Letter From The Publisher!
This is from our upcoming April/May Professional issue.
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Who Would Have Guessed?
One of the most interesting characteristics of modern biological research is the discovery that a drug developed for one disease unexpectedly has a beneficial effect on another. That’s certainly the case with a drug described as a “triple receptor agonist” (TA), which was developed to treat type 2 diabetes. But scientists have found that the drug has a profound therapeutic effect on Alzheimer’s disease. Experiments with it in the United Kingdom produced what researchers have called “significant”—in this case restoring memory loss in lab mice whose brains showed advanced degeneration.
Our Cover Story, “Diabetes Drug Helps Reverse Brain Damage in Alzheimer’s” (page 6) details how this discovery might dramatically improve the lives of people suffering from Alzheimer’s.
While the news about TAs is good, the news on another front isn’t. Bad living habits can lead to a new liver disease affecting type 2s. The condition, “non-alcoholic steatohepatitis” (NASH), a form of fatty liver disease that ultimately can lead to liver failure or liver cancer. Fortunately, as is the case with other treatments for type 2 diabetes, changes in lifestyle, such as diet, weight, and exercise, can do much to shield type 2s from developing the disease. See “Diabetes Patients at Risk for Deadly New Liver Disease” (page 10) for a profile of the characteristics of NASH.
(The NASH article is something we hope you can duplicate and pass on as a handout to your type 2 customers. Just be sure to identify Diabetes Health as its source and include our URL: www.diabeteshealth.com.)
There’s a new wrinkle in the American Diabetes Association’s annual Standards of Medical Care. Previously the ADA issued the standards once a year. New developments occurring just after circulation of new issue of the standards had to wait a year before being folded in to next year’s standards. But no more: The ADA has announced it will update the standards on the go—as new additions to standard care emerge, they will quickly be added to the current year’s standards. “American Diabetes Association Issues First Updates to the 2018 Standards of Medical Care” (page 18) describes how the new procedure works.
Life in America often involves getting a group together to head to Washington, DC, and lobby Congress for a particular piece of legislation. In early April, reps from the National Community Pharmacists Association, did just that, pushing for approval of three bills that would improve medical matters for both pharmacists and patients: see page 16 for a full report.
Our short and sweet Research Reports, available in podcast form, start on page 22. This issue’s reports cover health plans, social media, pre-term births, and medical liabilities.
A Votre Sante!
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Nadia Al-Samarrie Founder, Publisher, and Editor-in-Chief
