 comments - Posted May 15, 2010
Most people who have diabetes quickly learn that one of the worst side effects of the disease is pain caused by damage to the hands and feet. High blood sugar inflames nerves, leading to tingling and numbness, and often, severe pain. Researchers at the Comprehensive Pain Center at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland have learned that onset of nerve pain may have a daily rhythm, with the worst occurring late at night around 11 p.m. Their study, which they characterized as "preliminary," tracked 647 people with diabetic neuropathy. The results showed that the typical pattern for people with the condition was to experience the greatest pain from it after sunset, peaking at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.
1 comment - Posted May 14, 2010
Over 80 years ago, famed diabetologist Elliot Joslin said about the treatment of patients with type 1 diabetes: "Ketoacidosis may kill a patient, but frequent hypoglycemic reactions will ruin him." Unfortunately, hypoglycemia continues to be the most difficult problem facing most patients, families, and caregivers who deal with the management of type 1 diabetes on a daily basis. Frequent hypoglycemia episodes not only can "ruin," or adversely impact the quality of life for patients, but also, when severe, can cause seizures, coma, and even death.
10 comments - Posted May 13, 2010
Dr. Richard Hays announced today that he is now recruiting children with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes for Protégé Encore, a randomized, placebo-controlled Phase III clinical trial. This is the second of two Phase III studies testing the safety and efficacy of an investigational drug called teplizumab. The first study, known as Protégé, has completed enrollment of more than 530 subjects with type 1 diabetes. There is currently no approved therapy to slow the progression of type 1 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted May 12, 2010
Scientists at the Mayo Clinic have developed a molecule that can block the breakdown of insulin. Their discovery could lead to development of a new class of drugs to help treat diabetes.
0 comments - Posted May 10, 2010
Most women with gestational diabetes know that taking steps to manage the disease during pregnancy is critical for the health of both mother and child. What many women don't realize is that those steps need to continue even after the baby is born.
0 comments - Posted May 7, 2010
Osiris Therapeutics announced that it has been granted Orphan Drug designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Prochymal as a treatment for type 1 diabetes mellitus. The FDA instituted the Orphan Drug Act to promote the development of treatments for underserved patient populations. To be eligible for Orphan Drug designation, the treatment must target a disease that affects fewer than 200,000 new patients per year in the United States.
0 comments - Posted May 7, 2010
A new study to be published in the June issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM) says that a single night of too little sleep can induce insulin resistance.
2 comments - Posted May 6, 2010
CINCINNATI - The popular diabetes medication metformin works in different fashion than the current widely accepted view. This new finding could lead to wider use of the drug-particularly in people with cancer.
1 comment - Posted May 4, 2010
A Danish analysis of data from 21 research studies on the effects of saturated fat intake has concluded that swapping refined carbohydrates, such as pasta and white bread, for fat causes spikes in blood sugar that are harmful to the heart. However, cutting down on saturated fats while increasing consumption of whole-grain breads and vegetables-low glycemic index* foods-had a discernible positive impact on heart health.
0 comments - Posted May 2, 2010
Clinical studies at 52 different sites nationwide have shown that combining standard laser treatments with injections of the drug ranibizumab (Lucentis) offers substantially better results for treating macular edema than laser treatments alone. The research showed that almost 50 percent of patients treated with the combination therapy showed substantial improvement in their vision after one year, compared with 28 percent of patients who had been treated solely with laser.
1 comment - Posted May 1, 2010
April 2010
-SIGH- A pessimist might say that the following news is another sign that Mother Nature sometimes has one mean sense of humor: Reducing your caloric intake in order to lose weight may, ironically, lead to weight gain.
3 comments - Posted Apr 29, 2010
NEW YORK, April 27, 2010 - The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation announced today that it is partnering with Living Cell Technologies (LCT), a New Zealand-based biotechnology company focused on developing cell based therapeutics, in a Phase II clinical trial to study the safety and effectiveness of transplanting encapsulated insulin-producing cells from pigs as a treatment for type 1 diabetes with significant hypoglycemia unawareness.
1 comment - Posted Apr 28, 2010
A team of researchers from Case Western University published an article revealing their invention of a "smart" insulin molecule that binds considerably less to cancer receptors and self-assembles under the skin. To provide a slow-release form of insulin, the compound self-assembles under the skin by "stapling" itself together with zinc ions. Zinc staples connect the pieces of the insulin puzzle together to create a functional protein.
0 comments - Posted Apr 23, 2010
The study, published in the journal Diabetes Care, adds to evidence that metformin, a generically available drug commonly used for type 2 diabetes, may have anti-cancer effects.
0 comments - Posted Apr 22, 2010
Researchers at Loyola University have discovered a group of immune system cells called natural killer T (NKT) cells that slow the wound healing process. Their findings pave the way for potential new treatments to accelerate the healing process in slow-to-heal wounds that can occur in people with autoimmune disorders such as type 1 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Apr 21, 2010
The first human trials of the latest design of an artificial pancreas for people with type 1 diabetes found the device worked without causing low blood sugar (hypoglycemia).
8 comments - Posted Apr 18, 2010
(HealthDay News) - If you indulge in moderate drinking, you've probably heard that it might reduce your risk for heart trouble, including stroke.
0 comments - Posted Apr 16, 2010
Four risk factors-all of them preventable-reduce life expectancy among U.S. men by 4.9 years and among U.S. women by 4.1 years, according to a study by the Harvard School of Public Health and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. (According to U.N. figures, current U.S. life expectancy is 75.6 years for men and 80.8 years for women.)
0 comments - Posted Apr 15, 2010
A gene that mutated half a billion years ago and now shows up in modern sea creatures could hold the key to understanding a rare form of diabetes. The disease, called diabetes insipidus (not to be confused with diabetes mellitus), causes sufferers to urinate more than three-fourths of a gallon every day. An estimated 41,000 U.S. patients suffer from diabetes insipidus.
1 comment - Posted Apr 13, 2010
The idea of parasitic worms causes a shudder in most people. The very thought of some wriggly segmented thing latching onto an internal organ and ransacking it for nourishment is not pleasant. But the scientists who study the creatures may be on to a whole new tack in the fight against type 1 diabetes. It turns out that people who suffer from parasitic worms experience an unexpected beneficial side effect: the worms exert control over the human immune system that seems to protect against several inflammatory diseases, including asthma, Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis, allergies, and... type 1 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Apr 12, 2010
The first concrete evidence of a genetic link between low birth weight and the potential for developing type 2 diabetes has been published in the April 6 issue of the journal Nature Genetics. Scientists previously believed that lower birth weight babies were more at risk, but the cause remained unclear.
0 comments - Posted Apr 11, 2010
Healthy, insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas have a relatively long life and typically do not replicate under normal conditions. Any loss of beta cells, therefore, is usually permanent. In the case of type 1 diabetes, for example, the destruction of beta cells by the body's own immune system is permanent.
2 comments - Posted Apr 9, 2010
Using a sophisticated nanotechnology-based "vaccine," researchers were able to successfully reverse type 1 diabetes in mice and slow the onset of the disease in mice at risk for the disease. The study, co-funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, provides new and important insights into understanding how to stop the immune attack that causes type 1 diabetes, and could even have implications for other autoimmune diseases.
2 comments - Posted Apr 9, 2010
Tests of an experimental drug called CPSI-1306 at Ohio State University were so successful at lowering inflammation and blood sugar levels in lab mice with type 2 diabetes that scientists consider it a prime candidate to become a new therapy for the disease.
0 comments - Posted Apr 8, 2010
After generations of warnings that obesity is one of the biggest risk factors for heart failure and cardiovascular disease, a University of Rochester study says that it's actually skinny people who run a higher risk of sudden death from cardiac failure. Scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York found that non-obese patients who suffered heart failure had a 76 percent greater risk of sudden cardiac death than obese patients.
2 comments - Posted Apr 3, 2010
March 2010
Common knowledge says that humans have the ability to perceive five tastes: sweet, salt, sour, bitter, and umami (protein-richness). But now, researchers have discovered that humans can detect a sixth taste as well: fat. And apparently, people with higher sensitivity to the taste of fat are less likely to eat fatty foods and become overweight.
0 comments - Posted Mar 28, 2010
A University of Texas researcher who genetically modified mice with type 1 diabetes to control their disease with leptin instead of insulin is now ready to extend his experiment to human test subjects. Dr. Roger Unger, a researcher at the UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, will begin the tests as soon as leptin manufacturers can assure him of a steady supply of the hormone.
2 comments - Posted Mar 27, 2010
According to researchers at the Emory University School of Medicine, obesity and metabolic syndrome may be partially brought on by intestinal bacteria that increase appetite and insulin resistance. The two can lead to overeating and high blood sugar levels - both important factors in the eventual onset of type 2 diabetes. Perhaps even more interesting, the scientists found that the bacteria can be transferred from one mouse to another, creating increased appetite and insulin resistance in an animal that had previously experienced neither.
0 comments - Posted Mar 26, 2010
You may not have heard of GAD, but it's a hot topic in the world of type 1 diabetes research. GAD, which stands for glutamic acid decarboxylase, is an enzyme in the brain and the pancreas that plays several roles in the body. As an enzyme, it converts the excitatory amino acid glutamate into the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA, which nerve cells use to communicate. But it also has a less helpful role, as an autoantigen (an element of self that provokes the generation of antibodies) in autoimmune diabetes.
4 comments - Posted Mar 23, 2010
Results from a landmark study involving more than 9,000 people showed that the high blood pressure medicine valsartan (Diovan) delayed progression to type 2 diabetes in patients with cardiovascular disease or risk factors and impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), a common pre-diabetic condition.
0 comments - Posted Mar 20, 2010
I grew up around the corner from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In high school, long ago, I thought that NIH scientists were "bad guys" who mistreated animals in the name of medical research. I later moved to the West Coast and became a registered obstetrical nurse. Over the years, along with sharing the joys of new moms and new babies, I cared for patients with devastating conditions like cancer and quadriplegia, people whose lives could potentially be saved or improved by medical research., Yet it wasn't until many years later, after moving back to the DC area, that I really began to see the NIH in a new light.
4 comments - Posted Mar 20, 2010
According to Duke University researchers, a mutation that causes the lack of an insulin-controlling molecule may be a factor in the development of type 2 diabetes. The molecule, ankyrin B, is activated in response to the smell and taste of food and leads to the production of insulin in preparation for food intake.
1 comment - Posted Mar 19, 2010
In a study that tracked 1,402 people with pre-diabetes, researchers found that only about half of them responded to the diagnosis by trying to shed weight or increase their level of exercise.
7 comments - Posted Mar 18, 2010
A group of Swedish researchers has found that men who consume more than the recommended daily amount of calcium are less likely to die than their counterparts who consume little calcium. Their study, titled "Dietary Calcium and Magnesium Intake and Mortality: A Prospective Study of Men," appears in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
2 comments - Posted Mar 15, 2010
A scientist's discovery that dolphins have a genetic ability to turn diabetes on and off, depending on the availability of food, could lead to research into whether humans might have a similar-although dormant-gene.
1 comment - Posted Mar 13, 2010
The sooner people with diabetes start taking metformin, the longer the drug remains effective, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published in the March issue of Diabetes Care, a journal of the American Diabetes Association.
2 comments - Posted Mar 12, 2010
A university study of 20,000 Chinese adults aged 50 and older says that people who nap four to six days a week have a higher rate of type 2 diabetes than people who either never take a daily snooze or do so less often.
2 comments - Posted Mar 10, 2010
Santa Clara County, the largest county in Northern California (nearly 1.9 million people), has filed a federal lawsuit against pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, alleging that Glaxo knowingly sold its type 2 diabetes drug Avandia for several years despite indications the drug causes heart attacks and strokes.
0 comments - Posted Mar 9, 2010
The benefits of using insulin to treat diabetes far outweigh the risks, but a review just published online by IJCP, the International Journal of Clinical Practice, suggests that commonly used diabetes therapies may differ from each other when it comes to their influence on cancer risk.
1 comment - Posted Mar 5, 2010
The demand for diabetes research funding clearly exceeds the funds available. In the United States, 23.6 million children and adults (7.8 percent of the population) have diabetes, and we spent $174 billion on diagnosed diabetes alone in 2007 (the most recent year for which data are available). It is imperative that we take action, but where is the research funding coming from? Can it possibly be sufficient, and how is it being spent?
1 comment - Posted Mar 3, 2010
An enzyme that destroys pancreatic beta cells in lab mice has now been observed in human beta cells. Because scientists already know how to delete the mouse gene that produces the enzyme, they are hopeful that the same therapy can eventually be applied to people with type 1 diabetes. If so, it would be one of the most powerful therapies yet for addressing the destruction of insulin-producing beta cells that causes type 1.
4 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2010
February 2010
The Staff Report of the Senate Committee on Finance draws conclusions on the safety of Avandia (rosiglitazone) that are based on analyses that are not consistent with the rigorous scientific evidence supporting the safety of the drug. In addition, the report cherry-picks information from documents, which mischaracterizes GlaxoSmithKline's comprehensive efforts to research Avandia and communicate those findings to regulators, physicians and patients. In fact, the safety and effectiveness of Avandia is well characterized in the label approved by the FDA.
1 comment - Posted Feb 23, 2010
A hormone responsible for the body's stress response is also linked to the growth of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, according to JDRF- funded researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California. The findings are the latest advances to underscore the potential for regeneration as a key component of a possible cure for type 1 diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Feb 22, 2010
A U.S. Senate Finance Committee report released on February 20 says that Avandia, GlaxoSmithKline's drug for type 2 diabetes, may have caused as many as 83,000 heart attacks between 1999, when the drug was introduced, and 2007. The Senate report, culminating a two-year inquiry into the drug, also says that Glaxo knew about the drug's potential risks years before suspicions began to form regarding a connection between Avandia and heart problems.
2 comments - Posted Feb 22, 2010
Thwarting a protein that carries an otherwise benign enzyme into the nuclei of cells in the retina, where the enzyme kills the retinal cells, may hold the key to preventing blindness in patients with diabetes. That's the conclusion of a two-year study by researchers at Michigan State University seeking a way to treat retinopathy, the disease that often leads to blindness in people with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Feb 16, 2010
Researchers at RIKEN and Fukuoka University have pinpointed the mechanism responsible for early rejection of transplanted pancreatic islet cells in the treatment of type 1 diabetes. A new system based on this mechanism has been shown to vastly increase transplant efficiency, setting the stage for the development of powerful new treatment techniques.
5 comments - Posted Feb 9, 2010
White fat is the "bad" gut fat associated with obesity and enlarged abdomens. When a pound of new white fat forms in the body, it requires a full mile of new blood vessels to nourish and sustain it. That's because white fat is much like a tumor in requiring a steady blood supply. To build the new blood vessels, it depends on a process called angiogenesis.
1 comment - Posted Feb 8, 2010
In addition to diagnosing type 2 diabetes based on fasting blood glucose levels or a glucose tolerance test, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) and the American College of Endocrinology (ACE) have now approved the use of A1c as an additional diagnostic criterion for type 2 diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Feb 5, 2010
Australian researchers who tracked the TV viewing habits of 8,800 people over a six-year span have some sobering statistics for people who love the tube too well: (1) If you watch TV more than two and up to four hours a day, your risk of dying from cardiovascular disease increases by 19 percent. (2) If your viewing habit is more than four hours a day, your risk of death from cardiovascular disease skyrockets by 80 percent.
4 comments - Posted Feb 4, 2010
January 2010
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers have transformed ordinary mouse skin cells directly into neurons, bypassing the need for stem cells or even stemlike cells and greatly speeding up the field of regenerative medicine.
0 comments - Posted Jan 29, 2010
Novo Nordisk announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the new drug application for Victoza (liraglutide injection), the first once-daily human glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analog for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Victoza is indicated as an adjunct to diet and exercise to improve blood sugar control in adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus.
4 comments - Posted Jan 28, 2010
An international research consortium has found 13 new genetic variants that influence blood glucose regulation, insulin resistance, and the function of insulin-secreting beta cells in populations of European descent. Five of the newly discovered variants increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, the most common form of diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Jan 23, 2010
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Diabetes may hasten progression to dementia in older people with mild thinking impairment, new research shows.
2 comments - Posted Jan 19, 2010
NEW YORK, Jan. 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Montefiore Medical Center continues to expand its portfolio of options for patients in need of organ transplantation. The new Pancreas Transplant Program will treat patients with severe, end-stage diabetes. As the only Pancreas Transplant Program in the Bronx and Westchester, and one of only several in Greater New York, patients will be able to receive world-class care close to home. The program currently has nine patients medically approved and waiting for a pancreas transplant.
2 comments - Posted Jan 16, 2010
NEW YORK, January 13, 2010 - The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation today announced an innovative partnership with Animas Corporation to develop an automated system to help people with type 1 diabetes better control their disease - the first step on the path to what would be among the most revolutionary advancements in treating type 1 diabetes: the development of an artificial pancreas, a fully automated system to dispense insulin to patients based on real-time changes in blood sugar levels.
9 comments - Posted Jan 15, 2010
One potential avenue for the treatment for type 1 diabetes is to transplant insulin-producing islet cells into the body. The Edmonton Protocol is a method of implanting pancreatic islets into the liver for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. The protocol is named for the islet transplantation group at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, where the protocol was first devised in the late 1990s.
3 comments - Posted Jan 13, 2010
MADISON, Wis. - Using one of the two major national diabetes screening guidelines misses about one-third of those with diabetes, consequently putting them at risk for serious health complications, according to surprising research findings at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
0 comments - Posted Jan 13, 2010
BEDFORD, Mass. and BURGDORF, Switzerland, Jan. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Insulet Corporation (Nasdaq: PODD), the leader in tubing-free insulin pump technology with its OmniPod® Insulin Management System, and Ypsomed AG (SIX Swiss Exchange: YPSN), a leading independent diabetes specialist and technology provider of innovative injection systems for self-medication in Europe, today announced an exclusive agreement for the distribution of the OmniPod Insulin Management System in nine countries across Europe, as well as China and Australia.
0 comments - Posted Jan 7, 2010
December 2009
December 29, 2009 - The American Diabetes Association (ADA) revised clinical practice recommendations for diabetes diagnosis promote hemoglobin A1c (A1c) as a faster, easier diagnostic test that could help reduce the number of undiagnosed patients and better identify patients with prediabetes. The new recommendations are published December 29 in the January supplement of Diabetes Care.
2 comments - Posted Dec 31, 2009
BOSTON, Mass. - Dec. 23, 2009 - Cells in your body are constantly churning out poisonous forms of oxygen (oxidants) and mopping them up with a countervailing force of proteins and chemicals (anti-oxidants). This balancing act of oxidative stress is particularly likely to go haywire in beta cells, the insulin-producing cells that malfunction and then start to die off in type 2 diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Dec 29, 2009
BOSTON/NEW YORK, Dec 23 (Reuters) - The shares of Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc (AMLN.O) fell nearly 10 percent on Wednesday after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requested that the company conduct additional safety studies on its diabetes drug, Byetta.
1 comment - Posted Dec 28, 2009
A 20-year study that tracked 704 women from before their first pregnancy onward suggests that the first year mothers breastfeed, they reduce their risk of acquiring type 2 diabetes within the next 15 years by 15 percent. Each subsequent year of breastfeeding further reduces the risk by 15 percent. For example, a mother who has two children and breastfeeds each for a year could enjoy a 30 percent reduction in her risk of type 2 over a 15-year period.
2 comments - Posted Dec 25, 2009
FRIDAY, Dec. 18 (HealthDay News) -- Blacks tend to carry around less of a particularly unhealthy type of abdominal fat than whites, even though they suffer more from obesity-linked illness, researchers report.
0 comments - Posted Dec 23, 2009
Rituxamab, a drug that treats lymphoma and rheumatoid arthritis, may soon be used to help combat the destruction of pancreatic beta cells in newly diagnosed cases of type 1 diabetes. Researchers at Indiana University have found that the drug, originally developed and sold by Genentech as Rituxan, temporarily slows or stops the destruction of the 10 or 20 percent of beta cells that type 1s typically have remaining when they are first diagnosed.
0 comments - Posted Dec 21, 2009
NEW YORK, Dec. 17, 2009 - The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, a leader in setting the agenda for diabetes research worldwide, said today that it will begin working with The Johnson & Johnson Corporate Office of Science and Technology, and its affiliates, to speed the development of drug targets and pathways to promote the survival and function of insulin-producing cells in people who have diabetes. The program will look to fund research at academic centers around the world that could eventually lead to novel drug targets and industry collaborations for the treatment of type 1 diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Dec 19, 2009
WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A 21-year old Airman severely wounded in Afghanistan is recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center after several surgeries and an unprecedented transplant.
2 comments - Posted Dec 17, 2009
A gene named HHEX/IDE, which has already been implicated in the development of type 2 diabetes (see research article), may also contribute to childhood obesity. While the gene does not appear to affect birth weight and does not necessarily predispose an adult to become obese, it may set the stage for obesity in some children.
0 comments - Posted Dec 16, 2009
CHICAGO - Individuals who drink more coffee (regular or decaffeinated) or tea appear to have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to an analysis of previous studies reported in the December 14/28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. A previously published meta-analysis suggested drinking more coffee may be linked with a reduced risk, but the amount of available information has more than doubled since.
4 comments - Posted Dec 14, 2009
WORCESTER, Mass., Dec 3, 2009 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX News Network) -- Published in the journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, an independent review of clinical trials of Generex Oral-lyn(TM) shows that the oral insulin spray has a faster onset of action and shorter duration of action than insulin delivered subcutaneously.
6 comments - Posted Dec 9, 2009
We'd all prefer it if there were no nasty side effects to our treatments, but that isn't always the case. Sometimes it is worth risking a side effect for the greater good of our health. On that note, researchers continue to emphasize that the benefits of cholesterol-lowering statins on heart disease far outweigh any risk that they might slightly increase the chance of developing diabetes. More studies needs to be done in this area, but in light of the fact that cardiovascular disease is responsible for nearly two-thirds of deaths in people with diabetes and is the number one killer of women in the United States, it seems better to stick with the statins.
2 comments - Posted Dec 8, 2009
Researchers at the Loyola University Medical Center near Chicago report that 20.7 percent of all American adults who have type 2 diabetes are "morbidly obese," a description that applies to people who are 100 or more pounds overweight. The researchers said that the figure for African Americans is even higher, with one out of three type 2s in that group falling under the definition of morbidly obese.
3 comments - Posted Dec 5, 2009
A Swedish biotechnology company, TikoMed AB, has received notice that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is granting orphan drug designation to its IBsolvMIR® drug for preventing the rejection of transplanted pancreatic islet cells in type 1 patients.
0 comments - Posted Dec 4, 2009
It's been known for some time that omega-3 fatty acids decrease the risk of heart disease, but no one has really known if one dietary source is better than another. For that reason, Lixin Meng, MS, a PhD candidate at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, designed a study to compare sources, types, amounts, and frequencies of omega-3 in diets, while taking into account gender and ethnic groups. The study was presented at the American Heart Association's 2009 Scientific Sessions.
2 comments - Posted Dec 2, 2009
"Fat is better in the butt than in the gut," in the words of Nancy Bohannon, MD, FACP, FACE, Director of the Clinical Research Cardiovascular Risk Reduction Program in San Francisco. Dr. Bohannon explained in a recent CA-AADE conference that fat is supposed to be subcutaneous. But when you have too much fat, your body has nowhere to put it, so it starts parking it where it doesn't belong-in the muscles or around the heart. This visceral fat, or belly fat, is the bad kind of fat, and it puts stress on the body and organs, including the heart.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2009
November 2009
Many autoimmune diseases, such as lupus erythematosis and type 1 diabetes, are caused by autoantibodies. An autoantibody is an antibody (a protein) produced by the immune system of an individual, which is directed against a different protein of the the same individual.
4 comments - Posted Nov 30, 2009
A study presented at the American Heart Association's 2009 Scientific Sessions said that eight percent of obese people misunderstand their body size and don't feel they need to lose weight.
3 comments - Posted Nov 30, 2009
Dr. Jennie C. Brand-Miller, from the University of Sydney stated that, "The food insulin index (FII) may provide a better way to adjust insulin dose in Type 1 diabetes.... In time, it may also enable us to design diets to prevent diabetes."
2 comments - Posted Nov 26, 2009
ORLANDO, Fla. Nov. 16, 2009 - In combination with statins, adding a medication that raises high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol was more effective in reversing artery wall plaque buildup and in reducing heart disease risk than adding a drug that lowers low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, researchers reported today at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2009.
1 comment - Posted Nov 20, 2009
The body's immune system is supposed to "tolerate" itself and distinguish "self" from "non-self." Autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes result from the breakdown of this system, causing immune cells to attack and destroy insulin-producing beta cells or "self." In the November issue of Nature Immunology, Brian Fife, PhD and collaborators including senior author Jeffrey Bluestone, PhD share how they have uncovered a basic process that helps control immune cell activation and tolerance.
