Diabetes News

Women with diabetes have a 34% higher risk of having a heart attack and other complications as they age than men with the disease, according to a study conducted in Tuscany, Italy. The study, led by Dr. Giuseppe Seghieri from the Regional Health Agency in Florence, Italy, was presented at this year's annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.

More than half of Asian Americans and nearly half of Hispanic Americans with diabetes are undiagnosed, according to researchers from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Their results were published Sept. 8 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is strengthening its warning that the type 2 diabetes drugs Invokana and Invokamet (canagliflozin) can increase the risk of bone fractures. The agency also added new information about decreased bone mineral density in patients who take the drug.

A study of data from 2011 to 2012 estimates the prevalence of diabetes among U.S. adults was 12–14% and the prevalence of prediabetes was 37–38%, indicating that about half of the U.S. adult population has either diabetes or prediabetes. The study is published in the Sept. 8 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, and indicates that data from recent years suggests that the increasing prevalence of diabetes may be leveling off.

Among patients with diabetes and kidney disease the addition of the medication finerenone compared with placebo resulted in improvement in albuminuria, according to a study in the Sept. 1 issue of JAMA.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Synjardy (empagliflozin and metformin hydrochloride) tablets to treat adults with type 2 diabetes. The drug is manufacutured by Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Eli Lilly and Company.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the first continuous glucose monitoring system sends glucose data directly to a smartphone without the need to carry a separate receiver. The Dexcom G5 Mobile Continuous Glucose Monitoring System has wireless Bluetooth technology built into the device transmitter.

Using an animal model, researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have found that dietary iron intake, equivalent to heavy red meat consumption, suppresses leptin, a hormone that regulates appetite.

Editor's note: This article was originally published May 29 on Home Dialysis Central's KidneyViews blog.

A new study conducted by researchers at Case Western Reserve University shows how high blood sugar unleashes destructive molecules that interfere with the body’s natural infection-control defenses.