Diabetes News

A newly developed assay may help investigators identify novel drug candidates to protect kidney cells and prevent or treat chronic kidney disease. The advance is described in an article, entitled "A Podocyte-Based Automated Screening Assay Identifies Protective Small Molecules," published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN).

A cellular defect that can impair the body’s ability to handle high glucose levels and could point the way to a potential new treatment for diabetes has been identified by Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers. The CUMC team found that ryanodine receptor type 2 (RyR2) calcium channels in insulin-producing cells play an important and previously underappreciated role in glucose balance.

Among diabetic patients with severe heart disease, coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery is better than stenting (percutaneous coronary intervention) at improving long-term survival and reducing the risk of adverse complications, according to an article in the April 2015 issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has expanded the approved use for Eylea (aflibercept) injection to treat diabetic retinopathy in patients with diabetic macular edema. Eylea is marketed by Tarrytown, N.Y.-based Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.

New research in mice at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests vitamin D plays a major role in preventing the inflammation that leads to type 2 diabetes and atherosclerosis. The way key immune cells behave without adequate vitamin D may provide scientists with new therapeutic targets for patients with those disorders, the researchers said. The study appears March 19 in the journal Cell Reports.

African American men at elevated risk for developing type 2 diabetes may have fewer beneficial and more harmful intestinal bacteria, according to research presented by University of Illinois at Chicago endocrinologist Dr. Irina Ciubotaru at the ENDO 2015 meeting in San Diego.

Joslin Diabetes Center researchers said they have discovered a potential explanation for why people with diabetes are more prone to anxiety and depression than those with other chronic diseases that require similar levels of management, according to a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Sanofi's diabetes drug Toujeo (insulin glargine injection, 300 U/mL). The drug is a once-daily long-acting basal insulin indicated to improve glycemic control in adults living with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Toujeo is expected to be available in the U.S. at the beginning of second quarter of 2015.

People who have low levels of vitamin D are more likely to have diabetes, regardless of how much they weigh, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Type 2 diabetes is associated with worse performance on cognitive tests measuring abilities involved in the control of emotions, behaviors and thought, says a new study from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.