0 comments - Posted Nov 17, 2009
The Genetic Information Non-discrimination Act of 2008 (GINA) was signed into law by former President George W. Bush on May 21, 2008, and is set to become effective Nov. 21, 2009. The law covers all employers with 15 or more employees. It prohibits employers from considering a person's genetic background in promotions, hiring, or firing. It also prohibits health insurers from using genetic information to deny coverage.
0 comments - Posted Nov 16, 2009
How careful should healthcare workers and patients be in describing a total remission of diabetes as a "cure?" That's a question that has taken on increasing urgency in the wake of reports about dramatic reversals of type 2 symptoms after gastric bypass surgery and the cessation of symptoms in people with type 1 diabetes after pancreatic islet replacement. To answer it, a group of endocrinologists met earlier this year to come up with descriptions and definitions that accurately describe what happens when people with diabetes experience a reversal of symptoms.
2 comments - Posted Nov 14, 2009
Princeton, NJ - November 10, 2009 -- Diabetic foot ulcers are the primary cause of hospital admissions for diabetics. Foot ulcers that heal improperly are at risk for infection, which can lead to amputation. According to the American Diabetes Association, one in four patients with diabetic foot ulcers will eventually require lower-limb amputation. Now science has found a way of mobilizing stem cells within the body to treat this health issue, which affects more than three million Americans annually.
0 comments - Posted Nov 11, 2009
The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) and the College of Endocrinology (ACE) released online a one-page resource for physicians and healthcare providers for the management of glycemic control in type 2 diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Nov 7, 2009
October 2009
San Diego, CA (October 28, 2009) - Novocell, Inc., a preclinical stage diabetes company, today announced that it will receive a Disease Team award totaling $20 million from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). The Disease Team includes a group of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), led by Dr. Jeff Bluestone, which is contracted to receive $2.8 million. The funding will advance Novocell's development of a first in kind cellular therapy for the treatment of diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Oct 31, 2009
While the relationship between Alzheimer's and diabetes is far from clear, there does seem to be an interesting connection. And that connection just became a little more complicated according to a French study published in the October 27th issue of the journal Neurology.
0 comments - Posted Oct 29, 2009
A South African university pharmacologist has found that simultaneous consumption of metformin and grapefruit juice raises lactic acid to dangerous levels in rats (and conceivably in people) with type 2 diabetes. Too much acid in the blood can cause low pH levels that interfere with the body's metabolic functions. Conceivably, says Dr. Peter Owira, a pharmacologist at the University of KawZulu-Natal, such low levels could be fatal.
5 comments - Posted Oct 26, 2009
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A number of traditional Chinese herbs may help control blood sugar levels in people at high risk of diabetes, a new research review suggests.
0 comments - Posted Oct 22, 2009
A study of healthcare claims by 8.75 million health plan members and 632,000 Medicare patients has shown that healthcare costs for the serious consequences of diabetes are significantly lower for people who have been referred to diabetes educators. The savings accrued not at the level of primary or preventive outpatient services, but in the realm of acute inpatient services. In the commercial group, for example, insurees with diabetes education actually had higher outpatient claims than those who had not received education. Their claims for acute inpatient services, however, were considerably lower, indicating that diabetes education had allowed them to avoid some of the disease's harsher outcomes.
1 comment - Posted Oct 22, 2009
A large Kaiser Permanente study, published this month in Diabetes Care, has found that women with diabetes are 26 percent more likely to develop the very rapid and irregular heartbeat known as atrial fibrillation (AF) than women without diabetes. Although not a killer on its own, AF is a serious condition that requires medical treatment and can cause complications. In addition to fatigue, the poor circulation that results from AF can lead to blood pooling and clotting, ultimately causing a stroke.
3 comments - Posted Oct 21, 2009
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Oct 13 - Women with metabolic syndrome in early pregnancy have a higher risk for preterm birth, according to study findings reported in the October 1st issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
0 comments - Posted Oct 16, 2009
October 12, 2009. Philadelphia, Pa. - Children in Philadelphia who attended public schools and shopped at corner stores before or after school purchased almost 360 calories of foods and beverages per visit, according to new research published in the journal Pediatrics. Chips, candy and sugar-sweetened beverages were the most frequently purchased items. This is the first study to document both what foods and beverages children purchased in local corner stores on their way to and from school, and the nutritional content of those items.
0 comments - Posted Oct 15, 2009
The human body is an amazing machine. The biological clock that ticks inside us to keep the machine running efficiently not only prompts us to sleep and eat on regular basis, but also apparently regulates blood sugar.
1 comment - Posted Oct 15, 2009
"Self-monitoring blood glucose" (SMBG), a staple in the lives of most people with diabetes who take insulin, involves consistently monitoring and recording blood glucose levels before and after specific activities, such as eating, exercising, sleeping, and taking insulin. By observing the effects of certain foods and activities on their blood glucose levels, patients can learn exactly what works to raise or lower them. Thus, SMBG affords a kind of "fine tuning" approach to diabetes that empowers patients to adjust their medicine, modify their behavior, and manage their disease without always needing expert intervention.
1 comment - Posted Oct 13, 2009
Hyperglycemia is known to cause microvascular damage, which then creates complications such as proliferative retinopathy. However, this microvascular damage may also affect cognitive functioning even before it is reflected by more easily observed complications such as retinopathy. A study carried out by Eelco van Duinkerken and colleagues in the Netherlands found that "functional connectivity", which is "an indicator of functional interactions and information exchange between brain regions," was different in type 1's as compared to controls.
0 comments - Posted Oct 10, 2009
So close, and yet so far. It looks like there will be no marketing partnership for MannKind's ultra rapid-acting insulin product Afresa anytime soon. The company had planned to enter into a deal with a large pharmaceutical company by the end of this year, but now approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for their inhaled insulin won't be until January 2010, at the earliest.
3 comments - Posted Oct 8, 2009
The demise of Fen-phen dealt a body blow to hopes for an obesity pill that is actually effective. Unfortunately, the fen in Fen-phen, fenfluramine, caused grave pulmonary hypertension and heart valve problems. The phen part of the drug, though, was apparently just an innocent bystander. And now phen (phentermine) has resurfaced in a new pill that has posted some amazing results in Phase III clinical trials. Patients who were treated for 56 weeks with the new drug, Qnexa, lost an average of 14.7 percent of their weight, or 37 pounds.
8 comments - Posted Oct 7, 2009
A study coming out in the November issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology is reporting that type 2 men whose blood contained a high count of eosinophils, a sign of allergic inflammation, also had albumin in their urine, which is an early indication of kidney disease. Eosinophils are white blood cells that increase in number during an allergic reaction. Albumin is a protein in the blood that helps regulate blood volume and acts as a carrier for other molecules. Albumin is not normally found in the urine, however, because when healthy kidneys filter the blood, they retain what the body needs (like proteins) and allow only smaller "impurities" into the urine. But during diabetes, too much blood sugar can damage the filtering structures of the kidneys, causing them to thicken and become scarred. Eventually, they begin to leak, and protein (albumin) begins to pass into the urine.
0 comments - Posted Oct 6, 2009
Nature is wonderfully complex. During the second trimester of pregnancy, when the fetus is growing rapidly, hormones from the placenta begin to reduce the ability of the mother's insulin to bind with insulin receptors. Because the mother's insulin is consequently less able to shuttle glucose out of her bloodstream, the growing fetus is guaranteed a good supply of blood glucose.
0 comments - Posted Oct 6, 2009
The enthusiasm for inhaled insulin has waned, to say the least, since Exubera was pulled off the market by Pfizer. Following the Exubera debacle, the development of two other inhaled insulins (AIR by Eli Lilly and Alkermes, and AERx by Novo Nordisk) was halted as well.
14 comments - Posted Oct 5, 2009
Researchers at Children's Hospital in Boston think that they may have created the most reliable means yet of delivering drugs that cannot be taken orally. Their solution is to combine nanotechnology and magnetism to create a delivery system that is simple, but extremely durable and accurate.
2 comments - Posted Oct 3, 2009
"Poor medication adherence," the latest euphemism to replace the much-disliked "poor compliance," is a hot topic these days. According to the New England Health Institute, a third to a half of American patients don't take their medications as prescribed. And people with chronic conditions, including diabetes, are reportedly the worst when it comes to medication adherence and "persistence" (the length of time they continue to take a prescribed drug).
5 comments - Posted Oct 3, 2009
Having diabetes involves a lot of pretty complex arithmetic. You've got to calculate carbs from nutrition labels, total the calories and carbohydrates in a meal, calculate insulin dosage based on insulin-to-carbohydrate intake, and on and on. These tasks aren't simple: They require an understanding of measurement, estimation, time, logic, and multi-step operations, and the knowledge of which math skills to apply to each problem.
3 comments - Posted Oct 2, 2009
September 2009
Clinical trials are conducted before a new drug is released for sale, in part to test for bad things that might happen when people take it. But clinical trials don't involve all that many people: several thousand at the most. After the clinical trials are successfully completed, however, the drug is sold to millions upon millions. Merck's sales of Januvia and Janumet, for example, totaled over a billion dollars in the first six months of this year alone.
1 comment - Posted Sep 30, 2009
The South, which swept a 2009 survey for fattest region, has achieved that dubious honor again when it comes to prevalence of type 2 diabetes. According to a recent study published in Population Health Metrics, it's the region with the highest percentage of type 2 diabetes when both diagnosed and undiagnosed cases are included. Mississippi is at the very top of the heap, followed by West Virginia, Louisiana, Texas, South Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia (15.8 to 16.6 percent for men and 12.4 to 14.8 percent for women).
0 comments - Posted Sep 28, 2009
One thing that really frustrates people with diabetes mellitus is the biopharma industry's focus on treatments rather than cures. A cure is what the diabetes community wants, not another band-aid. So the existence of a biopharma company that calls itself "CureDM" is promising, and its first product, Pancreate, seems to be on its way to fulfilling that promise.
21 comments - Posted Sep 28, 2009
The way information is presented to us makes a big difference in whether we are able to integrate that information into our daily lives. Although graphs and numbers may sway some people, putting educational materials into a culturally relevant context can be more effective. A recent study, for example, has found that a dietary program based on the Medicine Wheel Model for Nutrition can change eating patterns among Native Americans, who have the highest rates of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease of all ethnic groups.
2 comments - Posted Sep 26, 2009
For most of us, the biggest problem with losing lots of weight is the demoralizing process of watching ourselves gain it all back. But some people who lose weight manage to keep it off for good. How do they do it? Researchers from the Miriam Hospital recently examined their brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging and actually saw their restraint in action.
1 comment - Posted Sep 25, 2009
Metformin has always been the old reliable for treating new onset type 2 diabetes, but it's beginning to look like it's got a new calling as a cancer treatment. Diabetes Health recently reported on the fact that metformin reduces a type 2 person's risk of pancreatic cancer by up to 62 percent. It's also been observed that people with type 2 who take metformin have a much lower cancer incidence than those who don't. Now it appears that metformin can help with breast cancer treatment as well. A study of mice with breast cancer generated from human breast cancer cells has found that they remained tumor-free for nearly three months on metformin combined with doxorubicin, a standard cancer chemotherapy. In mice given only the doxorubicin, the tumors recurred.
1 comment - Posted Sep 25, 2009
Scientists have noted for a long time that the hormone leptin suppresses appetite. That's why they have been puzzled by the high levels of leptin found in obese people-shouldn't leptin decrease their appetites and act as a curb on their weight? Leptin also suppresses bone mass accrual, yet obese people do not suffer from loss or weakening of bone mass, despite their high leptin levels.
0 comments - Posted Sep 25, 2009
DAVIS, CA, SEPTEMBER 17, 2009 - While health officials have long suspected the link between obesity and soda consumption, research released today provides the first scientific evidence of the potent role soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages play in fueling California's expanding girth.
4 comments - Posted Sep 24, 2009
By reprogramming skin cells from people with type 1 diabetes, scientists have produced beta cells that secrete insulin in response to changes in glucose levels. Dr. Douglas Melton and his colleagues at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute started by using the skin cells to generate induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Once they had iPS cells, the researchers manipulated them into developing into pancreatic islet (beta) cells.
4 comments - Posted Sep 19, 2009
Researchers at the Karolinsky Institute in Sweden have discovered that in people with type 2 diabetes, a gene in muscle tissue is "methylated"; that is, an extra methyl group is stuck to it, causing it to respond differently. The gene in question, PGC-1α, controls other genes that affect how glucose is metabolized by muscle cells. The end result of methylated PGC-1α is that muscle cells are less able to use glucose as an energy source.
0 comments - Posted Sep 18, 2009
Those of you who are familiar with the South know what kudzu is. An Asian vine that can grow a foot taller every day, it was brought to the American Southeast in the 1930s in a sadly boneheaded attempt to control erosion. Unfortunately, the little green visitor liked it here so much that in the decades since, it has colonized 10 million acres of farms and woods, becoming a massive and costly nuisance.
0 comments - Posted Sep 16, 2009
You might think that people with type 2 diabetes would know better than most what they should put into and leave out of their diets. At least, that was the expectation of researchers at the Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, when they set out to learn why people with type 2 are often overweight. What they found, however, surprised them. Their study of 2,757 type 2s showed that:
7 comments - Posted Sep 15, 2009
An Italian study of people with type 2 diabetes has found that 70 percent of those who followed a low-fat diet eventually needed diabetes drugs, as opposed to only 44 percent of those who ate a Mediterranean diet.
4 comments - Posted Sep 14, 2009
ALEXANDRIA, VA, Sep 01, 2009 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) - The American Diabetes Association Research Foundation has selected two scientists, University of Virginia Health System researcher Zhenqi Liu, MD, and Stanford University School of Medicine researcher Gerald Reaven, MD, to receive the American Diabetes Association-Novo Nordisk Clinical/Translational Research Award.
0 comments - Posted Sep 12, 2009
Visceral adipose tissue (VAT), familiarly known as visceral fat, has long been associated with metabolic risk. But VAT is closely correlated with liver fat, also called intrahepatic triglyceride (IHTG) content. As a result, Samuel Klein of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, set out to determine if liver fat is more closely correlated with complications in obese patients than VAT.
0 comments - Posted Sep 12, 2009
Adults newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes generally don't take to the idea of using insulin right off the bat. They're worried about gaining weight and fear low blood sugars. They're also concerned about whether they can manage the regimen and fear that taking insulin will lower their quality of life. Those concerns, however, might be assuaged by a study recently conducted by Ildiko Lingvay and his colleagues at the University of Texas Southwestern.
5 comments - Posted Sep 12, 2009
Juice extracted from North American lowbush blueberries, biotransformed with bacteria from the skin of the fruit, holds great promise as an anti-obesity and anti-diabetic agent. The study, published in the International Journal of Obesity, was conducted by researchers from the Université de Montréal, the Institut Armand-Frappier and the Université de Moncton who tested the effects of biotransformed juices compared to regular blueberry drinks on mice.
3 comments - Posted Sep 10, 2009
It's not on the market yet, but a patch composed of tiny needles, each the width of a few human hairs, could eventually replace hypodermic needles for most drug injections. Preliminary experiments with people with diabetes have shown that the patch can deliver insulin successfully and with less pain than a hypodermic.
5 comments - Posted Sep 9, 2009
Scientists and healthcare professionals have known for some time that low levels of vitamin D almost double the risk of cardiovascular disease in people with diabetes. But until now, they haven't known why.
1 comment - Posted Sep 8, 2009
A South Carolina study has found that the DASH diet, originally designed to treat hypertension, is linked to a lower rate of type 2 diabetes in whites, but not in blacks or Hispanics.
0 comments - Posted Sep 4, 2009
The famous Diabetes Control and Complications Trial, known to its friends as the DCCT, was the first to prove the power of "intensive control" of blood glucose to reduce the complications of diabetes. Although the ten-year study ended in 1993, researchers have continued to follow about 90 percent of the nearly 1,500 original DCCT volunteers. And the follow-up study, called the Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (EDIC), is measuring up to its illustrious parent in terms of demonstrating the value of tight control. According to results published in the July 27, 2009 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, microvascular and cardiovascular complications of type 1 diabetes are cut in half for patients with near-normal glucose.
11 comments - Posted Sep 4, 2009
According to a recent Pennsylvania study, kids need to learn to control themselves when it comes to food. Obviously, self-control is important for us all, kids and adults alike, when it comes to weight management. It’s equally apparent that children need to be taught by their parents to make healthy food choices. But parents who strictly forbid their children to eat many foods might be contributing to a lack of self-control in their offspring, thereby creating the very chubbiness that they were trying to avert.
2 comments - Posted Sep 4, 2009
Even though autumn is just around the corner, many places in the country still have a couple of hot spells left. And those surprise heat waves can be bad news for people with diabetes. It’s no secret that the elderly, the obese, and people with heart disease or respiratory conditions are vulnerable to heat-related illnesses. It’s less well known, however, that people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes are more likely than non-diabetics to suffer heat stroke, heat exhaustion, and heat cramps.
1 comment - Posted Sep 3, 2009
Researchers at Stanford University recently discovered that a mutated version of a gene may contribute to type 1 diabetes by sabotaging the functioning of the gene's normal version. Experiments conducted on mice with a diabetes-type disease showed that the mutated variant may prevent the healthy version from protecting the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas from attack by the immune system.
0 comments - Posted Sep 3, 2009
Eating fat is usually not very helpful when it comes to losing weight. According to a researcher at Ohio State University, however, two natural oils that contain "good fats" can melt away pounds in postmenopausal obese women with type 2 diabetes.
1 comment - Posted Sep 2, 2009
Research by Utah scientists has clarified the mechanism behind the long-held notion that sugar somehow "feeds" tumors. In addition to suggesting a new way to fight cancer, the findings provide insight into how the body metabolizes glucose and may eventually affect treatments for diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2009
August 2009
In a Canadian study involving 42 patients with type 1 diabetes, nearly half of the subjects had an abnormal response to wheat proteins. Scientists at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and the University of Ottawa, who conducted the study, found that the patients' over-reaction to wheat is linked to genes that are associated with type 1 diabetes.
6 comments - Posted Aug 31, 2009
Being a protein can be a dirty, sticky job. Most proteins in the body have carbohydrates stuck all over them. And when a carbohydrate sticks to a protein, it may change the way the protein works or how the protein interacts with other proteins.
1 comment - Posted Aug 28, 2009
A Japanese company whose biggest moneymaker is the sale of synthetic fabrics announced a few days ago that it has developed an insulin nasal spray for people with diabetes. The news brought an investor surge that lifted the value of its stocks by 10 percent.
0 comments - Posted Aug 28, 2009
Our genes are like a recipe for a human. It's a very complicated recipe, determining how much of this protein and how much of that enzyme need to be added into the mix in order for us to function properly, but our genes are pretty good at getting it right. Although we are still learning how the recipe works, what ingredients (gene products) are involved, and when are they are produced, our knowledge is growing fast.
2 comments - Posted Aug 28, 2009
Everyone knows that eating only high fat food is unhealthy way down the road, but we don't really worry that eating a burger will hurt us by next week. Unfortunately, however, it turns out that a high fat diet damages our health (and our brain functioning) a lot sooner than we would like to think. In fact, new research shows that the effects are felt within only ten days. As far as I'm concerned, this was already shown conclusively in the film "Super Size Me," in which director Morgan Spurlock personally examined the effects of fast food on the human body. For one month, he ate only at McDonald's, ordering everything on the menu and "super-sizing" his order whenever asked. Right before our eyes, Spurlock began looking sicker and sicker.
12 comments - Posted Aug 28, 2009
In our last issue, we published a letter from reader Sheila Payne, who wrote that we had been far too positive about continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) in our June/July article Get the Facts on Continuous Glucose Monitoring. But her opinion provoked a stack of letters from people who believe that the benefits of CGM substantially outweigh its negatives. To let you in on the debate, we are reprinting Ms. Payne's thought-provoking letter here, followed by two equally thoughtful responses from readers.
12 comments - Posted Aug 28, 2009
Canadian scientists have reported that a hormone found in the gut has the power to lower glucose production by signaling the brain and liver to do so. When the researchers activated its receptors in lab rats, they found that the hormone, called cholecystokinin (CCK) peptide, rapidly lowered the animals' blood glucose levels.
0 comments - Posted Aug 27, 2009
The PreDx Diabetes Risk Score determines risk of developing type 2 diabetes within five years
0 comments - Posted Aug 26, 2009
A new glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analog for type 2s that might require dosing only once a month is now in pre-clinical (animal) studies. GLP-1, which increases insulin secretion from the pancreas, is a mighty helpful molecule, but with a sadly brief lifespan. It's broken down in the body within minutes by the enzyme DPP-4. That's why drugs like Merck's Januvia, a DPP-4 inhibitor, is effective: blocking DPP-4 subsequently increases the amount of GLP-1 in the system.
0 comments - Posted Aug 25, 2009
Deferoxamine, a drug already FDA-approved for the treatment of disorders related to excess iron in the blood, may help doctors heal stubborn leg and foot wounds in people with diabetes. Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that with deferoxamine, small cuts in diabetic mice healed 10 days faster than they did in untreated mice: 13 days as opposed to 23 days. If deferoxamine works similarly on humans, it could significantly speed the healing of diabetic wounds.
5 comments - Posted Aug 22, 2009
It's called an anti-Ras drug, but it's got no problem with reggae. It's a multi-talented new pill against pancreatic cancer that just might also come to the rescue of pancreatic beta cells. Its pancreatic cancer-fighting attributes are currently being tested in a human clinical trial, but a modified version has been shown to maintain normal insulin production in diabetic mice.
1 comment - Posted Aug 21, 2009
South African researchers have found that in areas where tuberculosis is endemic, nearly one in three children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes tests positive when given a skin test for the disease. Although the positive test results do not mean that these young people will inevitably develop active TB, they do run a very high risk of doing so.
4 comments - Posted Aug 20, 2009
One of the major complications of diabetes is diabetic nephropathy, a loss of kidney function that may lead to renal failure. As kidney disease progresses, the barrier that keeps large molecules out of the urine, called the glomerular barrier, begins to break down. With the barrier failing, certain large molecules begin to migrate into the urine. One of those hefty molecules is immunoglobulin M, or IgM.
1 comment - Posted Aug 19, 2009
The theory of unintended consequences has gotten another boost. Although two drugs designed to slow the loss of kidney function in people with type 1 diabetes turned out to be busts, they had a wonderful but entirely unexpected side effect: Eye damage was reduced by 65 to 70 percent in the patients taking them.
6 comments - Posted Aug 17, 2009
Only a handful of studies have examined the relationship of a woman's menstrual cycle to her blood glucose control, but they have one finding in common: menstruation's effect on blood glucose is as varied as each individual's disease. As a result, blood glucose testing remains the only way to know how a woman's monthly cycle affects her diabetes control.
9 comments - Posted Aug 15, 2009
Onglyza (saxagliptin), a dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitor produced by AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb, has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Aug 15, 2009
If it's a pump, then where's the tubing? Well, it looks like another company has put a patch on that problem. Medingo Ltd., a company held by Elron Electronic Industries, has received FDA approval to market the Solo MicroPump Insulin Delivery System. The Solo System consists of an insulin-dispensing patch and a remote control device that increases or decreases the patch's rate of secretion.
6 comments - Posted Aug 15, 2009
This year the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) went deep south for its annual conference, hosting the event in Atlanta, Georgia, from August 3rd through August 9th. Diabetes Health was there, hobnobbing with thousands of attendees and hundreds of companies, and it was an amazing experience.
0 comments - Posted Aug 15, 2009
Endocrinologists at the University of Chicago say that lack of sufficient sleep may contribute to insulin resistance and decreased glucose tolerance, two conditions that up the long-term risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Aug 14, 2009
There's a gene whose name you should remember because it could mark a crucial point in the war on type 1 diabetes.
3 comments - Posted Aug 13, 2009
Now there's an iPhone and iPod Touch app for diabetes. AgaMatrix, Inc., the makers of the WaveSense line of blood glucose monitoring products, has announced the launch of the WaveSense Diabetes Manager, an electronic diabetes logbook software application that runs on the two Apple products.
The WaveSense Diabetes Manager, in development and testing for over a year, lays the foundation for a series of upcoming products that will take advantage of the iPhone and other mobile platforms to help people with diabetes manage the disease. AgaMatrix reports that the WaveSense app provides users with the following features:
2 comments - Posted Aug 12, 2009
Researchers have recently reported that people with the lowest levels of a protein that regulates sex hormones, "sex hormone-binding globulin," were 10 times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those with the highest levels of SHBG. In short, the lower a person's SHBG levels, the higher his or her risk of developing the disease.
0 comments - Posted Aug 11, 2009
A 43-year-old Iraq war veteran with diabetes is living in Texas with his wife and four young children when he is told that he must prepare for the amputation of one of his legs. The spreading, non-healing wounds and their complications make the amputation necessary to save not just his limb, but his life, his doctors tell him. But he refuses to proceed with the amputation surgery.
