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Top 5 online stories posted in July
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Endocrine Today compiled a list of the top five news stories posted over the past month.
Healio.com/Endocrinology readers were interested in the rate of diabetes in Americans, glycemic variability predicting Alzheimer’s disease, and much more.
CDC: 100 million Americans have diabetes or prediabetes
More than 100 million U.S. adults are now living with diabetes or prediabetes, according to a new report issued by the CDC.
The 2017 National Diabetes Statistics Report, which estimates diabetes and its burden in the United States, shows that as of 2015, 30.3 million U.S. residents, or 9.4% of the population, have diabetes; another 84.1 million have prediabetes. The report shows that disease numbers have held steady — the 2014 report estimated that 29.1 million people, or 9.3% of the population, had diabetes — but the cost and health burdens related to the condition continue to grow. Diabetes was the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2015, and the total and indirect estimated cost of diagnosed diabetes in the U.S. in 2012 was $245 billion, according to the report. Read more.
Glycemic variability may predict Alzheimer’s disease
In adults with diabetes, increasing variability in fasting plasma glucose and HbA1c may be associated with increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease, researchers from China report.
Cheng- Chieh Lin, MD, PhD, of the department of medical research and department of family medicine at China Medical University Hospital, and colleagues evaluated data from the National Diabetes Care Management Program on 16,706 adults aged at least 60 years (55.2% men) with type 2 diabetes without Alzheimer’s disease to determine whether FPG and HbA1c variability, as represented by the coefficient of variation, have a significant and independent association with Alzheimer’s disease. Follow-up was a median of 8.98 years. Read more.
Severe hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia increase risk for rehospitalization in adults with diabetes
Adults with diabetes hospitalized for severe hyperglycemia are nearly nine times more likely to be readmitted within 30 days for the same condition, whereas those hospitalized with severe hypoglycemia are five times more likely to be readmitted in the same period, according to findings published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
“We already knew that adults with diabetes carry a high risk for hospitalization and unplanned readmission,”Rozalina McCoy, MD, MS, an internal medicine physician and endocrinologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said in a press release. “But the big question was, why? And what role did episodes of very high and very low blood sugar play in this risk? Because if we knew what the problem was, and ultimately why it might be happening, we could then try to prevent it.” Read more.
Medical treatment for primary hyperparathyroidism impairs endothelial function
Adults with primary hyperparathyroidism treated medically have decreased flow-mediated dilation compared with adults treated for primary hyperparathyroidism with surgery and those with normal calcium levels, study data show.
Researchers also found that vitamin D supplementation may improve flow-mediated dilation in adults being medically treated with low 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels. Read more.
Screening pathway could aid in diagnosis of monogenic diabetes
A biomarker-based screening method assessing levels of C-peptide and islet autoantibodies in patients with diabetes is an effective, inexpensive approach to identify patients with monogenic forms of the disease, including maturity-onset diabetes of the young, according to findings from a population-based assessment conducted in Britain.
“Identifying patients with monogenic diabetes, particularly [maturity-onset diabetes of the young], can be challenging,” Beverley M. Shields, PhD, senior lecturer in medical statistics with the Institute of Biomedical and Clinical Science at the University of Exeter Medical School, United Kingdom, and colleagues wrote. “Monogenic diabetes is confirmed by molecular genetic testing, but this is expensive, so testing all patients is not feasible. An approach that could be used to enrich for monogenic diabetes, increasing the proportion identified in those who undergo genetic testing, would be helpful.” Read more.