6 comments - Posted Aug 10, 2009
A study from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston says that magnetic resonance imaging could become a useful tool for diagnosing diabetes and helping doctors determine the proper course of treatment.
3 comments - Posted Aug 8, 2009
Most clinical studies of new drugs are conducted primarily on white men, whether or not they are most affected by the disease the drug is intended to treat. African Americans, for example, are 1.6 times more likely to have diabetes than non-Hispanic whites. Why should we assume that what works for white males will also be effective for African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, or, for that matter, women?
0 comments - Posted Aug 6, 2009
(The Clinical Trials Connection is online at www.trials.jdrf.org)
0 comments - Posted Aug 6, 2009
Metformin is one of the oldest and most tried-and-true diabetes treatments around, but apparently it has a new talent. According to research from the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas, good ol' metformin reduces a type 2 person's risk of pancreatic cancer by 62 percent.
2 comments - Posted Aug 5, 2009
In April of 2008, our healthy nine-year-old son, Gaspar, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. After his two days in the ICU and a week in the hospital, a new life began for all of us. Although we couldn't immediately grasp all its implications and were simultaneously dealing with our shaken world, we gave the situation a "think outside the box" approach. When the endocrinologist told us, "That's the way it is. Just focus on the controls and all will be fine," we asked whether the condition might be cured or attenuated if we acted quickly at the beginning. We were met with the usual answer: "There's nothing you can do. Just focus on the controls."
8 comments - Posted Aug 3, 2009
Eating fat is usually not very helpful when it comes to losing weight. According to a researcher at Ohio State University, however, two natural oils that contain "good fats" can melt away pounds in postmenopausal obese women with type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Aug 2, 2009
Eating fat is usually not very helpful when it comes to losing weight. According to a researcher at Ohio State University, however, two natural oils that contain "good fats" can melt away pounds in postmenopausal obese women with type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Aug 2, 2009
With over 57 million Americans at risk for type 2 diabetes, how do clinicians decide whom to bump to the front of the line for preventive care and treatment? The PreDx Diabetes Risk Score, which employs a few simple blood tests to identify patients at highest risk of developing type 2 diabetes within five years, might help caregivers prioritize their efforts.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2009
Xenotransplantation ("zee-no-transplantation") may sound like something from a space invasion novel, but it's actually the practice of transplanting organs, cells, or tissues from one animal species into another. With scientific advances taking place so rapidly and with so many patients desperate for organ transplants, it seems plausible (and pretty likely) that one day xenotransplantation will be commonplace.
1 comment - Posted Aug 1, 2009
July 2009
A new treatment for receding gums that uses patients' own blood to encourage regeneration seems to have "legs" and hold up over the long term, according to a small study by researchers at Tufts University in Medford, Mass.
1 comment - Posted Jul 31, 2009
May 5 - Ann Arbor, MI - In the first study of the effects of statins on the concentrations of both low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C; known as the "bad" cholesterol) and low-density lipoprotein particles (LDL-P) in patients with metabolic syndrome, it was shown that even though the statins lowered the concentrations of LDL-C to target levels, the patients retained considerable residual risk for cardiovascular events because LDL-P concentrations were not reduced to a similar extent. A pre-print version of the study in Diabetes Care is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.2337/dc08-1681, and the final version will be available in print in the June 2009 issue, as well as online at the same URL.
0 comments - Posted Jul 29, 2009
A protein that builds up in the pancreases of baboons and leads to the suppression of insulin-producing beta cells, may provide one of the most significant indicators yet for predicting the onset of type 2 diabetes.
1 comment - Posted Jul 28, 2009
Banting Gives It Away - Insulin was discovered in 1921 by Fred Banting and Charles Best. In a generous gesture that unfortunately didn't start a trend, they sold the patent for a dollar so that cheap insulin would quickly become available. It worked like a charm: within two years, Eli Lilly had sold 60 million units of its purified extract of pig and cow pancreas.
22 comments - Posted Jul 27, 2009
Researchers at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, have found a brain enzyme that, when blocked, curbs appetite and increases energy levels-both crucial factors in controlling and losing weight.
0 comments - Posted Jul 25, 2009
After experiencing blurry vision and excessive thirst, Mr. R visits his primary care doctor, who tests him and diagnoses diabetes and high lipid levels. Mr. R is placed on hypoglycemic and statin medications and sent to a dietitian for nutritional advice, but he is confused about to how to shop and cook according to the new recommendations. In the next weeks, he experiences dangerous blood glucose swings and inadequate improvement in his LDL level. His primary care doctor refers him to an endocrinologist, but the next available appointment is three months away. What now?
6 comments - Posted Jul 24, 2009
According to results of a phase II clinical trial at the University of Texas Medical School, a low dose of oral interferon alpha can preserve pancreatic beta cell function in newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes patients. Interferons are proteins produced by the cells of the immune system in response to challenges like a virus or a tumor cell. They work by inhibiting viral replication in the host cell, activating natural killer cells, and increasing the activity of other immune system cells such as lymphocytes.
0 comments - Posted Jul 24, 2009
For obese people, who often go on to develop type 2 diabetes, the magic bullet would be a drug that causes weight loss without surgery or the misery of drastic diets that often fail. So, news about a drug that produced dramatically slimmer lab rats in just a week should make them-and people with diabetes-perk up.
0 comments - Posted Jul 23, 2009
Have you ever come home from work or shopping after a long day on your feet, and all you wanted in life was to sit down and put them up? When you rested your feet on an ottoman, you immediately began to relax. The physiological reason you felt so much better was the slight widening of the peripheral capillary blood vessels in your feet-the natural response of relaxation. As the vessels opened up, more blood flowed to your feet, providing nutrients and oxygen. The foot pain and fatigue started to fade as the tissues were nourished. Ahhhh!
1 comment - Posted Jul 20, 2009
The Organic Center (TOC), a leading research institute focused on the science of organic food and farming, announced that a balanced, organic diet-both before and during pregnancy-can significantly reduce a child's likelihood of becoming overweight or obese or developing diabetes.
1 comment - Posted Jul 17, 2009
This article was submitted by GlaxoSmithKline, makers of LOVAZA, a medication to lower very high triglycerides, made from omega-3 fish oil.
0 comments - Posted Jul 16, 2009
Rhode Island researchers say they have found strong evidence that links the level of nitrates in the environment and food supply to increases in deaths from such diseases as diabetes, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's-all insulin-resistant ailments.
1 comment - Posted Jul 16, 2009
An analysis of ten trials involving statin therapy among 70,000 participants has led an international team of cardiologists to recommend that that the cholesterol-lowering drugs be prescribed for people who do not have heart disease.
2 comments - Posted Jul 15, 2009
Obesity has always been one of the major precursors to type 2 diabetes because of its ill effects on the body's ability to properly use insulin. But until now, scientists haven't been able to say with certainty just what happens in obese people to increase their insulin resistance.
0 comments - Posted Jul 14, 2009
People often ask me, "Why limit diabetes-related services to the iPhone when there are so many other cell phones out there?" I always answer them by asking, "How many applications have you downloaded onto your cell phone?"
15 comments - Posted Jul 13, 2009
April 2009 was an exciting month at the University of Alberta. It marked the tenth anniversary of an unprecedented approach to islet transplantation, recognized globally as the "Edmonton Protocol." Each year since that milestone has produced evidence of progress in the art of islet isolation and the science of the transplant process. I know this because I lived it. I am patient number thirty-three, one of the many who have witnessed the evolution of this continuing innovation.
7 comments - Posted Jul 11, 2009
A 24-week study of the effects of red yeast rice on the cholesterol levels of people who cannot take statins shows that the ancient Asian food could be a viable statin alternative.
3 comments - Posted Jul 9, 2009
Women who frequently snore-at least three nights a week-run a substantially higher risk of developing gestational diabetes during pregnancy than non-snorers.
0 comments - Posted Jul 9, 2009
Of all the quests that researchers have undertaken in search of a cure or decisive treatment for type 1 diabetes, the search for a vaccine has to be the boldest. But how would you develop such a vaccine, and how would it work?
2 comments - Posted Jul 9, 2009
The National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP) is working hard to change people's attitudes about diabetes. A federally funded program sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the NDEP has more than 200 partners at the federal, state, and local levels, all working together to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jul 7, 2009
The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) has called for urgent assessment and responses from regulatory authorities into a possible link between the use of insulin glargine (an insulin analog) and increased risk of cancer. The proposed link is based on findings published on June 26, 2009, in Diabetelogia, the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD).
2 comments - Posted Jul 6, 2009
UK-based GW Pharmaceuticals has entered into a strategic alliance with Professor Mike Cawthorne and the Clore Laboratory, University of Buckingham, to research the use of cannabinoids-chemical compounds derived from marijuana-in the treatment of type 2 diabetes.
3 comments - Posted Jul 5, 2009
Scientists have identified five genetic biomarkers that predict how well a type 2 patient will respond to the drug Actos. Their work could be the first step toward a system that would allow doctors to predetermine which drugs will best help each person with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jul 3, 2009
By inhibiting the expression of a gene called sirtuin 1, Yale researchers have been able to reduce blood glucose levels, decrease the liver's production of glucose, and increase insulin sensitivity in rats conditioned to exhibit type 2 symptoms. A happy byproduct of their research is a simultaneous lowering of cholesterol levels.
0 comments - Posted Jul 3, 2009
Genentech, a bioscience firm famous for its development of antibodies designed to combat cancer, has entered a $350 million agreement with Bayhill Therapeutics to assist in development of BHT-3021, a drug that treats type 1 diabetes by reducing or stopping immune system attacks on pancreatic beta cells.
2 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2009
June 2009
Every time I return from the American Diabetes Association (ADA) Scientific Sessions conference, my head is so full of information that I need a week or two to sort through it. But now I've had a chance to choose what I think are the top five things that you need to know. Here they are...
0 comments - Posted Jun 30, 2009
The National Changing Diabetes Program (NCDP) is an organization working within the healthcare community to elevate diabetes on the national health agenda and improve the lives of people with this devastating disease. Recently, the NCDP commissioned a new study on the growing influence of diabetes on the U.S. economy and population. The NCDP also is taking steps to reduce the increasing impact of diabetes on the United States.
1 comment - Posted Jun 26, 2009
One of the fondest hopes of people with type 1 diabetes has long been for the creation of an artificial pancreas, a reliable combination of automated glucose monitoring and insulin delivery that could serve in place of a defunct pancreas.
16 comments - Posted Jun 24, 2009
In 2008, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration published strong warnings that the type 2 diabetes drug exenatide (trade name Byetta) might increase risk of acute pancreatitis, a painful inflammation of the pancreas. The FDA's action came in the wake of reports that 30 exenatide users had come down with pancreatitis and that six of them had died from the condition.
1 comment - Posted Jun 19, 2009
The A1c test (also called the HbA1c test), which establishes average blood sugar levels over a three-month period, should replace fasting plasma glucose and oral glucose tolerance tests as the standard for diagnosing diabetes.
6 comments - Posted Jun 17, 2009
I attended the annual meeting of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE), held from May 14th to 18th, 2009. Here's a re-cap of the buzz about ICU glycemic control, prediabetes, and vitamin D.
0 comments - Posted Jun 17, 2009
Drug companies spend billions of dollars on research, and it's obvious that they spend more billions on advertising. Well, according to the New York Times, they spend the most billions on giving nice things to doctors: pens, samples, banquets, trips, and educational opportunities among them. For doctors, in fact, there is a free lunch: Pharma companies spend as much as a billion a year just on lunches for doctors. And over 90 percent of doctors have accepted at least some of this largesse from the industry.
5 comments - Posted Jun 12, 2009
Patients with type 2 diabetes reduced their risk of having a foot amputated by 36 percent when they took fenofibrate, a drug designed to lower blood fat levels.
0 comments - Posted Jun 12, 2009
A previously unknown human protein, called CHC22, may give scientists a powerful new tool for understanding type 2 diabetes, according to researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, and Harvard Medical School.
0 comments - Posted Jun 11, 2009
University of Cambridge researchers are reporting that people with type 2 diabetes who maintain strict control of their blood sugar-defined as lowering their A1c levels by 0.9% over a five-year period-can lower their risk of non-fatal heart attacks by 17 percent.
2 comments - Posted Jun 5, 2009
Spanish university researchers have isolated a new species of bacteria-which they found in sewer sludge-that is able to break down cholesterol.
0 comments - Posted Jun 4, 2009
CRx-401, an insulin sensitizer intended to assist metformin in type 2 diabetes therapy, has successfully completed a Phase 2 clinical trial in which patients taking it saw their fasting plasma glucose drop by 12 mg/dl after 90 days.
1 comment - Posted Jun 3, 2009
May 2009
In a recent 16-week randomized, open-label pilot study, 169 patients were randomized to receive Welchol (n=57), Januvia (n=56), or Avandia (n=56).1 The results demonstrated that Welchol (colesevelam HCl) significantly improved glycemic control and reduced mean LDL cholesterol (LDL-C) when added to metformin monotherapy in patients with type 2 diabetes. In the study, Januvia® (sitagliptin) and Avandia® (rosiglitazone) also significantly improved glycemic control, but LDL-C increased in patients on both of these treatment regimens.
0 comments - Posted May 29, 2009
Researchers at Wayne State University and the University of Michigan have found that a common blood test for triglycerides may allow doctors to predict which patients with diabetes are more likely to develop neuropathy.
5 comments - Posted May 29, 2009
Humanin (HN) is a mitochondrial peptide* that in some research has shown the ability to protect against the death of neurons, the devastating consequence of diseases like Alzheimer's. According to the leader of a research team at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in the Bronx, however, it also significantly improves the insulin sensitivity of diabetic rats and sharply drops their glucose levels.
2 comments - Posted May 20, 2009
Significant relief for people with type 1 diabetes could soon come in the form of a device made from a thermoplastic resin commonly used as a coating for cookware, gaskets, and hoses.
2 comments - Posted May 20, 2009
Dental researchers are reporting that resolvins, products derived from omega-3 fatty acids, may have the ability to restore the soft tissue and even bone lost in periodontal (gum) disease.
0 comments - Posted May 7, 2009
The European Union's drug regulation agency has recommended that the EU approve the marketing of "Victoza" (liraglutide), a type 2 drug developed by Novo Nordisk.
2 comments - Posted May 6, 2009
Voglibose*, a generic drug often used in combination with sulfonylureas to control blood glucose levels, appears to delay or even prevent the onset of diabetes in people who are predisposed to the disease.
6 comments - Posted May 1, 2009
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has issued a call for proposals through its national program, Project HealthDesign: Rethinking the Power and Potential of Personal Health Records. Grant recipients will work to assess and test the potential of "observations of daily living" (ODLs) to help patients and physicians better manage chronic illnesses.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2009
April 2009
Although researchers reporting the phenomenon can't quite put their fingers on how it works, a newly released study says that severe hypoglycemic episodes requiring hospitalization among older people with type 2 diabetes create a greater risk - 32 percent - for developing dementia.
1 comment - Posted Apr 29, 2009
Three studies just published in the New England Journal of Medicine have discovered that most adults have several grams of brown fat sequestered in little pockets on their necks and backs. It's a tiny amount, but it's big news because brown fat is not your everyday fat, the unwelcome white variety that stores calories and makes us hate mirrors. Brown fat is a busy little heat-producing fat that actually burns calories. It's brown because it contains special mitochondria, tiny factories within the fat cells that produce heat, lots of it, when activated by cold.
2 comments - Posted Apr 24, 2009
In an Australian study that tracked 11,140 people with diabetes, researchers found a strong relationship between the presence of atrial fibrillation-abnormal heart rhythm-and an increased risk of cardiovascular problems and death.
1 comment - Posted Apr 23, 2009
Well, it's official: If you're elderly and fat, you're more likely to have problems getting around than if you're thin and elderly. A new study proves it. But here's the real kicker: If you're thin and elderly, but you used to be fat, you're more likely to develop problems getting around than people who were never fat. As a matter of fact, you're almost as likely to have mobility problems as people who are fat and elderly. Apparently, you just can't win for losing.
3 comments - Posted Apr 21, 2009
The need to investigate and determine normoglycemia in Mexican children under the age of six begins with a lack of relevant published data. Another motive for reviewing the currently recommended glycemic goals for children and adolescents with type 1 stems from the well-known observation that children and adolescents who do not have type 1 do not develop microvascular diabetic complications. Today, thanks to insulin analogs and basal/bolus therapy regimens, children with type 1 have the option of achieving true euglycemia and of potentially benefiting from its advantages.
14 comments - Posted Apr 17, 2009
Understanding which proteins help control blood glucose during and after exercise could lead to new drug therapies or more effective exercise to prevent type 2 diabetes and other health problems associated with high blood sugar.
0 comments - Posted Apr 16, 2009
Pregnant women who have gum disease run a higher risk of developing gestational diabetes than pregnant women who have healthy gums, says a study from the New York University College of Dentistry.
2 comments - Posted Apr 16, 2009
Results from DURATION-2, a 26-week test comparing the diabetic drugs Januvia, Actos, and experimental long-acting Byetta (Byetta LAR) show that Byetta produced lower A1c's and more weight loss than the other two drugs.
5 comments - Posted Apr 15, 2009
A study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism of The Endocrine Society says that low birth weight could be associated with a higher incidence of inflammation in adulthood, setting the stage for heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
1 comment - Posted Apr 15, 2009
Finally some good news!
1 comment - Posted Apr 10, 2009
Buoyed by its recent successful phase 1 human clinical trial of a patch that delivers basal insulin through the skin, Atlanta-based Altea Therapeutics says it will work with Eli Lilly and Company and Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc., to develop a daily transdermal patch that deliver sustained levels of Byetta (exenatide). The patch, in a 12- and a 24-hour form, will use the company's proprietary PassPort Transdermal Delivery System. Lilly and Amylin will fund all development, manufacturing, and marketing activities for the product.
2 comments - Posted Apr 7, 2009
A 12-month university study of 130 persons who ate either a USDA food pyramid-inspired high-carb diet or a diet moderately high in protein showed that members of the higher protein group lost 23 percent more weight and 38 percent more body fat than their high carb counterparts.
0 comments - Posted Apr 3, 2009
Last week we published an article about how the CDC says too many people are still smoking. The federal government has a Healthy People 2010 goal of reducing adult smoking rates to 12 percent or less by 2010. Of the 50 states, only Utah has thus far achieved that goal.
1 comment - Posted Apr 2, 2009
Being overweight is something all doctors and most laypeople know significantly increases the risk of acquiring type 2 diabetes. In fact, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) says that more than 90 percent of people who are newly diagnosed with type 2 are overweight. But why does excess fat increase the risk of diabetes? Isn't the disease, after all, one that involves the body's inability to metabolize glucose?
3 comments - Posted Apr 2, 2009
Canadian scientists studying the effects of glucose on cellular aging have discovered an unusual effect that could change how doctors treat diabetes and even address the human lifespan.
2 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2009
March 2009
The American Diabetes Association (ADA) and American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) released a statement last week in response to the study published online in the New England Journal of Medicine which suggested that intensive blood glucose control for critical care patients with hyperglycemia doesn't improve outcomes and is associated with an increase in deaths.
1 comment - Posted Mar 31, 2009
One of the most impressive feats of endurance in the animal world is performed by the sled dogs that run up to 100 miles per day in such races as Alaska's Iditarod, a grueling 1,161-mile trek from Simpson to Homer.
0 comments - Posted Mar 31, 2009
AR9281, a drug developed by the University of California at Davis and now under further development by a California-based pharmaceutical company, has entered Phase II of human clinical trials.
1 comment - Posted Mar 27, 2009
New guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force state that daily low doses of aspirin-75 milligrams to 81 milligrams-are as effective as higher doses (100+ milligrams) in preventing heart attacks among men and strokes among women.
3 comments - Posted Mar 26, 2009
If you fancy cat naps and think that they might be a handy way to circumvent the ill effects of too little sleep at night (see Sleeping Less Than 6 Hours a Night? Your Risk of Developing a Type 2 Precursor Is Nearly 5x Higher), think again: A British study of the napping habits of more than 16,000 people in China has concluded that taking a nap even once a week can increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 26 percent over people who never take naps.
7 comments - Posted Mar 25, 2009
If you get less than six hours of sleep per night, your risk of developing impaired fasting glucose rises by a factor of 4.56, according to a report from the American Heart Association.
2 comments - Posted Mar 25, 2009
Physicians who treat people with type 2 diabetes face difficult choices when selecting the best medical therapy for each patient. The decision process is further complicated by the fact that because type 2 diabetes is a progressive disease, therapeutic agents that were initially successful may fail five or ten years later.
162 comments - Posted Mar 20, 2009
These amazing teens-selected from 20,000 entries nationwide-were named State Honorees (along with 102 other state winners throughout the U.S.) in the 14th annual Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, a national program honoring middle and high school students for their outstanding acts of volunteerism. The program is conducted by Prudential Financial and the National Association of Secondary School Principals. Over the past 14 years, they have honored more than 80,000 young volunteers at the local, state, and national levels.
1 comment - Posted Mar 17, 2009
"Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident," said President Obama, as he signed an executive order lifting the ban on federally funded embryonic stem cell research. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) is celebrating President Obama's new policy. They recently released this statement by Mary Tyler Moore, the International Chairman of the JDRF:
12 comments - Posted Mar 17, 2009
Obesity has long been accepted as a risk factor for diabetes. The results of four recently published studies, however, have revealed that the real risk factor may be the insecticides present in that fat. The initial investigations showed that the expected association between obesity and diabetes/insulin resistance was absent in people who had low levels of organochlorine insecticides in their blood (1, 2). However, the expected association between obesity and diabetes/insulin resistance increased with levels of these insecticides. In the last year, two additional studies have linked these insecticides with diabetes (3, 4).
10 comments - Posted Mar 13, 2009
The old joke has a man going to the doctor and saying, "It hurts when I do this. What should I do to make it go away?"
6 comments - Posted Mar 12, 2009
Researchers funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation have found two chemical compounds that can trigger the growth of insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. The discovery could become the basis for medicines designed to regenerate the pancreas in people with type 1 diabetes.
9 comments - Posted Mar 11, 2009
Whenever Diabetes Health publishes an article about high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), we receive mountains of printed material from corn industry advocates. They argue that the effects of HFCS cannot be extrapolated from research because the "studies look at the effects of fructose independently." They claim, in the words of Christopher Mohr, MS, RD, LDN, of the Corn Refiners Association, that "the absence of glucose makes pure fructose fundamentally different from HFCS."
14 comments - Posted Mar 11, 2009
Scientists at a Cambridge, Massachusetts, laboratory who set out to develop a tattoo for tracking heart health may now be on track for developing a tattoo for people with diabetes that changes color as blood glucose levels rise and fall. If it becomes a workable approach, the tattoo technology could spare millions of people the tiresome, often painful routine of pricking themselves throughout the day to produce blood samples for their glucose monitors.
15 comments - Posted Mar 6, 2009
Chances are that you know somebody who can pack away the highest-fat foods-marbled steak, cheese, butter, and ice cream-and never gain weight. If you've always shrugged it off and said, "It must be genetic," it turns out that you may be right.
2 comments - Posted Mar 5, 2009
A few quick, intense bursts of energy, such as 7.5 minutes per week of sprints on a stationary bicycle, may be just as good as 30 minutes per day of moderate exercise in reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes. In fact, say researchers at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, such short bursts may be even more effective.
2 comments - Posted Mar 5, 2009
All 15 experimental coordinated care programs launched by Medicare in 2002 failed to generate net savings, and only two of them reduced hospital admission rates among patients with chronic diseases, including diabetes.
1 comment - Posted Mar 4, 2009
A complex sugar derived from glucose during the body’s metabolic processes could be a way to reliably detect a pre-diabetes condition, say researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. If it does, the “biomarker” (an indicator of an organism’s state of health) could provide enough early warning that patients nearing the onset of type 2 diabetes could take steps to slow or even halt it through lifestyle changes.
1 comment - Posted Mar 3, 2009
February 2009
Too little production of a molecule called LSR (lipolysis-stimulated lipoprotein receptor) in the liver sends blood fat soaring to pathological levels in mice with type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, say scientists at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg.
1 comment - Posted Feb 26, 2009
DM-99, a drug under development by the Canadian drug company DiaMedica, Inc., has just finished a phase 2a "proof of concept" trial with 40 type 2 patients in Europe. Although the company did not release performance figures from the trial, it found them sufficiently encouraging to move further into phase 2 testing.
0 comments - Posted Feb 26, 2009
A report in the February 4, 2009, issue of Cell Metabolism says that babies born with neonatal diabetes might be able to avoid irreversible damage to the pancreas if doctors treat them quickly with sulfonylureas rather than insulin.
0 comments - Posted Feb 25, 2009
Georgia researchers believe that a powerful enzyme that inhibits or modifies immune system response could be the basis for a vaccine administered to children at high risk for developing type 1 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Feb 25, 2009
Avanafil, a pill that may permit diabetic men who are experiencing erectile dysfunction to engage in intercourse without the restrictions on food or alcoholic intake associated with other ED treatments, is entering a second phase 3 study-the crucial step before a drug manufacturer seeks FDA or European approval to market.
5 comments - Posted Feb 24, 2009
Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) has been considered a promising way to generate human stem cells for therapeutic applications for more than a decade. The shortage of human donor eggs has led to efforts to substitute animal oocytes. However, a new study published online in Cloning and Stem Cells, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., demonstrates that animal oocytes lack the capacity to fully reprogram adult human cells. (The paper is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/clo.)
2 comments - Posted Feb 20, 2009
Data from a phase 3 study of the Novo Nordisk drug liraglutide shows that when it is used in combination with glimepiride, it is more effective at reducing A1c's than glimepiride by itself or glimepiride in combination with the drug rosiglitazone.
0 comments - Posted Feb 19, 2009
Bone marrow cells that the body normally uses to restore blood vessels can be cultured to stop neuropathy and restore nerve function in diabetic mice, according to researchers at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
12 comments - Posted Feb 12, 2009
Keep this letter-number sequence in mind: CXCL10. You'll probably be reading a lot more about it.
1 comment - Posted Feb 11, 2009
Remember that public service advertisement that showed a frying egg and then announced, "This is your brain on drugs"? Well, now American researchers think that insulin might be able to shield that brain from the ravages of Alzheimer's disease.
1 comment - Posted Feb 10, 2009
By introducing a protein called cdk6 into human insulin-producing adult beta cells via a virus, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers have induced the cells to replicate "robustly." Previously, scientists believed that beta cells could be induced to regenerate slowly at best, and usually not at all.
0 comments - Posted Feb 5, 2009
Asia, which covers an area almost twice the size of North America and is home to three billion people-half of humanity-is often seen as a homogenous entity in the minds of many Westerners, even scientists. But a land that stretches 6,000 miles from east to west is anything but homogenous. The Israelis and Arabs in western Asia, for example, are far different ethnically from the Hmong mountain people in Southeast Asia, the Ainu in northern Japan, or the Filipinos in the southwestern Pacific.
0 comments - Posted Feb 3, 2009
January 2009
A study published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine has found that the glucose control practices at academic medical centers are below par and fail to meet the current standards set by the American Diabetes Association (ADA).
2 comments - Posted Jan 30, 2009
Researchers in India have found that 65 proteins in the saliva of people with type 2 diabetes have patterns unlike the patterns of the same proteins in the saliva of individuals without diabetes. Not only may the differences be a potential way to identify type 2s, but the proteins themselves are associated with immune response and metabolic regulation-two bodily functions that run afoul in type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jan 29, 2009
Air polluted with particulate matter at concentrations found in many U.S. metro areas may be a contributing factor in obesity and to the onset of diabetes, say researchers at the Ohio State University Medical Center.
0 comments - Posted Jan 29, 2009
Syracuse University chemist Robert Doyle has taken out a patent on something that has long been a Holy Grail for insulin suppliers and users: a reliable way to take insulin orally instead of with a needle.
4 comments - Posted Jan 28, 2009
We first reported on salsalate, an aspirin-like drug discovered in the nineteenth century, last October. At that time, researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston discovered that it appears to reduce inflammation and lower blood glucose in people with type 2 diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Jan 27, 2009
Nearly every time that I mention islet transplantation in a conversation about diabetes, the person I'm with responds with a sniff that it's never going to work because of the immune suppression problem.
12 comments - Posted Jan 24, 2009
For patients who suffer frequent sharp abdominal pain from chronic pancreatitis, antioxidants may offer effective pain relief, according to a study recently published in Gastroenterology, the journal of the American Gastroenterological Association Institute.
5 comments - Posted Jan 23, 2009
Hearts in the medical community beat with considerable excitement at the discovery of leptin in 1994. A hormone produced by fat, leptin has a very useful talent: it tells the brain when to stop eating. So hopes were high that leptin would become the basis of an anti-obesity treatment. What could be simpler than to dose an obese person with a hormone that says, "You're not hungry any more, and you want to stop eating."
0 comments - Posted Jan 22, 2009
Current thinking has it that obese people are obese because they engage in less physical activity and burn fewer calories than their thinner counterparts. But suppose you could show that obese women burn just as many calories as their thinner, supposedly fitter counterparts?
0 comments - Posted Jan 21, 2009
Scientists at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, have developed a synthetic version of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the "good" cholesterol that doctors are always nudging their patients with diabetes to monitor.
0 comments - Posted Jan 20, 2009
Tell this to your non-diabetic friends and relatives: The next time they look in a full-length mirror, they shouldn't be too quick to dismiss their ample hips and bottoms.
0 comments - Posted Jan 16, 2009
According to biologists at the Baylor College of Medicine, limiting the copies of a gene that produces a protein affecting organ development serves to decrease fat cell size in mice, enhance their responsiveness to insulin, and increase their energy level.
0 comments - Posted Jan 14, 2009
Two diets - one severely restricting carbohydrate intake but with no limit on calories, and the other emphasizing low-glycemic carbohydrates and low calories - allowed high percentages of obese type 2 patients in a university study to reduce or even eliminate their diabetes medications (95.2 percent of the patients on the extreme low-carb diet and 62.1 percent of the patients on the low-glycemic diet).
6 comments - Posted Jan 14, 2009
As science peers deeper into the genetic make-up of humans, a new branch of study, nutrigenomics, seeks to explore the correlation between people's "gene expressions" and the diets best suited to them.
0 comments - Posted Jan 6, 2009
December 2008
Every year the American Diabetes Associations revises and updates its Clinical Practice Recommendations, a publication upon which many doctors and medical caregivers depend as a primary source of diabetes treatment information.
12 comments - Posted Dec 29, 2008
A study of the effectiveness of the drug terbutaline on controlling nighttime hypoglycemia in people with type 1 diabetes indicates that it may be a safe and useful treatment with no ill effects.
5 comments - Posted Dec 29, 2008
Researchers at Boston-based Joslin Diabetes Center report that almost 75 percent of children and teens with type 1 diabetes lack sufficient vitamin D. As a result, they are susceptible to bone problems later in life, including an increased risk of bone fractures.
2 comments - Posted Dec 29, 2008
Are you a scientific anomaly like me? Have you or someone you know reversed the complications associated with diabetes? Did you suffer microvascular and macrovascular damage during the “growing pains” of coming to terms with having no choice but to live your life with diabetes? Then, did you turn around and find love and hope, which made you change your life? And after changing it, did you find after several years that you were healing the damage that you had incurred by your own misguided hand?
117 comments - Posted Dec 25, 2008
People's happiness depends upon the happiness of others in their lives, says research published recently on bmj.com, a publication of the British Medical Association.
1 comment - Posted Dec 22, 2008
A Spanish university study has found that a traditional Mediterranean diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, olive oil, and fish may reduce the risk of acquiring type 2 diabetes by 83 percent.
1 comment - Posted Dec 22, 2008
Avandia (rosiglitazone) and Actos (pioglitazone), two medications used to lower blood sugar in type 2 patients, double the risk of fractures in women, but not in men, says a new study.
0 comments - Posted Dec 22, 2008
Finnish scientists have reported that children who develop type 1 diabetes experience disturbances in their lipid and amino acid metabolism months or years before the onset of the disease. Their finding of distinct markers that precede the disease could lead to treatments designed to prevent the body's autoimmune system from attacking the pancreatic insulin-producing cells.
0 comments - Posted Dec 22, 2008
A common treatment for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) decreased the average glucose level during sleep of type 2s who were newly diagnosed with OSA. After seven weeks of the therapy, known as continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), the diabetic patients' average BG level fell 20 mg/dl.
1 comment - Posted Dec 22, 2008
British researchers have discovered genetic links between type 1 diabetes and celiac disease (a digestive disorder characterized by an impaired reaction to gluten) that have them speculating that both diseases may stem from a common underlying cause.
6 comments - Posted Dec 15, 2008
An international team of researchers reports that a mutation in a gene that controls a person's body clock can cause higher blood sugar levels, leading to a 20 percent increased risk of acquiring type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Dec 15, 2008
Many people think of heart disease as something that mostly afflicts men. But heart disease actually kills more women in the United States than anything else, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. And diabetes plays a stronger role in risk for heart disease in women than it does in men.
1 comment - Posted Dec 15, 2008
The first time I presented medical research findings, I was not yet a physician. The year was about 1975. I was in my early forties and a mid-career engineer. The forum was a scientific symposium on diabetes. At the time, I felt that I had discovered the holy grail of diabetes care and was eager to share what I had learned.
22 comments - Posted Dec 8, 2008
Older men who are worried about insulin resistance can take heart from a Tufts University study which shows that higher than normal doses of vitamin K slow development of the condition. (Insulin resistance is a condition in which the body increasingly cannot use insulin properly and blood glucose levels rise. It is a major precursor to type 2 diabetes.)
1 comment - Posted Dec 8, 2008
I am always impressed when people find the strength to turn their own painful experience into a way to help others. In case you are losing faith that people are out there raising money, trying to find the Cure, and taking care of each other...read on.
1 comment - Posted Dec 8, 2008
More than 60 percent of adults with type 1 diabetes are not physically active, according to a study in the November 2008 issue of Diabetes Care. Their reason is fear that exercise will bring on hypoglycemia, leading to such severe consequences as loss of consciousness or even death.
2 comments - Posted Dec 8, 2008
Here's an interesting case that shows how diabetes research can intrude into other realms of life: The Arizona Court of Appeals has cleared the way for the Havasupai Tribe to sue the state university system for improper use of blood samples that the tribe gave researchers in 1989 to help with a diabetes study.
0 comments - Posted Dec 8, 2008
If you're like millions of type 2s and people being treated for metabolic syndrome, you take metformin to control your liver's glucose production.
0 comments - Posted Dec 8, 2008
Next week we'll publish a great article written by Dr. Richard Bernstein. MD. Dr. Bernstein is a long-term proponent of paying more attention to carbs rather than fats (though he certainly doesn't advocate that you can have all the fats you want!) While Dr. Bernstein has been telling us about the benefits of low carb for over 30 years, there is still much skepticism about his (and many other's-Gary Taubes, anyone?) low carb results. The establishment has been slow to be convinced, despite the many research trials that back up their findings.
6 comments - Posted Dec 2, 2008
Non-beta "progenitor" cells in the pancreas can be stimulated to turn into beta cells even after birth or autoimmune injury to the pancreas, say researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School.
2 comments - Posted Dec 2, 2008
One of the most promising approaches to the treatment of type 1 diabetes is the transplantation of human islet cells. The major drawback to the procedure has been that even though recipients initially enjoy revitalized pancreases that pump out copious amounts of insulin, their immune systems soon act as spoilsports and reject the donated cells.
0 comments - Posted Dec 2, 2008
November 2008
According to a study sponsored by Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, it cost $218 billion to treat type 1 and 2 diabetes in the United States in 2007. Of that amount, the federal government spent approximately $85 billion.
1 comment - Posted Nov 24, 2008
Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, have found that two drugs used to treat cancer can prevent or cure type 1 diabetes in mice.
7 comments - Posted Nov 24, 2008
With more than 2,500 facilities serving 10,000 communities that run the gamut from big-city downtowns to small rural sites, the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) could turn out to be a powerful tool in the fight to prevent diabetes.
1 comment - Posted Nov 17, 2008
A compound in brown rice called acylated steryl glucoside (ASG) can significantly reduce the chances of the nerve and vascular damage that often results from type 1 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Nov 17, 2008
It turns out that donating your time to science isn't the ego booster we thought it was. There aren't a lot of thanks out there. A recent national survey of 900 adults found that while 84 percent of the public greatly admire organ donors and 68 percent greatly admire blood donors, a paltry 33 percent greatly admire people who participate in clinical trials.
2 comments - Posted Nov 17, 2008
Stanford researchers have found that some genes, although they predispose people to type 1, don't necessarily "kick in" for every person who has them. Something has to happen to make the genes go "bad." But more research is required to find out what that something is.
3 comments - Posted Nov 10, 2008
Metformin, the tried-and-true diabetes drug that is prescribed to many type 2s when they are first diagnosed, may decrease the risk of death from cardiovascular disease. That's the conclusion of a meta-analysis by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland.
0 comments - Posted Nov 3, 2008
The annual cost for drugs to treat type 2 diabetes nearly doubled between 2001 and 20, skyrocketing from $6.7 billion in 2001 to $12.5 billion six years later, according to researchers from Stanford University and the University of Chicago.
0 comments - Posted Nov 3, 2008
When I was growing up in the South, my mother always told me, "You are what you eat." With Americans leading the pack in obesity and type 2 diabetes, it appears that she may have been right. Years of drive-through dinners and instant breakfasts have caught up with us, making us rethink every bite that passes our lips in our quest to fight off the complications of diabetes.
7 comments - Posted Nov 3, 2008
Even as diabetes researchers worldwide strive for total control over-or even an outright cure of-type 1 diabetes via gene therapy, altered cells, or surgical intervention, other researchers continue to press toward creation of a functional "artificial pancreas."
1 comment - Posted Nov 3, 2008
October 2008
Pentoxifylline, a drug used to treat patients with circulation problems, may also benefit those with kidney disease caused by diabetes and other conditions. Specifically, pentoxifylline decreases proteinuria, the abnormal leakage of protein into the urine, according to two articles in the September issue of the American Journal of Kidney Diseases, the official journal of the National Kidney Foundation.
0 comments - Posted Oct 27, 2008
Novo Nordisk recently announced results from its LEAD 6 study showing that once daily liraglutide was significantly more effective at improving blood glucose control (as measured by A1c) than exenatide, a GLP-1 mimetic administered twice daily.
4 comments - Posted Oct 27, 2008
A 55-year-old woman whose pancreas was removed due to chronic pancreatitis is not without a pancreas, thanks to the ingenuity of surgeons at the Methodist Hospital in Houston. After they removed her pancreas, they extracted its islet cells and implanted them into her left forearm, creating what they call a functioning pancreas in her arm. (Transplanted islet cells are usually injected into the liver, but in this case the patient's liver had damage that precluded its use.) Apparently the patient is recovering handily and should be armed with insulin as soon as the transplanted cells become fully functional.
3 comments - Posted Oct 20, 2008
Diabetes Health has always been ambivalent when it comes to reporting diabetes research that involves mice. For one thing, although the critters are mammals, it's a stretch to say that what happens in a mouse can be duplicated in a human.
6 comments - Posted Oct 20, 2008
Diabetes insipidus (DI) is a rare disease that, like the more familiar diabetes mellitus, causes frequent urination. Interestingly, the "insipidus" in its name means "without taste," which refers to the flavor of the urine associated with DI. "Mellitus," which means "honey," also describes the taste of the urine associated with that condition, which is (so we are told) sweet.
0 comments - Posted Oct 20, 2008
Back in 2007, a gleaming porker barn, unlike anything ever before seen in the annals of pigsty architecture, began operations in western Wisconsin. Known as the Diabetes Research and Wellness Foundation Islet Resource Facility, the barn is operated by the Spring Point Project. The Project's ultimate goal is to provide an unlimited supply of high-grade pig pancreatic islets for transplant into people with diabetes.
3 comments - Posted Oct 20, 2008
An experimental exenatide (Byetta)-like drug called liraglutide has shown the ability to enhance insulin and glucagon production and suppress appetite in type 2 patients, according to a report in the British medical journal The Lancet.
0 comments - Posted Oct 13, 2008
An aspirin-like drug discovered 132 years ago may prove to be a powerful weapon against type 2 diabetes.
3 comments - Posted Oct 13, 2008
Orexigen Therapeutics has announced that the investigational weight loss drug Contrave (naltrexone SR/bupropion SR) reduced the prevalence of metabolic syndrome, which is associated with an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease, by 50 percent.
1 comment - Posted Oct 13, 2008
According to the British public health organization Diabetes UK, a four-year study has shown that the drug candesartan reduces the chances of people with type 1 diabetes developing retinopathy by almost 20 percent.
1 comment - Posted Oct 6, 2008
September 2008
Researchers at Yale University and the University of Chicago have shown that mice exposed to common stomach bacteria are protected against the development of type 1. Their findings, published in the journal Nature, uphold the so-called "hygiene hypothesis" - the theory that a lack of exposure to parasites, bacteria, and viruses in the developed world may lead to increased risk of allergies, asthma, and other disorders of the immune system. The results also suggest that exposure to some forms of bacteria might actually help prevent the onset of type 1.
4 comments - Posted Sep 29, 2008
An article published in Diabetologia this month challenges the accepted glucose cut-off values that define hypoglycemia because they have a major effect on reported frequencies of hypoglycemia.
11 comments - Posted Sep 29, 2008
Originally ice cream consisted of milk, cream, sugar, flavoring and lots of air. But modern brands adhering to this original recipe are few and far between.
1 comment - Posted Sep 22, 2008
Higher urinary levels of the commonly used chemical, BPA, are linked with cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Sep 18, 2008
In its ongoing Health and Nutrition Strategist™ syndicated study, Decision Analyst recently asked 9,265 respondents about various health and lifestyle issues. Among respondents 20 and older, 9.6 percent said they had diabetes. Among all ages, about 23.6 million Americans have diabetes, according to the National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse.
4 comments - Posted Sep 18, 2008
People asked to choose between a "good" snack and a "bad" snack may not make the choice they said they would when the snacks finally arrive. In an article in the September/October 2008 issue of The Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior*, researchers in Holland found a substantial inconsistency between healthful snack choice intentions and actual behavior.
1 comment - Posted Sep 18, 2008
Diabetes educator Cindy Young used case studies to illustrate the many little things that can have a big effect on your blood glucose-or just on the readings you get with your meter.
7 comments - Posted Sep 11, 2008
A Canadian clinical study has delivered a double dose of good news for proponents of exenatide (sold commercially as Byetta), a drug used by more than 700,000 Americans to control blood glucose, ease food cravings, and, incidentally, lose weight.
3 comments - Posted Sep 11, 2008
To keep pace with the growing number of Americans with diabetes, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) invites communities nationwide to their brand new fundraising walk, Step Out: Walk to Fight Diabetes.
3 comments - Posted Sep 11, 2008
In experiments using blood cells from human patients with diabetes and other autoimmune disorders, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have confirmed the mechanism behind a potential new therapy for type 1 diabetes. A team led by Denise Faustman, MD, PhD, director of the MGH Immunobiology Laboratory, showed that blocking a metabolic pathway regulating the immune system specifically eliminated immune cells that react against a patient's own tissues.
5 comments - Posted Sep 11, 2008
A study sponsored by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation confirms that many older type 1 patients achieve better control of their blood sugar levels by using a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) than by conventional monitoring with a meter and finger pricks.
1 comment - Posted Sep 11, 2008
Elevated cholesterol levels return to normal or near normal levels over time in four out of ten children with uncontrollable epilepsy treated with a high-fat ketogenic diet, according to results of a Johns Hopkins Children's Center study reported in the Journal of Child Neurology.
0 comments - Posted Sep 11, 2008
With 21 million U.S. residents now officially diagnosed as having diabetes, healthcare professionals are looking at another statistic that is causing them many a sleepless night: The Centers for Disease Control estimate that there are 57 million people with pre-diabetes in the United States. (Pre-diabetes is defined as impaired fasting glucose of 100 to 125 mg/dl, impaired glucose tolerance of 140 to 199 mg/dl, or both.)
6 comments - Posted Sep 4, 2008
Despite the fact that 94 percent of doctors are aware of the association between sleep apnea and diabetes, only 47 percent of them screen for the condition in their patients with diabetes.
3 comments - Posted Sep 4, 2008
Abundant dietary vitamin C may lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, say researchers from the Institute of Metabolic Science at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, England.
2 comments - Posted Sep 4, 2008
By "reprogramming" adult exocrine cells in mice pancreases to function as beta-like insulin producers, Harvard biologists have taken a giant step toward the use of cell regeneration therapy in the treatment of type 1 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Sep 4, 2008
August 2008
Time to tack on another strong argument against the consumption of carbohydrates: A scientist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, says that appetite control cells in the brain degenerate as we age, leading to a sense of increased hunger and potential weight gain.
1 comment - Posted Aug 28, 2008
Babies delivered by Caesarean section have a 20 percent higher risk than normal deliveries of developing type 1 diabetes in childhood, according to a study by a team of researchers from Queen's University Belfast
0 comments - Posted Aug 28, 2008
In March, Diabetes Health reported on Dr. Francesco Rubino, a surgeon who claims that the origin of diabetes is in the digestive system, not the gut, and that gastric bypass surgery cures type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Aug 28, 2008
Researchers Adeola Akindana and Laura Want explained that diabetes education may be an integral part of a clinical study, as it was in the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT) and the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP). But most diabetes studies have an education component even when it isn't specified in the study's protocol. For example, in a drug study in which participants must check their blood glucose levels, they may need to be taught the correct technique.
0 comments - Posted Aug 20, 2008
You know how important it is to control the sugar and carbohydrates in your diet. So you read food labels and listen to your body cues to make sure you’re getting what you need to stay healthy.
52 comments - Posted Aug 20, 2008
Results from a Harris survey commissioned by the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) show that people with diabetes who must take insulin often struggle with dread and negative impacts on their lives because of it. But more than half of them—52 percent—are reluctant to share their concerns with their healthcare providers.
10 comments - Posted Aug 14, 2008
Do you want to lose weight and improve your blood glucose levels? Do you want to do it without having to weigh your portions and count your calories? Try a low-fat vegan diet. A vegan diet is one with no animal products: no fish, no eggs, no dairy, and, of course, no meat.
22 comments - Posted Aug 14, 2008
A recent story put out by the British Broadcasting Corporation proclaimed that eating broccoli could reverse the damage to heart blood vessels caused by diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Aug 14, 2008
Several months ago researchers suspended work on the landmark ACCORD (Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes) study, which tracked 10,251 type 2s, some of them undergoing very tight control of their blood sugar levels.
0 comments - Posted Aug 14, 2008
People with diabetes are at increased risk of developing tuberculosis (TB), according to a review of published studies. As a result, the increasing prevalence of diabetes may threaten global efforts to control TB, suggest researchers at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston in the latest issue of the journal PLoS (Public Library of Science) Medicine.
3 comments - Posted Aug 14, 2008
After it saved the lives of diabetic mice, a drug used to treat tuberculosis and cancer is now being tested in humans at Massachusetts General Hospital as a possible cure for type 1 diabetes.
21 comments - Posted Aug 5, 2008
A study of beta cells at McGill University Health Centre in Montreal could hold significant promise for people with type 1 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Aug 5, 2008
Type 2s who tried out either of two different basal-bolus treatments using Lantus and Apidra enjoyed significant reductions in post-meal BG levels and longer-term A1c’s.
4 comments - Posted Aug 5, 2008
I just returned from the American Diabetes Association’s 68th Scientific Sessions held in San Francisco in June and I’d like to share some highlights:
0 comments - Posted Aug 5, 2008
July 2008
You’ve got type 2 diabetes. A few years ago, you started using a long-acting insulin once a day, and your fasting glucose levels and your A1c came down. But now your A1c is creeping back up. Your doctor tells you that you need to add a mealtime insulin to your plan.
2 comments - Posted Jul 31, 2008
July 27, 2008 marked the eighth full month that my son has not used insulin. His last A1c was 5.9%, on July 9, 2008. On August 14th of this year, it will be one year since he was originally diagnosed with type 1. As you know, he was taken off insulin on November 27, 2007, about a month after getting the experimental drug teplizumab. I don't know if it is the drug or not, but others have taken it with good results. It will be interesting to see if they ever get the drug approved and can use it quickly on newly diagnosed type 1s.
15 comments - Posted Jul 31, 2008
Although trans fats are the new bad boys of the nutritional and cardiovascular worlds, they don’t seem to have any effect on insulin resistance in lab rats.
1 comment - Posted Jul 17, 2008
Until recently, scientists believed that the processes leading to beta cell death in people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes were similar. But a recent study from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia, indicates that the cause of cell death in type 2s involves a form of cellular-level stress not found in type 1s.
1 comment - Posted Jul 17, 2008
The National Institutes of Health will fund studies at 11 research centers in the United States, Canada, Sweden and Norway to look into ways to improve outcomes and lessen the side effects from islet cell transplantations in people with type 1 diabetes.
1 comment - Posted Jul 17, 2008
Metformin, combined with dietary changes and exercise, seems to help obese pre-diabetic adolescents, especially girls, lose weight, says a report in the June 2008 Journal of Pediatrics.
8 comments - Posted Jul 10, 2008
Elevated levels of fetuin-A, a protein produced by the liver that inhibits the action of insulin, may be a way to identify older people who are at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, say researchers at the University of California at San Diego.
0 comments - Posted Jul 10, 2008
“The Law of Unintended Consequences” says that actions sometimes lead to outcomes that nobody originally intended. The law almost certainly applies—beneficially, in this case—to a recent UCLA research study of the structure of proteins known as “sodium glucose co-transporters” (SGLTs).
0 comments - Posted Jul 10, 2008
Yes, they lacked indoor plumbing, permanent settlements and elevated manners when it came to eating, but our hunter-gatherer ancestors may have eaten a diet that can help modern people combat metabolic syndrome and even type 2 diabetes.
7 comments - Posted Jul 3, 2008
The Food and Drug Administration is considering a requirement that before receiving agency approval, new diabetes treatment drugs must not only lower blood sugar levels, but also demonstrate a positive effect on heart disease and lifespan.
1 comment - Posted Jul 3, 2008
Molecular malfunction may explain the development of high blood pressure, diabetes and immune problems, says a new research report.
9 comments - Posted Jul 3, 2008
The Diabetes Center at the University of California at San Francisco is currently seeking to enroll patients in five studies of people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and three related studies of non-diabetics:
1 comment - Posted Jul 3, 2008
June 2008
Years ago, John Bantle, MD, gave brownies to people with diabetes. Brownies made with real sugar. And their blood glucose levels…did not skyrocket.
27 comments - Posted Jun 26, 2008
An impermeable liner inserted non-surgically into a portion of the small intestine produces rapid weight loss and remission of type 2 diabetes, according to a Montana endocrinologist.
0 comments - Posted Jun 26, 2008
Twenty-four diabetes doctors and researchers from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden and Portugal have published a study criticizing the American Diabetes Association (ADA) assertion that diabetics should consume no fewer than 130 mg of carbohydrates daily and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) statement that low-carb diets are “not justified.”
28 comments - Posted Jun 26, 2008
Tekturna Reduces Kidney Disease Indicator
The blood pressure medicine Tekturna (aliskiren) may have a beneficial side effect for people with type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure who are at risk of kidney disease. According to a recent article in The New England Journal of Medicine, the drug reduces proteinuria, a key indicator of kidney disease, by 20 percent in patients with type 2 diabetes.
2 comments - Posted Jun 26, 2008
Clinical trials have been a staple of diabetes research ever since 1922, when doctors in a Toronto hospital injected a young boy dying from the disease with pancreatic extracts. (The extracts contained the recently discovered hormone, insulin. The boy survived and lived another 13 years.)
3 comments - Posted Jun 19, 2008
A study recently published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology has some exciting news for people with type 2 diabetes who love cocoa: A small test group of type 2s who drank cocoa enhanced with extra flavonols enjoyed an up to 30 percent improvement in their blood vessel health and function after one month.
0 comments - Posted Jun 19, 2008
Children with diabetes may develop their permanent teeth earlier than normal, which could increase their risk of dental problems, according to findings published in the medical journal Pediatrics.
3 comments - Posted Jun 19, 2008
Canadian researchers report that succinobucol, an anti-oxidant drug used to treat cardiovascular inflammation, appears to have a beneficial effect in lowering the risk of developing diabetes. Even patients who already have diabetes, they say, achieve better blood sugar control while on the drug.
1 comment - Posted Jun 19, 2008
Dear friends of Diabetes Health,
We value your hard-earned diabetes wisdom and we want you to share it with the world! Please join us as a professional or lay diabetes advisor in one of our Diabetes Health website content Rooms.
3 comments - Posted Jun 6, 2008
May 2008
Researchers at Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh have started an FDA-approved phase 1 test in humans of a lab procedure that successfully reversed type 1 diabetes in mice.
8 comments - Posted May 30, 2008
If you have diabetes, chances are you are already taking cholesterol-lowering drugs or realize that they might soon join the list of your other medications.
2 comments - Posted May 30, 2008
April 2008
Carol Whitton of Coral Springs, Florida, discovered that her blood sugar often increased sharply after she drank a diet soda while dining in a restaurant. So she started to test her diet drinks for sugar, a practice she learned from watching the “Living With Diabetes” television program.
29 comments - Posted Apr 28, 2008
March 2008
“You need dialysis” are words nobody wants to hear. But today kidney failure doesn’t have to mean driving to and from a clinic three times a week and having a lesser quality of life. Hemodialysis (HD) can safely be done in the privacy of your home in two new ways: daily and nocturnal home HD, both of which can help you feel better and live longer.
6 comments - Posted Mar 19, 2008
Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston have initiated a phase 1 clinical trial to reverse type 1 diabetes. The trial is exploring whether the promising results from the laboratory of Denise Faustman, MD, PhD, can be applied in human diabetes.
13 comments - Posted Mar 19, 2008
Talk of a cure has been around forever. Sometimes it seems as if the cure is a constantly receding dream, always ten years away or just around the next corner.
12 comments - Posted Mar 9, 2008
February 2008
According to British researchers at Barts and the London School of Medicine, drinking 500 ml (about one pint) of beetroot juice every day can significantly reduce blood pressure. It's the nitrate contained in the juice that produces the effect.
3 comments - Posted Feb 17, 2008
City of Hope researchers were among the more than 50 international investigators reporting advances against type 1 diabetes at the recent Rachmiel Levine Diabetes and Obesity Symposium in Newport Beach, Calif.
4 comments - Posted Feb 9, 2008
January 2008
Sponsor a pig and you can help a unique collaboration between Spring Point Project and the University of Minnesota to begin transplanting insulin-producing islet cells from pigs to humans within the next two years.
10 comments - Posted Jan 24, 2008
German doctors solved two mysterious cases of rapid - and dangerous - weight loss from diarrhea once they determined that the cause was chewing too much sugar-free gum containing the artificial sweetener sorbitol.
2 comments - Posted Jan 22, 2008
To successfully treat any disease, one must know what disease to treat. Treating only a symptom of the disease will leave the underlying disease unchecked and possibly worse. For example, we evolved the "runny" nose to help us clean out upper respiratory infections. So taking a decongestant to eradicate the symptom of a "runny" nose is actually counterproductive for the underlying disease.
23 comments - Posted Jan 13, 2008
December 2007
Awhile back, three macaque monkeys with type 1 diabetes received transplants of 19 pig pancreas primordia, each one smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.
5 comments - Posted Dec 31, 2007
African-American and Chinese women who eat foods that are high on the glycemic index may carry a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to two recent university studies.
1 comment - Posted Dec 31, 2007
In healthy people, beta cells are like tiny factories that churn out insulin. Proinsulin, which is the raw material for finished insulin, is produced in the endoplasmic reticulum deep within the beta cells.
0 comments - Posted Dec 18, 2007
Low doses of resveratrol, an ingredient found in red wine, make insulin-resistant mice more sensitive to insulin. Don't try this at home, however, because you'd have to drink almost a gallon of wine every day to get the same effect.
3 comments - Posted Dec 17, 2007
Messenger molecules are the letter carriers of your body's postal system. You are probably already familiar with hormones, which are messenger molecules that travel about your bloodstream carrying letters from your organs. Neurotransmitters deliver mail on another route: they transmit messages between your nerves.
0 comments - Posted Dec 4, 2007
November 2007
First we find out that our belly fat is an endocrine organ, and now it's our bones. Dr. Gerard Karsenty of Columbia University has discovered that bone-building cells (osteoblasts) secrete a hormone called osteocalcin that not only tells the beta cells to secrete more insulin, but also causes the number of beta cells themselves to increase.
0 comments - Posted Nov 18, 2007
In a recent three-month study, 43 non-insulin-dependent people with type 2 diabetes were given either a daily dose of 1000 milligrams of cinnamon or a placebo.
24 comments - Posted Nov 15, 2007
Living Cells Technologies (LCT) has announced that their Moscow trial of pig cell implantation, which began in June, is well underway: In September, the second of six type 1 patients was injected with 5,000 "islet equivalents per kilogram" of Diabecells into the peritoneal cavity.
4 comments - Posted Nov 14, 2007
October 2007
Old-fashioned cod liver oil supplements in infancy have already been associated with a decreased risk of type 1 diabetes among Norwegian children, who are apparently given the omega-3-rich, albeit nauseating, tonic on a regular basis.
3 comments - Posted Oct 30, 2007
Stevia is a natural sweetener made from the leaves of a South American herb, Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni, commonly known as sweetleaf or sugarleaf.
7 comments - Posted Oct 24, 2007
Taste buds have little receptors to sense the lovely taste of sugar, but now scientists have found that tasting sweets doesn't end with your tongue.
0 comments - Posted Oct 20, 2007
When calculating glycemic index (GI) values, glucose is arbitrarily given the highest GI value: 100. To assign a GI value to another type of carb, a complex process is used to compare the blood sugar response elicited by the test carb to the blood sugar response provoked by glucose.
2 comments - Posted Oct 18, 2007
The take-home message from the Tufts study is that the GI value of white bread is 70. That's nothing new: The same value has been found in dozens of other studies around the world (1).
2 comments - Posted Oct 18, 2007
According to Greek researchers, Actos and Avandia were behind a tripling of the cost of medicines used to treat Athenians with type 2 diabetes over the past eight years.
0 comments - Posted Oct 10, 2007
September 2007
Despite their best efforts, researchers have been having a hard time getting pancreatic stem cells to grow up into beta cells that can be used for transplantation.
0 comments - Posted Sep 27, 2007
Your zip code can predict whether your zippers zip, according to a Seattle study that analyzed neighborhood property values by zip code. After examining data from over 8,000 people, researchers from the University of Washington found that for every $100,000 drop in average home prices, obesity rates rose by two percent.
0 comments - Posted Sep 18, 2007
When islet cells are transplanted into a person, they don't go into their usual home in the pancreas. Instead, they're injected into the portal vein, the large vein that feeds the liver with rich fats and sugars from the digestive system.
0 comments - Posted Sep 15, 2007
Since the 1950s, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has funded almost all diabetes research worldwide. From its headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, the NIH oversees a $28 billion annual medical research budget. More than $1 billion of those taxpayer dollars go specifically toward diabetes research. Still, a cure remains frustratingly elusive.
0 comments - Posted Sep 13, 2007
What do we have in common with worms, flies, and mice? All of us, even flies, get fat. And we all share an ancient gene, aptly named Adipose, which apparently controls whether or not we do get fat.
0 comments - Posted Sep 11, 2007
An Australian review of six short clinical trials has found that low glycemic diets (which involve eating foods that raise blood sugar slowly instead of quickly) cause about two pounds more weight loss than calorie-restricted diets.
3 comments - Posted Sep 4, 2007
August 2007
Researchers from Alberta have found that when they fed baby rats diet foods and drinks, the little rats' ability to assess how much energy is in foods was thrown out of whack.
0 comments - Posted Aug 30, 2007
McDonald's has spent a lot of money to worm its way into the psyche of your toddlers, to the point that they practically salivate like Pavlov's dog at the mere sight of a branded bag.
0 comments - Posted Aug 27, 2007
Drinking one soft drink a day, diet or not, is associated with a 44 percent increased likelihood of developing metabolic syndrome, that unwelcome conglomeration of conditions that puts you at risk of type 2 diabetes, heart attack, and stroke.
0 comments - Posted Aug 21, 2007
An old and inexpensive drug, hydroxychloroquine, has been found to help prevent type 2 diabetes in people with rheumatoid arthritis.
0 comments - Posted Aug 19, 2007
Hemochromatosis is the most common single gene disease in the United States, more common than cystic fibrosis, Huntington's disease, and muscular dystrophy combined.
7 comments - Posted Aug 16, 2007
According to a literature review and survey of 132 Canadian pharmacists, 47 percent of pharmacists have encountered an adverse interaction between a natural health product and a drug.
0 comments - Posted Aug 13, 2007
A study of 2,375 middle-aged British men reports that those who drank at least a pint of milk a day were 62 percent less likely than non-milk-drinkers to have metabolic syndrome (defined as raised levels of two or more of the following: blood glucose, insulin, blood fats, body fat, and blood pressure).
0 comments - Posted Aug 11, 2007
Between two million and ten thousand years ago, during the Paleolithic era in which we evolved, there was no agriculture, no farmed grains, no refined fat or sugar, little salt, and no dairy.
0 comments - Posted Aug 10, 2007
July 2007
According to a June study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, eating one small square of very dark chocolate lowers systolic (the top number) blood pressure by about three points and diastolic (the bottom number) blood pressure by about two points.
0 comments - Posted Jul 30, 2007
If you've got a big protein molecule like insulin, right now the only option for getting it into your body is via a needle or cannula into the subcutaneous tissue. It can't be swallowed because the digestive system would, logically enough, digest it.
1 comment - Posted Jul 29, 2007
A team of five seniors and two freshmen at Johns Hopkins University has devised a little "pouch" to hold microcapsules of beta cells in the portal vein, from which the cells can send out insulin while safely protected inside. It's made by sandwiching a porous cylinder of nylon mesh between two cylindrical metal stents, similar to the ones that are used to keep clogged blood vessels open.
0 comments - Posted Jul 23, 2007
The average person's risk of developing type 2 diabetes is about seven percent. Now an Icelandic biotech company has developed the deCODE T2™ test, an assessment that tells you if your risk is double that.
0 comments - Posted Jul 22, 2007
The low carb diet definitely has its party faithful, but how exactly does the low carb diet cause your body to burn fat? Earlier studies have shown that feeding rodents a low carb, high fat diet caused fat usage and weight loss, but the mechanism of the process wasn't known.
1 comment - Posted Jul 14, 2007
Recently we wrote that Living Cell Technologies (LCT), a New Zealand company, was about to begin transplanting pig islets into humans in a year-long Phase I/IIA clinical trial in Moscow, Russia ("Piglet Islets Soon Tested in Humans").
1 comment - Posted Jul 12, 2007
Dishware is destiny, according to new research just published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. There exists a plate that has just been scientifically proven to cause weight loss. And it's a mighty cute little piece of pottery to boot.
0 comments - Posted Jul 6, 2007
If you like cinnamon on your pudding, you could be in luck. In a Swedish study of fourteen healthy pudding-eating subjects, a teaspoon of cinnamon sprinkled on top dampened the post-meal blood glucose rises usually seen after a pudding fest.
0 comments - Posted Jul 6, 2007
June 2007
Given that babies are born by the cartloads every day, cord blood is an easy source of fetal stem cells, especially because it’s free of the controversy surrounding embryonic stem cells.
0 comments - Posted Jun 25, 2007
Prickly pear pads, otherwise known as nopales, are a staple of Mexican cuisine: People in mid- to low socioeconomic populations in Mexico tend to eat them about three times a week. Apparently they're pretty tasty when stripped of their prickles and boiled up in bite-sized pieces.
0 comments - Posted Jun 22, 2007
Which diet works best for you may depend on whether or not you are secreting high levels of insulin. From September 2004 to December 2006, researchers monitored 73 obese young adults who ate either a low-fat diet (55 percent carbs and 20 percent fat) or a low-glycemic diet (40 percent carbs and 35 percent fat).
0 comments - Posted Jun 19, 2007
A new study out of London and Paris indicates in the developing embryo, beta cells form in the pancreas in response to the presence of glucose. Glucose triggers a gene called Neurogenin3 to switch on another gene, neuroD, which is critical for the normal development of beta cells. If glucose levels are low, the gene doesn't switch on and the beta cells don't develop.
0 comments - Posted Jun 18, 2007
In a recent University of Michigan study, rats bred to develop high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and impaired glucose tolerance received a diet that included at least one percent freeze-dried powdered whole tart cherries for a period of ninety days.
0 comments - Posted Jun 15, 2007
Grape-eating rodents have a significantly lowered incidence of type 1 diabetes, according to research published in the May 2007 Journal of Nutrition. The study showed that grape-eating reduced the movement of immune cells into the islets of Langerhans, thus preventing damage to the beta cells located therein.
0 comments - Posted Jun 12, 2007
Marie Benton, a Maori health researcher in New Zealand, has carried out a ten-year study of her tribe, comparing nine people who ate eel regularly and lived a traditional lifestyle with nine people who ate a more Western diet.
0 comments - Posted Jun 10, 2007
More fiber from grains and cereals (but not from fruit and vegetables) and higher intake of magnesium may each be associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, according to a report in the May Archives of Internal Medicine.
0 comments - Posted Jun 9, 2007
Researchers from Philadelphia have just discovered that beta cells, the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas, divide, albeit slowly, to make new beta cells. Adult stem cells, which are precursors of new skin, intestines, and other tissues, apparently do not differentiate into beta cells or other pancreatic tissue.
1 comment - Posted Jun 2, 2007
May 2007
A team of five seniors and two freshman at Johns Hopkins University has devised a little “pouch” to hold microcapsules of beta cells in the portal vein, from which the cells can send out insulin while safely protected inside.
0 comments - Posted May 18, 2007
Here's yet another bit of research connecting fat to fructose-laden beverages A study recently published in Hepatology shows that fructose-laden water (10% wt/vol) decreases liver fat breakdown and causes lipid accumulation in rats.
0 comments - Posted May 18, 2007
Eight New Zealanders with type 1 diabetes are hoping to receive pig islet transplantations by the end of the year, now that the company Living Cell Technologies (LCT) has surmounted the first of three regulatory hurdles in pursuit of permission for a twelve-month trial in New Zealand.
0 comments - Posted May 15, 2007
Overweight and insulin resistance may contribute to LADA, a form of type 1 diabetes, according to results of a study by Dr. Sofia Carlsson and her fellow researchers from Stockholm.
0 comments - Posted May 7, 2007
An observational study of 10,469 cereal-eating physicians between 1982 and 2006 revealed that the 79 percent who ate whole grain cereals (defined for this study as at least 25 percent oat or bran content) experienced less heart failure than the 21 percent who ate refined cereals.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2007
April 2007
Constant controversy swirls about which kind of weight-loss diet works best, but there is precious little scientific evidence comparing one diet to another. To provide some real diet data, a recent Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) study pitted the Atkins, Zone, LEARN, and Ornish diets against each other in a year-long head-to-head study.
0 comments - Posted Apr 26, 2007
If food groups were sporting leagues, carbs would be the NFL. You've got your low carb teams, your high carb vegan teams, and your middling carb teams—and each team believes that truth is on its side.
0 comments - Posted Apr 24, 2007
Carbs and carbs alone, not fat, increase body weight. It doesn't matter whether the carbs are from sugar, bread, fruit, or vegetables: They’re all rapidly digested and quickly converted to blood glucose. A short time after a carb-rich meal, the glucose in your bloodstream rises rapidly, and your pancreas produces a large amount of insulin to take the excess glucose out.
26 comments - Posted Apr 24, 2007
Remember the big picture: Populations that stick to traditional high-carbohydrate diets (for example, Asian rice-based diets) typically have low rates of obesity and diabetes. When they abandon traditional rice-based diets in favor of meatier Western fare, carbohydrate intake falls, but weight problems and diabetes increase.
4 comments - Posted Apr 24, 2007
When I developed diabetes in 1946, physicians thought that the high illness and death rate of diabetics was due to dietary fat and the supposedly resultant elevation of serum cholesterol. Since the DCCT trial, the scientific literature overwhelmingly supports the role of elevated blood sugar in all long-term diabetic complications.
2 comments - Posted Apr 24, 2007
Let’s be realistic and take a long-term perspective in this “which diet is best” debate, rather than wasting time quibbling over extremes—from low-carb to vegan. You’ll have type 2 diabetes for the rest of your life, and you’ll likely struggle with weight management throughout your life as well. The major challenge in weight loss, and even more so in weight maintenance, is long-term adherence.
12 comments - Posted Apr 24, 2007
The benefits of unsaturated fatty acids in your diet are well documented. Now research is looking into the effects of incorporating one of these healthy fatty acids, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), into animal and human diets. CLA is present in dairy products and meat from ruminants and in very low amounts in our bodies.
0 comments - Posted Apr 24, 2007
A recent Joslin-led study has identified the insulin receptor as an important protein that promotes islet cell growth in mice whose bodies are unable to use insulin properly, or are insulin resistant, a precursor to type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Apr 23, 2007
For people who develop type 1 diabetes, the autoimmune attack on beta cells actually starts up to ten years before diabetes is diagnosed, when autoantibodies first appear in the blood and begin attacking the beta cells.
0 comments - Posted Apr 16, 2007
Researchers from Sao Paulo in Brazil have announced that in a group of fifteen insulin-requiring, newly-diagnosed patients with type 1 diabetes, stem cell therapy has preserved beta cell function and eliminated the need for insulin for up to 35 months so far.
5 comments - Posted Apr 12, 2007
Ten years ago, Michael Helyer, a New Zealand man with type 1 diabetes for eighteen years, received a transplant of pig islets. Much to the surprise of researchers, the pig cells are still putting out insulin at this late date. In fact, it was Mr. Helyer who alerted scientists at Living Cell Technologies (LCT) that the cells were still functioning.
2 comments - Posted Apr 12, 2007
Dr. Bernhard Hering of the University of Minnesota is recognized the world over as the premier expert on pancreatic islet transplants. He sees islet transplantation as the best hope for the cure of type 1 diabetes, and his optimism is supported by his research.
0 comments - Posted Apr 11, 2007
It’s well known that people with uncontrolled diabetes sometimes suffer from ketoacidosis, in which their breath gives off the strong odor of nail polish remover. Well, nail polish remover is made of acetone.
0 comments - Posted Apr 10, 2007
A study published in the December 2006 issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that high fructose consumption doesn’t raise insulin resistance or ectopic lipid deposition (fat in the wrong place) in healthy lean young males, but does heighten risk of cardiovascular disease by increasing plasma triglycerides.
0 comments - Posted Apr 9, 2007
Why do Chinese Canadians have higher levels of HDL (healthy cholesterol) than South Asian Canadians? Because they eat fewer carbohydrates.
0 comments - Posted Apr 9, 2007
March 2007
An October 2006 study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition examined the association between eating certain food groups and waist circumference. The study, which lasted five years, followed 22,570 Danish women and 20,126 Danish men.
0 comments - Posted Mar 26, 2007
In February 2007, one of the finest pig barns in the history of the world opened at a secret location in western Wisconsin. The $6.2 million, 21,000-square-foot Islet Resource Facility is a bio-secure facility for 100 “medical grade” pigs. A religious farming community, the Hutterian Brethren, is helping care for the pigs, which are barricaded from the outside world and pampered with filtered air, sterilized water, and decontaminated food.
0 comments - Posted Mar 16, 2007
February 2007
BOSTON - Feb. 27, 2007 - It is widely recognized that the teenage years are often a challenging time for youth with diabetes to maintain good blood glucose control. Hormonal changes, peer pressure, food temptations, and resistance to following good health practices are among the factors that make it difficult for many youngsters. Unfortunately, poor diabetes control places youth at increased risk of developing complications from diabetes later in life.
0 comments - Posted Feb 28, 2007
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. - For the millions of people worldwide who are afflicted with diabetes, we are now one step closer to a potential cure for the disease. Spring Point Project, a non-profit organization created to expedite the widespread availability of islet tissue for diabetes care, will open its first biosecure animal facility in Western Wisconsin in February to hold high-health pathogen-free pigs. Insulin-producing islet cells from pigs are needed to meet the demands that cannot be realized by using transplantation of human islets.
0 comments - Posted Feb 28, 2007
Six people are about to receive pig islet transplantations for the first time, as a New Zealand company called Living Cell Technologies (LCT) begins a year-long Phase I/IIA clinical trial in Moscow, Russia.
1 comment - Posted Feb 22, 2007
On January 27, in Phoenix, Arizona, ten-year-old Andrew gave up his beloved miniature horse, Zig Zag, to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). He had to think about it hard; they’d been together since he was six. But he swallowed his sorrow and donated his pony to the JDRF’s gala auction because he believed “Zig Zag could help find a cure.”
0 comments - Posted Feb 14, 2007
According to Reuters Health, a study appearing in the October 2006 issue of European Heart Journal found that people with diabetes who have suffered a heart attack or episode of severe angina benefit just as much from treatment with statins as those without diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2007
U.K researchers say that twice-daily injection of insulin glargine (Lantus) helps to alleviate blood glucose rises in the late afternoon and drops toward the end of a 24-hour period that are frequently seen in type 1s who inject Lantus once daily with a meal-time fast-acting insulin.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2007
Novocell, Inc., a San Diego, California-based stem cell engineering company, announced on October 19, 2006, the development of a process that “efficiently converts human embryonic stem cells into insulin-producing pancreatic endocrine cells.”
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2007
Despite successfully restoring insulin production and blood-glucose stability after transplantation, insulin independence is usually not sustainable after the Edmonton Protocol.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2007
September 2006
Everyone with diabetes can agree on one thing: Life needs to be a whole lot easier. To find that ease, we support research funding, we fight for access and we push for innovation.
1 comment - Posted Sep 1, 2006
August 2006
For many years, we have been told that an artificial pancreas is several years away. After the May 16 Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Artificial Pancreas Forum, that message hasn’t changed.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2006
Higher intakes of heme iron (iron derived from animal products) is associated with a “significantly increased risk of type 2 diabetes,” according to Harvard University researchers.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2006
Italian researchers say that approximately three out of every five people with type 2 diabetes show signs of vitamin D deficiency.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2006
July 2006
I just discovered your May 2005 article, “Why Did the JDRF Try to Discredit Cure Research?” That, and lingering resentment over my own futile correspondence with Van Etten and Ahearn, inspired me to dig deeper into some points you made and some reasonable suspicions your article aroused.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2006
Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) affects up to 12 million Americans, causing symptoms that range from leg pain to gangrene or ulcerations resulting from lack of blood flow. Untreated, PAD can lead to possible amputation.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2006
The mantra of healthcare professionals when talking about weight loss is plain and simple: Eat less and exercise more. The dream of many people who are overweight or obese would be to simply inject something that would help them to do just that.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2006
On May 3, 2006, the Alliance for a Healthier Generation—a joint initiative of the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association—ironed out an agreement with representatives of Cadbury Schweppes, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and the American Beverage Association to establish new guidelines limiting portion sizes and reducing the number of calories available to children during the school day. In short, only lower-calorie and nutritious beverages will be sold in schools.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2006
June 2006
Two and a half years ago, the journal Science published results from Denise Faustman’s groundbreaking study in which type 1 diabetes was reversed in non-obese diabetic mice injected with a combination of an immune adjuvant and spleen cells. Recently, researchers at the University of Chicago, Washington University in St. Louis and Harvard’s Joslin Clinic all partially replicated Dr. Faustman’s research.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2006
May 2006
The continuous glucose sensors of today that will in time lead to development of an artificial pancreas are getting a tremendous boost from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International (JDRF). The boost is the organization’s commitment of up to $6.5 million dollars this year and next.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2006
Researchers at Harvard Medical School say there is a “modest positive association” between potato consumption and the risk of type 2 diabetes in women.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2006
A study published in the February 2006 issue of the Journal of Nutrition says that chromium prompts muscles to become more efficient.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2006
April 2006
For people with type 2, Lantus in combination with oral medications can be a cost-equivalent alternative to conventional insulin therapy.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
Is it possible that meat consumption plays a role in the incidence of type 1? Italian researchers believe it might.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
U.K. researchers say there is an association between obesity and the consumption of soft drinks.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
Partially substituting carbohydrate with either protein or monounsaturated fat can lower blood pressure, improve lipid levels and reduce estimated cardiovascular risk, according to a study that appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
Indian researchers believe that the compound resveratrol, found in the skins of red grapes, is the reason certain red wines may be good for heart health. Now, it appears to benefit kidneys as well.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2006
Abbott Diabetes Care is already looking beyond continuous sensing. More than two years ago it asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve its FreeStyle Navigator Continuous Glucose Monitor; that application is still pending.
1 comment - Posted Apr 1, 2006
January 2006
Can keeping your insulin levels lower stave off Alzheimer’s disease? That was the question posed to a group of researchers at the University of Washington.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2006
In a review paper published in the July 2005 issue of Nutrition and Metabolism, researchers at the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension at the State University of New York say that a high-carbohydrate diet raises postprandial plasma glucose and insulin secretion, thereby increasing risk of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity and diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2006
It was the belle of the ball at last summer’s ADA Scientific Sessions in San Diego. Now it appears that muraglitazar (Pargluva) is clinging to life after a scathing report recently published by the Journal of the American Medical Association.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2006
Biosafe Medical Technologies of Lake Forest, Illinois, offers an Instant Anemia Test—the first-ever disposable blood test for anemia detection approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2006
Even though an adequate dietary intake of magnesium may alleviate the risk of cardiovascular disease, most Americans still consume magnesium at levels well below the recommended daily allowance (RDA).
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2006
When Daisy Herrera of Orlando, Florida, was 13 years old, she breakfasted on two bowls of Lucky Charms cereal or three chocolate glazed Dunkin Donuts. She drank two 2-liter bottles of Pepsi every couple of days and cartons of chocolate milk. She binged on candy and potato chips while hiding under the bed. She ate an average of four McDonalds or Burger King meals each week. She stood 4’8” tall and weighed 130 pounds. Her mother, Maria, called her a “little round ball.” Daisy’s blood glucose level often topped 400 mg/dl. Even though she was still a child, Daisy was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes—a condition formerly known as “adult-onset diabetes.”
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2006
December 2005
Japanese researchers say that adolescents and young adults who have poor blood glucose control can add one more weapon to their control arsenal: a type 2 drug.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2005
November 2005
A diet with a low glycemic load may be more effective in reducing cardiovascular disease risk than a conventional energy-restricted, low-fat diet, according to the researchers at Children’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2005
Swedish researchers contend that adding dairy whey to meals with rapidly digested and absorbed carbohydrates stimulates insulin release and reduces after-meal blood glucose excursion.
1 comment - Posted Nov 1, 2005
“Type 1 diabetes is associated with a higher prevalence of bulimia nervosa in females,” say researchers at Florence University School of Medicine in Florence, Italy.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2005
October 2005
According to a recent study, soy-based meal replacement plans (MRs) yield greater weight loss and better blood glucose control than American Diabetes Association-recommended individualized diet plans (IDPs).
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2005
Eating yogurt in place of other foods can be a boon to weight loss, conclude Tennessee researchers who designed a study to compare potential antiobesity benefits from increased dietary calcium compared to other calcium sources.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2005
Good news for chocolate lovers: An Italian study found that dark chocolate decreases blood pressure and improves insulin sensitivity in healthy people without diabetes. White chocolate (which does not contain flavanols), however, was not found to have the same effects.
2 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2005
September 2005
In January 2005, the first implant of stem cells into the pancreas through a small artery was performed on a diabetic patient.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2005
August 2005
Researchers in Italy say that ype 1s who undergo a successful pancreas transplant alone, without having a kidney transplant as well, have improved kidney function as well as restored normal blood glucose levels without the need for insulin therapy.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2005
Eating peanuts and peanut products is a good dietary decision, according to Penn State University researchers.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2005
Ghrelin, a hormone produced by the stomach cells, plays an important role in food intake, but little is known about how ghrelin concentrations are affected by dietary factors.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2005
Dietary glycemic load may predict the level of HDL cholesterol in younger people.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2005
Metformin activates the enzyme AMPK (AMP-activated protein kinase), which promotes muscles to take up glucose from the blood. It was recently discovered that the upstream regulator of AMPK is a protein kinase called LKB1, known to be a tumor suppressor.
1 comment - Posted Aug 1, 2005
April 2005
When we think about Medtronic MiniMed, insulin pumps usually come to mind. That makes sense, because MiniMed was among the first to market an insulin pump and today dominates the U.S. market with more than a 70 percent share.
1 comment - Posted Apr 1, 2005
Mild to moderate consumption of alcohol is inversely and significantly associated with the following components of the metabolic syndrome: Low HDL (good) cholesterol, elevated triglycerides, high waist circumference and high blood insulin levels, say Boston researchers.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2005
March 2005
If your body mass index (BMI) is over 35, you have a higher likelihood of being diagnosed with diabetes, according to U.S. government statistics.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2005
The U.S. Congress is back in session and hopes are high for diabetes victories.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2005
Weight Watchers. Atkins. South Beach. Ornish. The Zone.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2005
In less than one year, the Food and Drug Administration will require all food manufacturers to list the amount of trans fats on their labels. A wealth of research has been warning consumers of the dangers of trans fats.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2005
February 2005
Iranian researchers suggest that increasing intake of whole grains may reduce the risk of metabolic syndrome.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2005
Taken with a low- or modified-fat diet, Australian researchers say that 30 grams of walnuts per day improve the lipid profile of patients with type 2.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2005
Pinitol, isolated from soybeans, may be beneficial in reducing cardiovascular risk in type 2s, according to Korean researchers.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2005
Contrary to recent reports claiming that embryonic stem cells can generate insulin-producing cells, a Scandinavian study has found that this is not the case.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2005
January 2005
Representative George R. Nethercutt, Jr. (RWash.), formed the Congressional Diabetes Caucus in 1996 with only 22 supporters.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2005
December 2004
Low-fat, high-fiber diets promoted weight loss in patients with type 2 diabetes without causing unfavorable alterations in plasma lipids or blood glucose control.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2004
“Higher consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with a greater magnitude of weight gain and an increased risk for development of type 2 diabetes in women,” say Harvard researchers, “possibly by providing excessive calories and large amounts of rapidly absorbable sugars.”
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2004
September 2004
The following are summaries of studies presented at the June 2004 ADA Scientific Sessions in Orlando, Florida:
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2004
Alcohol tends to lower blood glucose. This means you do not need to take extra insulin or medication to cover the alcohol you drink. In fact, it can be dangerous to do so.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2004
August 2004
A diet in which fat makes up only 19 percent of total calories may not provide enough calories and essential fatty acids, as well as vitamin E and zinc.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2004
For years, researchers have been suggesting the glycemic index for achieving better blood glucose control.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2004
It seems obvious that the limiting factor confronting islet transplantation is the scarce supply of insulin-producing islets.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2004
Diachrome, a patented combination of chromium picolinate and biotin, significantly lowers coronary risk factors in type 2s. According to a small study presented at an American Heart Association meeting, Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology (ATVB), held in May in San Francisco.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2004
Lee Iacocca is mad as hell about the state of diabetes research and he doesn’t want to take it anymore.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2004
July 2004
Patients with diabetes may require larger doses of morphine than nondiabetic patients for the most effective relief of postoperative pain.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2004
Obese adults who increase their dietary calcium while adhering to a diet lose more weight than those on a similar diet who don’t take additional calcium.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2004
We have known for years that an adequate calcium intake can help prevent osteoporosis. Current research suggests it may keep waistlines trim as well.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2004
The MedGem, manufactured by HealtheTech, is a new hand-held metabolic rate device that measures after-meal energy expenditure.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2004
“I’ve had diabetes for 35 years,” read one e-mail message to our Islet Service at DiabetesPortal.com. “I only have retinopathy and mild neuropathy, but I am having trouble feeling lows [hypoglycemia]. I want a cure that doesn’t require anti-rejection drugs.”
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2004
June 2004
Liposuction may suck fat from your body and take off pounds, but don’t expect it to improve your type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jun 17, 2004
A Swedish study showed that there is an increase in preclinical atherosclerotic changes and increased inflammation in men with newly diagnosed diabetes as well as in men with established diabetes, when compared with healthy control subjects.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2004
An increase in white blood count (WBC), an indicator of inflammation, is associated with impaired glucose tolerance. Reduced insulin sensitivity, say researchers in Germany, can mostly explain this.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2004
The risk of cardiovascular events and death in people with diabetes and high blood pressure is two to eight times higher when microalbuminuria is present.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2004
A South Carolina study indicates that simvastatin (Zocor), an oral “statin” lipid-lowering drug is a potentially beneficial treatment for the inflammatory reaction associated with atherosclerosis.
1 comment - Posted Jun 1, 2004
A group of patients with diabetes receiving low-intensity laser therapy (LILT) for the painful symptoms of sensorimotor polyneuropathy (DSP) showed a reduction in pain scores in a Toronto study.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2004
Waist circumference (WC), not only body mass index (BMI), indicates obesity-related health risk.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2004
If you want the best quality care for your type 2 diabetes, see the same physician at each visit to your diabetes outpatient clinic (DOC), especially if that physician specializes in diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2004
“In a restaurant setting, increasing the size of an entrée results in increased energy intake,” say Pennsylvania State University researchers. “These results support the suggestion large restaurant portions may be contributing to the obesity epidemic.”
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2004
Consumption of portion-controlled food results in weight and fat loss, according to University of Illinois researchers.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2004
The next time you see or hear an ad claiming that some dietary supplement will help you lose 10 pounds in two days, take it with a grain of salt.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2004
“Trans fatty acid [TFA] intake is positively associated with markers of systemic inflammation in women,” say Harvard Medical School researchers.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2004
United Kingdom researchers argue that testing blood glucose at the forearm “is an acceptable alternative to finger-prick testing for blood glucose measurement in children and adolescents.”
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2004
May 2004
Even with contemporary improvements in angioplasty (percutaneous coronary intervention) methods, such as stents and the administration of platelet antagonists, diabetes is still a major factor in mortality risk for heart-related complications.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2004
Islet autoantibodies found in umbilical cord blood do not predict later development of islet autoimmunity that leads to type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease in which pancreatic islet cells are destroyed by “friendly fire” from the body’s immune system, resulting in a loss of insulin production.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2004
On the same day that the U.S. government was lamenting the news that obesity has caught up with smoking as a leading killer of Americans, a study demonstrated that a pill may help people quit smoking and lose weight at the same time.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2004
Would you believe the two leading killers in the United States are lifestyle choices? It’s true.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2004
Dr. James S. Pankow works with the Division of Epidemiology at the University of Minnesota.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2004
A joint study by the University of Minnesota and the University of California San Francisco, with one islet cell infusion from a single donor pancreas, has achieved insulin independence in four of six people with longterm type 1 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2004
A gene therapy technique could help islet transplants, but current anti-rejection drug therapy may hurt transplanted cells.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2004
April 2004
Bristol-Myers Squibb has provided its “no strings attached” support to several research projects to combat HIV/AIDS, drug addiction, diabetes, cancer and other diseases. The support will be funded through $4.6 million in grants to 10 leading medical research institutions throughout the world.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2004
“Diabetes case management can help reduce disparities in diabetes health status among low-income ethnic populations,” writes Lois Jovanovic, MD, endocrinologist and researcher at Sansum Medical Research Institute in Santa Barbara, California.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2004
Mulberry leaves aren’t just for silkworms anymore: When fed to diabetes-induced rats, they have been shown to improve glucose levels.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2004
It’s a good bet that the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse didn’t have to worry about body-fat composition, considering all the tea drinking they did in “Alice in Wonderland.”
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2004
An aspirin a day has long been a low-cost preventive therapy to reduce cardiovascular events.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2004
Islet transplantation offers promise, but it still shows risks of complications and loss of islet function over time.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2004
Researchers in Italy and the United States collaborated to determine whether the peptide hormone glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) could improve function and inhibit programmed cell death or suicide.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2004
March 2004
Researchers have long understood that thiazolidinediones (TZDs) improve the action of insulin while increasing total fat mass as well. After studying 39 upper-body obese, insulin-resistant, but non-diabetic men and postmenopausal women, researchers concluded that patients on pioglitazone (Actos) improved their insulin resistance level regardless of the rise in intra-abdominal fat that accompanied the therapy.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2004
Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals is sponsoring a new study on the safety and efficacy of INGAP-peptide.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2004
Type 2s who take thiazolidinediones (TZDs) such as Avandia and Actos face an increased risk of heart failure, and researchers suggest that physicians should consider alternative therapies.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2004
A low-calorie diet that includes almonds may have a “potential role” in fighting the obesity epidemic.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2004
The mainstream medical community is starting to take notice: High-protein diets work! Researchers at the University of Minnesota say a high-protein diet lowers after-meal blood glucose 40 percent in type 2s and improves overall glucose control.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2004
Eating a low-fat diet that includes the controversial fat substitute olestra (Olean) produced improvement in cardiovascular risk factors in a recent study—an effect largely explained by the participants’ weight loss.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2004
While people with diabetes incur an increased risk of hip, upper arm and foot fractures, attempts made in recent studies to associate the higher risk with decreased bone strength remain controversial.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2004
In November 2003 the news was everywhere. “Juvenile diabetes cured in lab mice!” proclaimed the November 14, 2003, edition of The Boston Globe.
6 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2004
February 2004
The cholesterol-lowering drug Pravachol (pravastatin), when administered at 40 milligrams per day over six years, helps prevent cardiovascular events including stroke in people with diabetes or with impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and established coronary disease.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2004
Icelandic researchers who investigated the relation of food to the incidence of type 1 diabetes among adolescents from 11 European countries report some unexpected findings…
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2004
In October 2003, the North American Association for the Study of Obesity held its conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Here we provide summaries of some of the more interesting research presented at the conference.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2004
It seems too good to be true, but researchers from Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry in London are advancing a new therapy to reduce the cardiovascular risk factors of high blood cholesterol, blood pressure, blood homocysteine levels, and platelet clumping—all in one pill.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2004
Bristol-Myers Squibb and QDose have announced a collaboration to develop inhaled insulin.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2004
A pancreas transplant can improve cardiac function in people with type 1 diabetes, according to Italian researchers.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2004
November 2003
Chocolate! Although millions love it, chocolate has always gotten a bad rap in the diabetes community.
3 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2003
May 2003
In women with heart disease, hormone therapy reduced the incidence of diabetes by 35 percent, according to researchers at the University of California, San Francisco.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2003
If you have type 1 and take Humalog (insulin lispro) with meals and NPH at night, you might want to go to bed with some starch and protein in your stomach if your bedtime blood-glucose reading is below 126 mg/dl.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2003
Researchers are speculating that human bone marrow may contain stem cells that are capable of differentiating into insulin-producing islet cells.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2003
April 2003
Inhalable insulin is on the horizon—but will it be a good choice of therapies?
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2003
The portion sizes of food consumed in the United States have grown significantly in the past 25 years—with the greatest increases measured for food eaten at fast-food establishments and in the home.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2003
With the concepts of glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL) influencing the way many people with diabetes eat, four leading researchers on the glycemic index have written a book to help people better understand this approach.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2003
Having bacteria in the urine without exhibiting symptoms is common among women with diabetes, say researchers investigating the issue of whether to treat this condition with antibiotics.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2003
March 2003
What's the best drug to combat high blood pressure and lower the incidence of heart failure and hospitalization for heart failure?
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2003
February 2003
Go ahead—have that peanut butter sandwich. Findings from the Harvard University Nurses' Health Study suggest that women who eat several servings of nuts or peanut butter a week can lower their risk of getting type 2 diabetes by as much as 27 percent. The Nurses' Health Study followed nearly 84,000 female nurses for 16 years beginning in 1980.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2003
A gene said to cause obesity in humans has reportedly been discovered, according to an October 29, 2002, news release from Myriad Genetics, Inc., a company based in Salt Lake City, Utah.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2003
January 2003
While everyone's attention has been drawn to the debate over stem cell research, another—perhaps more controversial—type of research is taking place.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2003
People who live in poor neighborhoods may be at higher risk for Insulin Resistance Syndrome (IRS), regardless of income or education levels, according to results from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2003
Irbesartan (Avapro), an angiotensin II receptor blocker (ARB), reduces 24-hour systolic and diastolic blood pressure as well as albumin excretion rate (AER) in people with type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2003
C-reactive protein (CRP) is an inflammation marker that has been implicated in the development of type 2 diabetes in Caucasians (see "A New Buzzword," November 2002, p. 66). However, a new study has found that, among Mexicans, CRP is likely to predict type 2 diabetes in women but not in men.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2003
December 2002
Although increasing cereal fiber in the diet appears to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease, increased consumption of cereal fiber doesn't seem to offer beneficial value to people with existing type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2002
Your doctor diagnoses you with type 2 diabetes and advises you to lose weight—and then gives you a prescription for a medication that is known to cause excessive weight gain.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2002
Do high blood-glucose levels lead to more severe strokes? Or does having a high blood-glucose level mean that you had a more severe stroke? Researchers studying the puzzle say their results suggest the former.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2002
A food ingredient long regarded as a "silent killer" may be brought to justice next spring.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2002
Rufus and Ruby, created nearly eight years ago by a mom whose son has type 1 diabetes, floated gently back to earth on October 9, 2002, after taking a one-week trip aboard the space shuttle Atlantis.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2002
Trash the Wonder Bread and white rice and replace them with whole grains and brown rice if you want to reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2002
Do high blood glucose levels lead to more severe strokes? Or does having a high blood glucose level mean that you had a more severe stroke? Researchers studying the puzzle say their results suggest the former.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2002
When combined with NPH insulin taken at bedtime, Glucophage (metformin) provides slightly better glucose control with less weight gain and improved satisfaction with diabetes treatment than Prandin (repaglinide) plus NPH, say researchers in the United Kingdom.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2002
Eli Lilly and Company of Indianapolis, Indiana, and Amylin Pharmaceuticals of San Diego, California, have formed a global agreement to collaborate on development and sale of a potential new treatment for type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2002
November 2002
Adding a synthetic antioxidant compound to islets slated for transplantation preserves two to three times as many islets as in batches that do not receive the antioxidant, say researchers in Pittsburgh who are studying the process in mice. Antioxidants counteract damage that can be caused by oxygen in tissues.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2002
Adding a synthetic antioxidant compound to islets slated for transplantation preserves two to three times as many islets as in batches that do not receive the antioxidant, say researchers in Pittsburgh who are studying the process in mice. Antioxidants counteract damage that can be caused by oxygen in tissues.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2002
A shift in fat distribution from visceral (the internal abdominal area) to subcutaneous (under the skin) could be the reason the insulin sensitizer Actos (pioglitazone) helps to lower blood glucose levels in people with insulin resistance.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2002
Identifying foods that cause the release of a naturally occurring gut hormone known as PYY3-36 - or creating a pill that contains the hormone - may help in obesity control, say researchers who studied the effects of PYY3-36 in both rodents and human volunteers.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2002
Can drinking water contribute to your risk of getting type 1 diabetes? Maybe, say researchers who analyzed the acidity, color and mineral content of tap water from the homes of 64 people with type 1 diabetes and 250 randomly selected control subjects.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2002
Zyprexa (olanzapine), which belongs to a family of drugs known as atypical anti-psychotics, could be a factor in the development of diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2002
Pupil size may indicate impending complications in people with diabetes. Researchers in Germany say that pupillary autonomic neuropathy may be an early sign of other autonomic nerve damage, such as that involving the heart. Autonomic neuropathy involves damage to the nerves in bodily systems that function automatically.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2002
October 2002
By 2004, every islet transplantation facility will have to be certified as a Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) facility by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Islet and Cellular Transplantation Center at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is the first such facility to receive GMP certification—ensuring that the highest international standards are maintained for the isolation and purification of islets for transplantation.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2002
Should you skip eating animal protein in favor of vegetable protein if you have type 2 diabetes and microalbuminuria (a sign of kidney disease)?
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2002
Novo Nordisk has suspended development of ragaglitazar - a drug that has potential for regulating both blood-glucose and lipid levels-after finding urine bladder tumors in one mouse and several rats tested with the drug during preclinical trials.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2002
By 2004, every islet transplantation facility will have to be certified as a Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) facility by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Islet and Cellular Transplantation Center at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is the first such facility to receive GMP certification - ensuring that the highest international standards are maintained for the isolation and purification of islets for transplantation.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2002
September 2002
An agreement to develop and market orally administered insulin products, which might total as much as $238 million, has been signed by GlaxoSmithKline of London and Nobex Corporation of Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2002
Combination oral contraceptives may do more than prevent unwanted pregnancies—they also may help prevent diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2002
Type 2 diabetes can be predicted by increases in microalbuminuria (a measure of protein in the urine). In addition, microalbuminuria, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease develop together over a period of more than two decades, leading researchers from the Framingham Offspring Study in Massachusetts to believe that the three conditions have a common cause.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2002
Women who snore are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, according to the results of a study conducted by doctors at Harvard.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2002
Researchers in Spain who wrote a letter to Diabetes Care report studies showing that pre-meal blood glucose averages better predict A1Cs in people with type 1 diabetes than after-meal readings do. But they add that if after-meal blood glucose averages are more predictive of heart disease, as some studies suggest, it could mean that A1C results do not accurately reflect the harmful effects of high blood-glucose levels on diabetes-related cardiovascular complications.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2002
Type 2 diabetes, at one time referred to as "adult-onset" diabetes, was practically unheard of in young people 20 years ago. Today, it is not only sweeping through youth populations but also leading to dire complications.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2002
August 2002
Q: I received an e-mail recently that has been circulating around the Internet since 1995. It concerns the sweetener aspartame. Is this sweetener dangerous to use?
5 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2002
Over the past seven years, the number of oral drug therapies for the treatment of type 2 diabetes has dramatically increased. Of the six basic types of medication that can help normalize your blood glucose, five are available as oral drugs.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2002
Saying "type 2 diabetes is not a ‘mild' form of diabetes," Sir George Alberti, president of the International Diabetes Federation, called for "more aggressive control of the whole blood-glucose profile."
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2002
Your risk of a particular diabetes complication may depend on your ethnic background rather than on uneven health care.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2002
June 2002
Researchers may have discovered a protein in the liver that could lead to a cure for type 2 diabetes, according to a new study published in the February 19, 2002, issue of Nature Genetics. Doctors at the Medical College of Ohio found that this protein, called CEACAM1, helps to clear insulin from the blood.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2002
May 2002
Some may think that it should be easy to cure diabetes: all you'd need would be an endless supply of islets, the pancreatic cells that produce insulin, to be transplanted into people with diabetes. But there are not nearly enough donated organs to go around, and, because the donated pancreas is actually someone else's organ, transplant patients need to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their lives.
1 comment - Posted May 1, 2002
Eating processed meats such as hot dogs and bacon may increase a man's risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to researchers from the United States and Holland. On the other hand, eating polyunsaturated fat may decrease a person's risk for type 2 diabetes, the researchers state in the March 2002 issue of Diabetes Care.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2002
Giving a baby vitamin D supplements in its first year of life significantly reduces the child's chance of developing type 1 diabetes, according to a Finnish study. Researchers studied the effects of vitamin D supplementation on 10,366 children and published the results in the November 3, 2001, issue of The Lancet.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2002
April 2002
According to the latest research, people with diabetes should include soybeans and foods containing soy in their meal plans. Because soy foods are high in fiber and have a low glycemic index, they offer many health benefits for people with diabetes, such as lowering blood-glucose levels after meals and helping to control weight.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2002
The U.S. National Institutes of Health recently awarded a $1 million grant to a research team in Scotland to begin clinical trials of a new method to treat nonhealing wounds such as diabetic ulcers and pressure sores, according to a release from the University of Dundee.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2002
Researchers from the New Jersey Institute of Technology have been awarded a $75,000 grant to begin developing a noninvasive device for measuring blood glucose from the eye, as part of a system that could simulate pancreatic function.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2002
Imagine being able to "turn on" your insulin, telling it when to start working, instead of having to take your injections at certain times during the day. Researchers from the University of California at San Diego believe they may have discovered a way to do this—at least in rats.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2002
March 2002
Researchers have begun nationwide clinical trials for a new treatment for diabetes based largely on the discoveries of a professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) in Norfolk.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2002
It's not exactly the tortoise versus the hare, but in the effort to get islet transplantation and a closed-loop artificial pancreas to the market, there seems to be a race.
1 comment - Posted Mar 1, 2002
Q: Are pancreas transplants very successful for someone who has had a previous successful kidney transplant? I have been considering a pancreas transplant, but several doctors have told me the success rates are not that good and that, in some cases, the individual develops a milder form of diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2002
February 2002
Five years ago, when Dana Elias, PhD, first clutched a publication reporting that a synthetic peptide had halted beta-cell destruction in mice that already were showing high blood-glucose levels, she felt a shiver of excitement. She had helped develop the synthetic peptide, called DiaPep277.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2002
The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) of New York, New York, has awarded a $15 million grant to the University of Alberta in Alberta, Canada. The five-year grant will be used to open an additional clinical research center dedicated to furthering Edmonton Protocol research by addressing some of the problems associated with islet cell transplantation.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2002
The amount of fat you eat can affect your A1C level, say researchers in the United Kingdom, but the type of fat can also make a difference. Researchers writing in the November 2001 issue of Diabetes Care report that people who consumed more polyunsaturated fat, which includes most vegetable oils, nuts and high-fat fish, had lower A1C levels across the normal range than those whose fat intake came primarily from meat, milk and milk products.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2002
Pregnant women with type 1 diabetes who have microalbuminuria, or increased levels of protein in the urine, are much more likely to deliver prematurely, according to a study from Denmark.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2002
January 2002
A procedure that lengthens the Achilles tendon can provide relief for people with diabetic foot ulcers, according to Dr. Cherie Johnson, DPM, FECFAS, a podiatric foot and ankle surgeon at the Foot and Ankle Clinic in Everett, Washington. Johnson, who presented her research to the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons (ACFAS) in October 2001, said the surgery works by decreasing pressure on the ball of the foot.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2002
December 2001
Someday, a cure for diabetes will be found. But the question still remains about it how it will happen. By regenerating our own cells? Or maybe by transplanting islets from pigs into humans?
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2001
After 40 years on insulin, Bob Teskey, 56, could no longer keep his blood-glucose levels under control. As his condition worsened, his hypoglycemic (low blood-glucose) episodes became more and more intrusive on his life. Teskey talked to his doctors, but there was nothing they could do except tweak his insulin regimen, which did not solve the problem. He continued to collapse unexpectedly, as his blood-glucose levels dropped without warning.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2001
Islet Technology Inc., a research company based in St. Paul, Minnesota, has acquired all co-owned rights to patents related to encapsulated cell therapy.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2001
A study in the September issue of Obesity Research suggests that the anti-depressant drug bupropion (Wellbutrin) is effective at producing weight loss.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2001
Giving lispro (Humalog) insulin to young children after they eat is as effective as giving Regular insulin before a meal, researchers say. After-meal administration allows parents to match the lispro insulin dose to what the child actually eats.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2001
Taking estrogen decreases the risk of heart disease slightly in post-menopausal women with diabetes, say researchers in New Zealand. Patrick J. Manning, MBChB, and colleagues, from the departments of medicine at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, demonstrated positive changes in the blood cholesterol and blood-clotting factors of middle-aged women with diabetes when they were given hormone replacement therapy. Findings were published in the July 23 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2001
Tossing back a couple of brews while watching the big game could be protecting you from getting type 2 diabetes, according to researchers in the United States and Australia.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2001
November 2001
The Scripps-Whittier Diabetes Research Program at the University of California, San Diego, has announced that sometime in late 2002, it will create a new islet-research center focused on harvesting islets and transplanting them into humans. In addition, the new lab will perform research aimed at replicating islets to help solve the problem with donor shortages.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
On August 1, pump maker Animas Corporation received the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) award for its long-term implantable optical blood glucose monitor.
1 comment - Posted Nov 1, 2001
Researchers in the United Kingdom say that the anti-rejection medication sirolimus (Rapamune) allows for the early withdrawal of the anti-rejection drug cyclosporine in people who have had a kidney transplant.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
Emisphere Technologies Inc., of Tarrytown, New Jersey announced the results of three phase I studies for two new medications for the oral delivery of insulin. Representatives, who presented the data at Investor Day In New York City and released a written statement on September 7, said the trials showed that the drugs were successfully absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract and significantly reduced blood glucose levels in study subjects.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
Research presented September 10 at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes suggests that people with diabetes who have asthma absorb less insulin than non-asthmatic people with diabetes when the drug is inhaled rather than injected.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
Researchers at three centers in the United Kingdom have been successful in demonstrating that using an insulin pump helps to control blood sugar and A1c levels, and can assist in preventing serious diabetes complications in a variety of patients-from long-term type 1s with erratic control to children and pregnant women.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 2001
October 2001
On July 31, Israeli researchers turned human embryonic stem cells into a mass of islets which, in turn, produced insulin. However, the islets created from the stem cells did not shown that they could regulate insulin secretion based upon the body's glucose levels.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2001
A group of Brazilian researchers say bariatric surgery (stomach stapling) is the most effective therapy for extreme obesity. Their recent studies show that glucose control can also improve with the surgery.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2001
Adjusting insulin regimens does not cause people to adopt a poor diet, according to researchers in the United Kingdom. Researchers from Bournemouth, Dorset, studied the change in patients' diets when they were allowed to adjust the amount of insulin therapy to the total carbohydrate content. They questioned whether or not the change in the insulin regimen would cause patients to consume more fat.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2001
September 2001
Eating less animal protein and sugar may improve HbA1c levels in your body, say researchers from the University of South Florida in Tampa.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2001
A 40-day treatment of type 1 diabetes was shown to cure the disease in mice, say researchers from Massachusetts. The encouraging results could lead to finding a cure for diabetes in humans, they say.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2001
Australian researchers are saying the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor perindopril (Aceon) is more effective than the calcium channel blocker nifedipine (Procardia) in slowing the progression of kidney disease in people with diabetes who have normal blood pressure.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2001
August 2001
Nutrition 21 Inc. announced on June 7 that preliminary research on a composition containing chromium picolinate and conjugated linoleic acid demonstrated "significant blood-glucose uptake in cells without the addition of insulin."
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2001
High-intensity strength training is considered a convenient, safe and effective way for older people with diabetes to improve control of their blood sugar, say researchers at the USDA Human Nutritional Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2001
The insulin-resistance drug metformin (Glucophage) has been shown to improve more than just insulin sensitivity in the body.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2001
July 2001
In July 1999, John Buse, MD, PhD, CDE, director of the University of North Carolina's Diabetes Center told Diabetes Health that patients enrolled in clinical trials for insulin glargine (Lantus) absolutely "loved" the 24-hour-a-day long-acting (basal) insulin. Most of the people who participated in the clinical trials were not doing well on just NPH or Ultralente, and Lantus improved their control. However, Buse added, "[The clinical-trial participants are] upset that they cannot continue on it." That was because, at the time, the clinical trials had ended and the participants were told they would have to wait at least one year for FDA approval of Lantus and longer until they could get their hands on it.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2001
On May 30, medical-devices maker Medtronic Inc. of Minneapolis agreed to buy insulin-pump maker MiniMed Inc. and Medical Research Group Inc.—a firm partly owned by MiniMed—for $3.7 billion.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2001
According to researchers in Sweden, eating fish protein reduces the risk of developing microalbuminuria, a condition marked by protein in the urine that is associated with kidney disease.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2001
June 2001
According to UCLA doctors, human fat may be the latest discovery in the search for where stem cells could be harvested.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2001
Infusing insulin on a continuous basis has been shown to help control sugar levels and hypoglycemia in children and adolescents.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2001
Because of the obesity epidemic in this country, the disease formerly called "adult-onset" diabetes is no longer given that label. Type 2 diabetes, we have learned, is fair game for people of all ages.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2001
Eating fruits and vegetables may help reduce the risk of diabetes, especially among women and people with higher education levels, according to a recent study published in the January issue of Preventive Medicine.
1 comment - Posted Jun 1, 2001
May 2001
Heart disease medicine may protect people from diabetes, say researchers in the January 23 issue of Circulation: The Journal of the American Heart Association.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2001
In a special report published on February 7 by the Journal of the American Association entitled "Forecasting Opportunities in Medical Research," leaders in the medical research community outline the status of medical research today.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2001
After three and a half decades of doubts about the healing properties of C-peptide, scientists now believe that the hormone may help prevent diabetes complications.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2001
Aspirin has been shown to help prevent heart disease among people with diabetes. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) has recommended the over-the-counter pain reliever to diabetic adults who have cardiovascular disease or are at risk for it.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2001
The results of new research shows that people with diabetes have a higher chance of death after undergoing angioplasty.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2001
April 2001
If you are a non-obese type 2 who no longer gets the maximum effect from your Glucotrol, DiaBeta or Tolinase, a 12-hour intravenous infusion of insulin could help you regain sensitivity to them, say researchers in Italy.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2001
Short-term breast feeding may increase a child's chance of getting diabetes, says a study conducted by researchers in Finland.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2001
January 31, Johns Hopkins University announced it had received a $58.5 million donation that will go toward the advancement of stem-cell research.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2001
In an effort to deter President Bush from blocking federal funds for embryonic stem-cell research, 80 U.S. Nobel laureates—among them DNA co-discoverers James Watson and Francis Crick, molecular biologist Hamilton O. Smith, and Edward Lewis—faxed a letter to the White House.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2001
March 2001
Studies are increasingly proving the benefits of keeping your after-meal BG levels down. Along with these results comes an interest among many with diabetes to help lower their glucose levels using natural substances.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2001
When your mother tells you to eat your broccoli, you should listen.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2001
On January 26, President Bush all but announced he would oppose the use of federal funds for research using stem cells from aborted fetuses.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2001
According to a recent poll by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International (JDRF), twice as many Americans support federal funding of stem cell research than oppose it.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2001
On January 19, Islet Sheet Medical of San Francisco announced it has begun a collaborative research effort with Edmonton Protocol pioneers James Shapiro and Jonathan Lakey of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2001
February 2001
The January issue of Diabetes Care reports that many people with diabetes may have a heart disorder called left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (LVDD), despite being in good control.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2001
According to a study published in the October 17, 2000 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection brings with it an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2001
January 2001
On November 13, 2000, it was announced that surgeons in Montpellier, France, implanted the world's first internal artificial pancreas in a person with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2001
When Dr. James Shapiro sees teaspoons of freshly harvested islets floating in a fluid matrix at the bottom of a test tube, he sees "the difference between someone having diabetes—or not."
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2001
SmithKline Beecham announced in a November 8, 2000 press release that its type 2 drug Avandia (rosiglitazone) will be the only diabetes drug studied in a first-of-its kind, multi-national, 4,000-person study to determine the impact of intensive drug therapy on preventing type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2001
Japanese researchers are saying it is important for people with diabetes with normal blood-pressure levels to be on a salt-restricted diet long before the occurrence of any type of high blood pressure. In an August 24, 2000, interview with Reuters Health, M. Imanishi, MD, of Osaka City General Hospital, said, "Before hypertension, salt-sensitivity appears, especially in diabetic patients, because of the renal damage caused by the diabetes."
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2001
The long-term effects of a high-protein diet remain a hotly debated mystery, but a German team says such eating regimens may hold a lot of promise. According to a study published in the October 2000 issue of Diabetologia, meals high in protein stimulate glucagon secretion and increase insulin release.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2001
Although the idea of preventing the onset of diabetes in people at risk for type 1 was recently introduced in the Diabetes Prevention Trial of Type 1 (DPT-1), a group of Italian researchers report that the treatment does not have similar effects in people who have already contracted the disease. In a study published in the August issue of Diabetologia, the researchers report that giving oral insulin to newly diagnosed individuals with diabetes may be doing too little too late.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2001
Diabetes Health asked some of its readers to weigh in on the issue of using embryonic stem cells for diabetes research. Here is a sampling of what some people had to say:
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2001
The landscape of embryonic stem-cell research could very well change when Texas Governor George W. Bush takes office later this month. The President can issue an executive order banning monies earmarked for specific research causes at NIH. He has the power to determine whether NIH can or cannot use funding for embryonic stem-cell research.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2001
According to the NIH Stem Cell Research Guidelines, human pluripotent stem cells are a unique scientific and medical resource, which can develop into most of the specialized cells and tissues of the body.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2001
In August 2000, the potential for finding a type 1 cure was championed when the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued guidelines concerning the use of federal funds for research using stem cells from frozen human embryos.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2001
December 2000
Fresh out of the starting gate with its April FDA approval, insulin glargine is on its way to overtaking other insulins as a viable treatment option for people with diabetes. A human insulin analog designed to have a smooth, peakless action, glargine is the first insulin to offer people with diabetes 24-hour insulin action.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2000
For most researchers, the discovery of the C-peptide molecule in 1967 brought only a flicker of interest. Now, findings announced at the third annual International Motor City Diabetes Symposium in Detroit, Michigan, may vindicate those researchers who never moved on. According to the findings of Anders Sima, MD, of the Wayne State University School of Medicine, injecting C-peptide in addition to insulin can reduce serious complications like kidney disease.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 2000
October 2000
Acupuncture has been used in China for years to improve the body's use of sugar. Centuries of personal experience support this claim, but few scientific records on the efficacy of these methods exist.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2000
People with type 2 diabetes are capable of increasing their physical activity levels, according to a recent survey of doctors in the United Kingdom.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2000
At a three-day August conference held in Oxford, England, organized by the European Association for the Study of Diabetes and the JDF, researchers unveiled a variety of findings that might indicate a source for beta cells.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 2000
September 2000
Normal C-peptide levels for a fasting test are generally considered to be anything between 0.5 nanograms (ng) per millileter (ml) and 3 ng/ml, although people who do not have diabetes may occasionally stray out of this range. The following is a range of C-peptide values in people without diabetes, as compiled by Endocrine Sciences, Inc., a California-based laboratory that conducts the test. It should be noted that, in some cases, subjects fell below the normal range of C-peptide values, but were still not found to have diabetes. The range of values may also vary according to what lab your health care practitioner uses.
11 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2000
The precursor to insulin produced by the pancreas's beta cells is a peptide chain known as proinsulin. Made up of amino acids bound into a u-shape by a connecting polypeptide, proinsulin is stored in beta cells until a glucose load demands the release of insulin. At this point, the connecting molecule is broken off the bottom of the "u"-its shape earning it the moniker C-peptide-freeing the insulin molecule for secretion.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2000
The Components of an Artificial Pancreas
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2000
On July 13, President Clinton announced the 10 centers chosen to replicate the Edmonton Protocol.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2000
On June 6 and 7, academic and industry researchers joined in San Jose, California, for a two-day Artificial Pancreas Symposium. The tone of the conference was to discuss technology capable of monitoring glucose and automatically delivering the correct amount of insulin for the control of blood glucose in people with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2000
Viagra, the anti-impotence drug manufactured by Pfizer, may also be an effective remedy against gastroparesis, a common digestive condition among people with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 2000
August 2000
Recently, Dr. James Shapiro and a team of transplant surgeons at the University of Alberta in Edmonton transplanted islets into 10 people with type 1 diabetes. In previous studies, only eight percent of islet-transplant recipients have remained off insulin for one year. The Edmonton Protocol is the first study in which 100 percent of islet-transplant recipients have been insulin-independent for one year.
1 comment - Posted Aug 1, 2000
Scientists at the University of California at San Diego recently announced that they have successfully grown beta cells that can produce insulin. The finding may eliminate one of the biggest obstacles in making islet transplantation a viable treatment for diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2000
Beef may be what's for dinner, but eating a mostly chicken diet can greatly reduce one's chances of developing kidney disease.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2000
If doctors were able to place healthy, insulin-producing islets into a person with diabetes in a minimally invasive procedure that needs to be repeated only occasionally, diabetes care as we know it would be finished. Patients might occasionally need insulin, and would of course want to keep an eye on their blood glucose levels, but the often-grueling regimen many of us now follow would be a thing of the past.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 2000
July 2000
A recent report published in the January/February issue of Practical Diabetes studied possible causes and responses to allergic reactions to human insulin.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2000
On May 18, Congressional Diabetes Caucus co-chair George Nethercutt, R-Wash., and colleagues Reps. Lois Capps D-Ca., John Edward Porter R-Ill. and John LaFalce D-N.Y., introduced H.R. 4495. The bill, known as the Insulin-Free World Medicare Pancreas Transplantation Coverage Act, would provide Medicare coverage for all "medically necessary" pancreas transplants.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 2000
June 2000
The survival and success rates for pancreas transplants have improved during recent years. By 1997, almost 10,000 such transplants had been done.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2000
The Disetronic Group has initiated and received approval for the development of an innovative new insulin delivery system with integrated monitoring of blood sugar.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 2000
May 2000
In the March issue of the journal Nature Medicine, Ammon Peck, MD, and colleagues at the University of Florida in Gainseville, reported that the use of stem cells reversed diabetes in an animal model. Their experiment was the first to demonstrate that the cells were as valuable as researchers have speculated in treating diabetes.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 2000
April 2000
Through gene therapy, scientists at Ariad Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have come up with a way to store insulin in cells that can be released only when a pill is taken. Published in the February issue of Science, the findings hold promise not just for the treatment of diabetes, but for other medical problems which require a timed-release technique.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2000
Renowned researcher Aaron Vinik, MD, PhD, believes that the ability to generate new insulin-secreting islets from a patient's own pancreatic cells represents a potential cure for diabetes, without the need for antirejection medications.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 2000
March 2000
Moderate drinkers may be less at risk for developing type 2 diabetes than nondrinkers and heavy drinkers, according to research by Ming Wei, MD, and his colleagues at the Cooper Institute in Dallas, Texas. The research was published in the January 2000 issue of Diabetes Care. Wei's team examined the effect of alcohol consumption and the rates of type 2 diabetes in 8,663 men in the state of Texas. Over 6 years, 149 subjects developed diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 2000
February 2000
A promising drug trial at the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at New York's Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center needs children, aged 8 and older, who have recently been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, to participate.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2000
In spite of a diet rich in saturated fat, the French have a much lower rate of cardiovascular disease than Americans. Researchers attribute this to the consumption of red wine, which has the power to bolster antioxidants in blood.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2000
A team of scientists from Israel's Weizmann Institute have come up with a vanadium compound that has been successful in regulating the glucose levels of lab animals. Vanadium is a trace element that mimics most of the metabolic effects of insulin in tissue studies, even though its mechanism of action is different from that of insulin.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 2000
January 2000
If you're a person with diabetes who suspects your beta cells may still be hard at work, you may be more right than you know. Most people with diabetes, including type 1s, are still producing at least trace amounts of insulin. And while BGs and HbA1cs may be the foundation for any good diabetes treatment, when it comes to showing insulin production, they don't necessarily paint the full picture.
2 comments - Posted Jan 9, 2000
A recent study published in the May issue of Epidemiology has led its authors to conclude that even losing as little as two pounds per year can significantly reduce an individual's chance of developing type 2 diabetes. Although obesity is widely recognized as a risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes, so far there has been little evidence to prove that the converse is true.
0 comments - Posted Jan 7, 2000
Researchers have successfully transplanted primate pancreatic islets into a mismatched diabetic primate without the need for long-term administration of anti-rejection drugs.
0 comments - Posted Jan 7, 2000
By using gene transfer therapy, other tissues can be programmed to produce insulin and relieve high blood sugar seen with diabetes, according to the May issue of the journal Nature Medicine. The new approach is being touted as a novel way of transplanting and replacing pancreatic tissue.
0 comments - Posted Jan 7, 2000
SmithKline Beecham recently announced plans to initiate a major study to determine if early treatment with Avandia, Glucophage or a sulfonylurea improves and maintains blood sugar control in patients with type 2 diabetes, delays and/or prevents complications such as kidney disease and prevents decline in pancreatic beta-cell function.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2000
Pancreas Tonic, a new herbal treatment for people with diabetes, is drawing conflicting opinions from different quarters of the diabetes community. In 1999, Pancreas Tonic was hailed during an episode of the NBC television program EXTRA as "…the cure for diabetes" by William Taylor, MD, an internist. In additon, testimonials were given by people with diabetes who said that Pancreas Tonic really worked for the treatment of their blood sugars. According to transcripts from the EXTRA episode, Taylor added that Pancreas Tonic could be "one of the biggest medical breakthroughs of the century."
3 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2000
In animal experiments, insulin was successfully delivered in sustained quantities and without the need for injections by using a skin patch.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 2000
December 1999
Dr. David Matthews, chairman of the Oxford Center for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, says beta-cell deterioration is "virtually inevitable" in persons with type 2 diabetes. He urges doctors who treat type 2s to refrain from telling them that they only have "mild diabetes," and instead tell them that they are still at considerable risk for diabetic complications.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1999
On October 21, Biogen announced that it was suspending several trials of its anti-CD154 drug because of blood clotting.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1999
On September 11, 1998, Jackie Warren Demijohn, 42, a domestic violence outreach counselor from Farwell, Michigan, took a monumental leap in controlling the diabetes she had suffered from for the last 37 years. Demijohn underwent the first-ever islet and bone marrow transplant at the Diabetes Research Institute (DRI) in Miami.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1999
In the October 20 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Frank Hu, MD, of the Harvard School of Public Health, writes that people can cut the risk of type 2 diabetes nearly in half by engaging in one hour of moderate-intensity activity each day, which doesn't have to be all at once. This moderate-intensity activity can be accomplished with a walk to the bus stop in the morning, a walk up several flights of stairs in the afternoon, and housework in the evening.
4 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1999
November 1999
Just in time for National Diabetes Month, there is new data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) which shows that more than half of people with type 2 diabetes in the United States have unacceptably high blood sugar levels, putting them at increased risk for serious diabetes-related complications.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1999
I am president of a diabetes association in which we have lots of members who would like information on islet transplantation. What is the latest news on the success of islet transplantation?
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1999
Two major enterprises toward successful islet transplantation were announced in October by the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation (JDF).
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1999
October 1999
In a January 1991 issue of Diabetes Care, it was demonstrated for the first time that vitamin E in patients with diabetes reduces protein glycoslation, which is a process where glucose attaches itself to the hemoglobin inside your red blood cells, contributing to complications. Also, a study conducted by vitamin manufacturer Hoffman-LaRoche of Switzerland reported that doses as low as 200 IU of vitamin E significantly reduced glycoslation.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1999
The debate over the safety of transplanting pig islets into humans became even more controversial in late August. Researchers at the British biotechnology company Imutran Ltd. determined that 160 people from eight countries who carry living pig tissue showed no signs of Porcine Endogenous Retrovirus (PERV) infection. According to Associated Press (AP) news wire reports, 36 of the 160 patients had a high risk of PERV infection because they had very weak immune systems. The study, the largest yet of people treated with pig tissue, was confirmed by testing at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1999
The Juvenile Diabetes Foundation (JDF) is urging people with diabetes to take out pen and paper to ask Congress for more diabetes research money. In September, Congress began its discussion on bills to fund the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1999
In the hopes that its islet-reproducing technology will soon be perfected, biotech company Desmos is partnering with other companies to work on technology that protects the islets after transplantation.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1999
September 1999
Two new drugs have received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. In clinical trials, Avandia (rosiglitazone maleate) and ACTOS (pioglitazone hydrochloride) lowered blood sugars an average of 76 mg/dl and 95 mg/dl respectively, when compared to a placebo.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1999
Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, say an experimental, DNA-based vaccine appears to reduce type 1 diabetes by 50 percent in mice genetically engineered to develop type 1 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1999
August 1999
German researchers say that using Regular insulin prior to every meal improves blood glucose control without causing weight gain in obese patients with type 2 diabetes. Their research was presented at the American Diabetes Association's scientific sessions in June.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1999
DI: First, we have a message to pass along. Shannon Openshaw called us, from Bemidji, Minnesota. Her 11-year-old daughter, Adrienne, was diagnosed with diabetes in March. Shannon and Adrienne want to tell you that you gave her courage. She was feeling like she was going to have to give up a lot, but you changed that. They say, thanks.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1999
Two San Diego companies, Demos and Micro Islet, recently joined forces to advance islet transplantation. Desmos will make the islets, while Micro Islet will protect them once they've been transplanted.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1999
Just as islet research is developing at the university level, corporations are taking steps toward creating devices and technologies to aid islet transplantation.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1999
There's a buzz in the diabetes community from a recent islet transplantation success with a drug called anti-CD154. Given to monkeys once per month after islet transplants, anti-CD154 kept the islets working, and kept the monkeys free of insulin injections, and other harmful immunosuppressive drugs, for one year.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1999
The federal government has said $120 million of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) allocated budget will be given to clinical trials of islet transplantation. On June 7, Hillary Rodham Clinton announced the allocation, and kicked off the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation Children's Congress in Washington.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1999
July 1999
Walking could be the easiest, least expensive exercise, and it is proven to help shed pounds and improve glucose levels. An Australian study looks at post-menopausal type 2 women, and how walking changed their health.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1999
You need more than an apple a day. Nearly every health expert agrees that you need at least five servings of fruits and vegetables per day. This is the way to better general health, normal weight and a good supply of antioxidants. But, unless you're one of the few who actually get five a day, it may require some effort on your part. To help make it easier, here are some tips from experts in diabetes and nutrition.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1999
A compound isolated from a fungus controlled blood glucose levels in mice bred to develop diabetes. Researchers are saying that if the fungus, collected from a plant in the Republic of Congo, demonstrates the same effects in humans with diabetes, then millions of people would be freed from taking insulin.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1999
The Juvenile Diabetes Foundation (JDF) has granted another $10 million for islet transplant research. The money will be divided among eight centers worldwide, linking the knowledge of the top islet scientists.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1999
June 1999
Researchers found that teaching coping skills significantly improves an adolescent's metabolic control over diabetes, as well as his or her overall quality of life.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1999
Researchers are saying that diagnosis of type 2 diabetes in children under the age of 18 has increased tenfold in the past five years.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1999
May 1999
Researchers in Sweden say that islet autoantibodies are already common at birth in children who develop type 1 diabetes later in life, and that screening for islet cell autoantibodies at birth could be a crucial step in identifying those at risk for developing type 1 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 1999
Treatment with nitrendipine, a calcium channel blocker, was proven to be beneficial in older patients with diabetes and hypertension.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 1999
Miss America, Nicole Johnson, took time out at the "Day of Hope" to say hello to DIABETES HEALTH publisher Scott M. King. The "Day of Hope" was held March 27 in Palm Springs, California, as a diabetes product fair and research forum. It featured Miss America and three speakers from the diabetes business and research world. Alberto Hayek, MD, a leading islet researcher, announced that he is replicating beta cells 1 to 25,000, a true breakthrough on the road to islet transplantation. Another speaker, Scott R. King of Islet Sheet Medical, will collaborate with Hayek and use the replicated cells for his company's work in encapsulating islets for transplantation. Finally, Russell Potts, vice president at Cygnus, hopeful makers of a watch-like, noninvasive glucose monitor, presented his views on noninvasive blood testing.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 1999
April 1999
Researchers at the Channing Laboratory in Boston have discovered that babies who are born with a low birth weight are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes as they get older.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1999
Researchers at Kyoto University in Japan have discovered a technique in which a capsule containing pancreatic cells can be implanted into a patient with a minor case of diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1999
A study published in the December 1998 issue of the Canadian Journal of Diabetes Care says that regular exercise is an important component of the treatment regimen for all people with diabetes. Gayle Lorenzi, RN, CDE, who conducted the study at the University of California, San Diego, says that exercise, when combined with dietary management and drug therapy, generally contributes to improved blood glucose control, as well as decreased cardiac risk, blood pressure control, lipid profiles and psychological well-being. Oftentimes, however, initiating an exercise program is a tough sell for most diabetes physicians and educators. The decision to start an exercise program requires motivation to get started, and then a commitment to maintaining the program.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1999
The outcome of the contentious stem cell research debate in Washington will influence the future of islet transplantation.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1999
March 1999
Q: I just finished reading the November 1998 issue of DIABETES HEALTH regarding the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation (JDF) islet transplantation $20 million advance. I didn't see anything about the cloning of islets, however, which I had read about in a previous issue of DIABETES HEALTH. I am curious to know how realistic the cloning process is, and when we might see it actually take place.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1999
For every study saying aspartame is harmful, another says it is not. Hundreds of studies throughout the world have been performed with aspartame. Here's just a tiny sample of contradictory studies, with a summary of their conclusions.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1999
Research has shown that individuals with type 2 diabetes are three times more likely to contract periodontal (gum) disease than individuals without diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1999
As early as this summer, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will begin recruiting candidates with type 1 diabetes for a new islet and kidney transplant study.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1999
February 1999
Vanadium, a metallic element found in humans, has insulin-like capabilities, according to recent discoveries. As a result, there is increased interest in using vanadium as a possible treatment for diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1999
Japanese researchers are claiming that a soft gel which shrinks and swells in response to changing sugar concentrations could provide a new way to deliver insulin to people with diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1999
Researchers at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered technology that could be a big step toward islet transplantation. TSRI cannot give much information right now because it has not yet been published in a scientific journal. A TSRI representative expects publication soon.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1999
January 1999
PharmaTerra Inc. has staked a claim with its herbal remedy, ProBeta, which, if legitimate, could be the most profound treatment of diabetes to date.
1 comment - Posted Jan 1, 1999
December 1998
1966 First pancreas transplant performed at the University of Minnesota.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1998
October 1998
Dr. William L. Chick, a leading researcher in the fight against diabetes, died this past August at the age of 60.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1998
Desmos Inc. has announced that it will continue to collaborate with Dr. Yoko Mullen at the University of California, Los Angeles, to support the development of its islet technology.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1998
September 1998
According to research funded by the National Cattleman's Beef Association, a common fat found in red meats and cheeses might help prevent type 2 diabetes. In their study, the fatty acid, known as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) provided short-term prevention of the onset of diabetes in lab animals.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1998
In the June issue of Diabetologia: the Journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, researchers argued whether sulphonylurea drugs (such as Micronase, Glucotrol, DiaBeta, Glynase, Amaryl and Diabinese) pose an increased cardiovascular risk for individuals with type 2 diabetes and heart disease. (Sulphonylurea drugs are prescribed to help stimulate the beta cells of individuals with type 2 diabetes; it may also increase the sensitivity of muscle tissue to the hormone.)
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1998
For 15 years, Alberto Hayek, MD, has been conducting research on islet transplants, while also treating children with diabetes and teaching pediatric endocrinology at San Diego's Children's Hospital. Born in Colombia and educated at Yale and Harvard, Dr. Hayek is currently the lead investigator on islet cell transplantation at the Whittier Institute of La Jolla, California.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1998
August 1998
It's impossible to pick out the "best" research, particularly when there is so much interesting scientific work to choose from. My choice of what to include in this report, while necessarily arbitrary, was guided by what seemed most interesting to me. So if you've been involved in a particular research project that I've omitted, please accept my apologies. Here are the new findings that I would like to share.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1998
Mylan Laboratories Inc. has filed suit in a Los Angeles court against Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD, the well publicized islet cell transplant researcher at VivoRX.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1998
July 1998
I was among the 400 individuals who attended Today's Solutions for Type 1 Diabetes in St. Louis this past May. The seminar, organized and hosted by the Insulin-Free World Foundation, brought together leading researchers and those of us living with the disease to discuss current transplant options and possible future treatments.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1998
In the late 1960s scientists started toying with the idea of replacing insulin producing cells (islets) to cure diabetes. These islets make up a mere one to two percent portion of the pancreas. The goal of this work is that eventually, one dose of insulin producing cells could last a lifetime and not require drugs to suppress the immune system.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1998
In 1984, the critically ill infant Baby Fae sparked debate with the news that a baboon heart had been implanted in her tiny body. Sadly, Baby Fae died 22 days later from complications of her illness.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1998
June 1998
Researchers in the Netherlands recently found that well controlled type 1s on multiple injection therapy have less variable fasting blood glucose levels and a lower total frequency of hypoglycemia when nighttime pump therapy is substituted for their bedtime NPH insulin injection. In addition, warning signs of hypoglycemia were enhanced and aspects of the counter-regulatory hormonal response to hypoglycemia were improved when subjects were on nocturnal pump therapy.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1998
Fish oil may lower triglyceride levels by almost 30 percent, according to an analysis of 26 published clinical trials performed by researchers at the Ziekenhuis der Veije University in the Netherlands. All trials studied included more than five diabetes patients (both IDDM and NIDDM) and looked at the effect of fish oil and docosahexaenoic acid on serum lipids and glucose tolerance.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1998
When the first pancreas transplant was performed in 1966 at the University of Minnesota, doctors considered it a risky venture at best. Three decades later and over a 1,000 people in the United States undergo a pancreas or simultaneous pancreas/kidney transplant every year. Still, a cloud of misinformation surrounds the procedure.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1998
May 1998
How full did that meal you just ate make you feel? Did it satisfy your hunger, or did it make you feel like you'll need a snack later?
0 comments - Posted May 1, 1998
March 1998
Researchers Mary C. Gannon, PhD, et al. investigated the possibility of ingesting fructose with protein to stimulate insulin secretion in people with untreated type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1998
February 1998
Some women with type 1 diabetes will need additional insulin during their pregnancy and a new blood test can reveal one reason why.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1998
A new blood test for predicting which type 2s will benefit from insulin therapy later in the course of their diabetes has been developed. Type 2 diabetics who have ICA and GADA antibodies in their blood are more likely to need insulin therapy in the future and will need more aggressive treatment to prevent complications later on. (The Lancet, 1997, 350:1288-93) In a group of people over 55 diagnosed with diabetes, 44 percent with ICA antibodies and 34 percent of those with GADA antibodies needed insulin within six years, but only five percent without antibodies needed insulin treatment.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1998
Prandin (repaglinide), a new type 2 oral medication manufactured by Novo Nordisk, has been approved by the FDA.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1998
December 1997
Q: What information do you have on the latest work being done on islet cell transplants for type I diabetics? When my 13-year-old daughter was diagnosed four and a half years ago, it seemed a cure was around the corner. Now it seems there are more obstacles than resolutions. Any hopeful information?
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1997
November 1997
Sweet 'N Low recently awarded Jerrilynn D. Burrowes, MS, RD, CS, CDN, with the newly established Sweet 'N Low Nutrition Scholarship of $5,000.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1997
Inhalable insulin has been in the works for some time now. One of the major stumbling blocks, however, has been variability in the amount of insulin delivered at each use. The Aradigm Corporation recently made a step toward solving that problem, receiving a patent on a device that will include technology that ensures users get the desired dose of insulin with every use.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1997
October 1997
What is on the horizon in organ transplants? Will hearts, livers, pancreases and kidneys be grown in a laboratory? Not in the near future, but doctors at Harvard have used cells from animal fetuses to produce new bladders and windpipes for sheep.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1997
September 1997
Will Medicare pay for a pancreas transplant? The current answer is no. However, a new study under way by NIDDK will collect data to try to convince Medicare otherwise. The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) will use an NIDDK study of pancreas-kidney transplants to figure out when and under what circumstances, pancreas-kidney transplants are reasonable and necessary. These transplants would then be covered under the Medicare Program.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1997
August 1997
If you have an eating disorder and need help, contact the American Anorexia/Bulimia Association (AABA) at (212) 575-6200 or write them at 165 West 46th Street, Suite 1108, New York, NY 10036. You can also contact psychologist William Polonsky, PhD, CDE, for referrals at (619) 965-5659 or he can be contacted by e-mail at WHPolonsky@aol.com.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1997
In this panel discussion, physicians presented the benefits of pancreas transplants for people with type 1 diabetes and the barriers to this type of therapy.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1997
Women with type 1 diabetes are more prone to experience premature menopause and, as a result, are at greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1997
July 1997
Acute psychological stress may play a role in glycemic control according to a study in the August 1996 journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1997
June 1997
Researchers have recently discovered a gene that appears to be critical to the regeneration of islet cells. Lead researcher, Aaron Vinik, MD, PhD, admits that, " ... our findings are still preliminary and much more research in both animals and humans is needed." But based on work done on hamsters, it appears that the discovery could have the potential for regenerating islet cells in humans.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1997
April 1997
Islet cell transplants, a treatment that could reverse diabetes, is no longer a pipe dream. Success has been demonstrated in about 30 patients at a number of institutions worldwide.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1997
February 1997
A new study shows vitamin E reduces heart attacks by 75 percent. Results like this, and those from similar studies, have led the American Heart Association to name vitamin E the fourth most noteworthy health aid for heart disease in its review of 1996 research advances.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1997
A new treatment method has been discovered for lipoatrophy, a rare but problematic complication of type 1 diabetes. The condition is an adverse effect of the immune system's interaction with insulin that results in dents in the skin at insulin injection sites. These dents are caused by atrophy of the tissue directly beneath the skin.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1997
January 1997
The Philadelphia-based Exocell, Inc. has recently signed an agreement with Eurand International for the clinical development of an orally administered compound that could help prevent diabetic kidney disease. The compound, EXO-226, will be produced and supplied by Eurand for use in the first phase of clinical trials for FDA approval. Exocell anticipates that these trials will begin in early 1997.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1997
July 1996
A "dead-in-bed" syndrome related to diabetes, which was first reported in the United Kingdom in 1989, is the subject of a cohort study appearing in the February 1995 issue of Diabetic Medicine.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1996
A study published in the December 1995 issue of Lancet, indicating a dual pancreas-kidney transplant may be more dangerous than previously suspected, has stirred controversy at the University of Minnesota.
0 comments - Posted Jul 1, 1996
May 1996
Even though doctors say slight weight loss can greatly benefit a person's health, overweight adults feel they must lose a significant amount of weight to reduce health problems, according to a recent poll.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 1996
April 1996
In response to a warning from the FDA, Loran Medical Systems has suspended its controversial trials which involve injecting people with diabetes with fetal and rabbit pancreatic cells. The warning, issued January 4th, states that Loran violated regulations that govern the importing of biological products and the conducting of clinical trials. Critics have called the company's procedure, which costs $20,000, unproven and ineffective.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1996
February 1996
Troglitazone is a new insulin-action enhancer currently in the third phase of clinical testing. Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research has announced that a pilot study at St. Joseph Hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich., showed that the drug lowers blood glucose levels in patients with type 2 diabetes. The study also found that the drug can help reduce and even eliminate daily insulin injections in type 2 diabetics.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1996
January 1996
The goal of all islet encapsulation research is to prevent the need for immunosuppressive drugs. These drugs prevent the immune system from attacking the new islet cells but cause serious complications of their own. Encapsulation technology involves enclosing insulin-producing islet cells in a semi-permeable membrane that allows small molecules, like glucose, insulin, and nutrients to pass but prevents larger immune-system molecules from entering.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1996
Although §-cells comprise just two percent of the gland, a study has found that children with diabetes have smaller pancreases than their healthy peers.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1996
Every new year an estimated 90 million Americans make health and fitness-related resolutions.
2 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1996
The November 1995 issue of Diabetes Care reported that women who take oral hypoglycemic drugs have a better chance of delivering a healthy baby than do women with poor glycemic control.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1996
December 1995
Many people with diabetes seeking to improve their overall health wish to include daily exercise in their lifestyle. Unfortunately, the blood glucose (BG) response to exercise can often pose problems. BG can drop during or even hours after physical activity, or, to further complicate matters, it can rise. Why the inconsistency and varied response? Blame it on stress hormones and counter-regulatory hormones (CRH) activated during exercise. These hormones stimulate the liver to release glucose into the blood and this can send BG levels soaring.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1995
November 1995
You watch your diet, take up jogging, and don't even look at pictures of high-fat goodies. After a month, you hop on the scale and find you've lost a whopping three pounds.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1995
October 1995
A company in Southern California has become the center of debate within the diabetes community. The company, Loran Medical Systems, is conducting studies involving fetal pancreatic tissue. More unusual than the science is the fact that patients are paying thousands of dollars to participate in clinical trials.
0 comments - Posted Oct 1, 1995
September 1995
The causes of diabetic complications are not yet completely understood, but there are some strong suspicions about certain changes in tissues and organs. It seems almost undeniable (especially after the recent DCCT) that hyperglycemia plays a major role in triggering the mechanisms that ultimately lead to diabetic complications. Two of the suspected mechanisms are osmotic effects from the hyperglycemia itself and glycosylation (glucose sticking to other molecules) of various important proteins-like hemoglobin, and the tissues of the eye, kidney, nerve, and blood vessels. Also suspected is the accelerated action of some enzyme systems when they are fed by extra glucose.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1995
The Food and Drug Administration is beginning to worry about how to regulate cells and organs for transplant, something that has traditionally been left to doctors to decide.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1995
It seems like fantasy, something the doctors on Star Trek would have in their repertoire. But this is not science fiction-as we hurtle toward the 21st century, researchers are racing toward a practical method of islet transplantation, the procedure that could revolutionize diabetes treatment.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1995
The transplantation of pancreatic islet cells is the only known potential cure for type I diabetes, and in spite of many promising results in animal studies, it remains a highly experimental and costly operation for humans. In January 1994, DIABETES HEALTH spoke to Steven Craig, the first person to receive encapsulated islet cell transplants.
2 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1995
In a reaction to research that shows a relationship between infant consumption of cow's milk and the development of diabetes, Nutrition Concepts Inc. proposes a method of making milk "safe."
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1995
July 1995
June 1995
Islet Transplantation - Available When?
In our April issue, Mr. Metabolism (Scott Robert King) wrote about the evolution of the islet transplant industry and invited questions. He has received several queries. These came through the Internet:
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1995
May 1995
The Neocrin Company is presently one of the leading biomedical companies involved in the research and development of a bio-artificial pancreas. This minimally invasive implantable device will be used for the treatment of insulin dependent diabetes.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 1995
April 1995
Even well-informed people with diabetes may not appreciate how many businesses have been found-ed to profit from the sale of islets to treat people suffering with Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus.
0 comments - Posted Apr 1, 1995
March 1995
Research recently conducted at the Institute of Biochemistry in Glasgow, Scotland studied the blood lipid abnormalities associated with non insulin-dependent diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1995
An attempt to discover why the body decides to attack islets in people with diabetes was made by the researchers at the Julia McFarlane Diabetes Research Centre.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1995
Islet transplantation has the potential to be the miracle cure so many people with diabetes are seeking. However, research done at John Radcliffe Hospital shows that the cure might be a long way off.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1995
Though it may be a promising alternative for many people with type 2 diabetes, the drug metformin may cause severe side effects, even death, in some patients.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1995
February 1995
Vitamin E may decrease the risk of developing some of the most common complications of diabetes, according to a study done at Joslin Diabetes Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and Kyushu University in Japan.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1995
May 1994
Preliminary investigation of the effectiveness of inhaling aerosolized insulin indicates that it can normalize blood glucose levels in people with type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 1994
A study from the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, indicates that slower rates of carbohydrate absorption might have advantages in reducing after-meal high blood sugars.
0 comments - Posted May 1, 1994
March 1994
Mr. Metabolism loves to follow new developments in diabetes research—in fact, that's one of the ways he makes his living. The following brief summaries give Mr. Metabolism's views on the Research Reports in the latest issue of DIABETES HEALTH.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1994
Using ultrasonography, researchers at the Armed Forces Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia have discovered that people who suffer from insulin deficiency, in either type I or insulin treated type 2 diabetes, have markedly smaller pancreases than non-diabetic control subjects and people with sulfonylurea treated type 2 diabetes.
0 comments - Posted Mar 1, 1994
November 1993
In past studies, fish oil has been shown to significantly reduce the incidence of heart disease, but a new study from the Netherlands indicates that for people with diabetes, this may not be the case. The study, published in the July 1993 issue of Diabetes Care, took place over a 16 year period and included 272 people from the town of Rotterdam, 27 of whom had diabetes and 56 with glucose intolerance. Fish intake was the equivalent of 1 meal of fish per week.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1993
On August 16th, CytoTherapeutics Incorporated announced the commencement of its FDA-approved trial involving polymer-encapsulated islet cells. The trial is designed to establish that their semi-permeable membrane can allow enough nutrients through to keep the encapsulated cells alive while protecting them from destruction without the use of immunosuppressive drugs. The implant will be tested in people with type I and type 2 diabetes, as well as in a nondiabetic control group. The trial will be conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and results of the 4 month viability study are expected by the end of 1993.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1993
August 1993
In a study of 48 people with non-insulin dependent diabetes, 25 individuals who had exclusively used "Humulin" insulin, and 23 who had exclusively used "Novolin" insulin were "crossed over" to the opposite brand. There were no differences measured in mean blood glucose levels, HBA1c levels, hypoglycemic threshold, or frequency of hypoglycemia either within subject comparisons or between the two groups. The study concludes that brands of human insulin are interchangeable without special precautions, and that cost should generally dictate the choice of human insulin selected.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1993
An Italian research team reports the success of islet cell transplant experiments conducted on ten patients with Type I diabetes. All of the patients involved in the experiments were immunosuppressed, and received islet cells in conjunction with kidney or liver transplants. In total, over 70% of the patients who received islet cells no longer required insulin therapy.
0 comments - Posted Aug 1, 1993
June 1993
Mr. Metabolism has received numerous questions concerning the first human clinical trial of encapsulated islets announced on the CBS Evening News Thursday, May 13.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1993
Los Angeles, CA, May 13, 1993 - The first encapsulated pancreatic islet cell transplant in humans was reported today by physician scientists of the National Institute of Transplantation at St. Vincent Medical Center, Los Angeles.
0 comments - Posted Jun 1, 1993
February 1993
New developments in materials, bio-engineering techniques and other disciplines have recently taken the concept of artificial organs from fantasy to reality. EU 346 PANART-Artificial Pancreas, for example, aims to develop an implanted artificial insulin delivery system, which promises to give diabetes sufferers a more normal and healthy lifestyle.
0 comments - Posted Feb 1, 1993
January 1993
This month Mr. Metabolism considers the case of Dr. Hu (pronounced "Dr. Who"), prompted by a reader's inquiry.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1993
Researchers from the Institute of Medicine, Sahlgrenska Hospital, in Gøteborg, Sweden, have concluded that smoking causes insulin resistance.
0 comments - Posted Jan 1, 1993
December 1992
A study conducted by a joint research group from the University of Melbourne and Deakin University in Australia has found that low-carbohydrate diets that are high in fat content can have a negative effect on blood glucose control in people with Type I diabetes. The report on the study was published in the November 1992 issue of Diabetes Care.
0 comments - Posted Dec 1, 1992
November 1992
Fetal tissue. No other topic in diabetes research is as emotionally stirring. Some say that fetal tissue is the key to progress, and perhaps that fetal tissue will even cure diabetes. Others claim that fetal tissue research is immoral because it produces an incentive for abortions. How important is fetal tissue research? Is it likely to produce a cure for diabetes? Are there alternatives that avoid ethical concerns?
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1992
A report published in the August 1992 issue of Diabetes Care predicts that the early morning high blood sugars (hyperglycemia) experienced by Type I diabetes patients could possibly be the result of their current insulin therapy. With a twice-daily dosage of combined human lente and regular insulin (HL/R) injections, blood sugar levels may rise from a lack of insulin early in the morning, when it is needed most.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1992
In a report published in Diabetes Care, October 1992, researchers from the Leicester General Hospital, Leicester, England, studied the relationship between height and the onset of clinical diabetes in children.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1992
Nearly 5,000 years ago in India, the physician Susruta described a disease "brought on by gluttonous overindulgence in rice, flour, and sugar," in which urine is "like an elephant's in quantity."
6 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1992
International Technidyne Corporation (ITC) of Edison, New Jersey, has announced that their Tenderlett finger incision device was been selected by NASA for use in space. In March, NASA sent ITC's Tenderlett device into space with seven astronauts aboard the space shuttle Atlantis I.
0 comments - Posted Nov 1, 1992
September 1991
Tamara Norris and Cyndie Flores are insulin pump users who started their own business selling pump accesories. In talking with DIABETES HEALTH, Tamara and Cyndie discuss their first experiences using the insulin pump, and their decision to go into business.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1991
Few studies have looked closely at female sexuality and diabetes. What are the special issues that arise? In this interview, Eileen Walko, MD, and Daryn Stier, MSW, LCSW, poignantly discuss what all women with diabetes should know.
3 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1991
We have known for years that insulin-dependent diabetes begins when a patient's immune system attacks and destroys its own insulin-producing cells. A logical strategy is to thwart the immune attack through drug intervention. In 1984, several newly diagnosed diabetics were treated with the immune-suppressing drug Imuran. Unfortunately, those tested had already lost a large proportion of their insulin-producing cells. As a result, most of those tested were able to come off insulin for only a brief period of time. The key, specialists say, is to administer the Imuran before any overt symptoms of diabetes appear.
0 comments - Posted Sep 1, 1991