Diabetes News

Doctors at three research institutions and the American Diabetes Association report that treating patients with prediabetes as if they had diabetes could help prevent or delay the most severe complications associated with this chronic disease, which affects about thirty million people in the United States. The authors included Lawrence Phillips, MD, from Emory University; John Buse, MD, PhD, chief of the division of endocrinology, and deputy director of the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute at University of North Carolina School of Medicine; Robert E. Ratner, MD, from the American Diabetes Association; and Steven E. Kahn, MD, from VA Puget Sound Health Care System and the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Adult diabetes rates have leveled off from 2008–2012 in the United States, following a doubling of the prevalence of the disease from 1990–2008, according to a study in the Sept. 24 issue of JAMA.However, the rates among Hispanic and non-Hispanic black adults continued to increase.

In a study in Japanese patients, Merck's investigational once-weekly type 2 diabetes drug omarigliptin provided comparable efficacy and tolerability to it its once-daily Januvia (sitagliptin), according to data presented at the 50th European Association for the Study of Diabetes Annual Meeting. Both omarigliptin and Januvia are DPP-4 inhibitor.

More than nine percent of the US. population – or 29.1 million people – have diabetes. Of this group, more than eight million are undiagnosed, and one in three people who have been diagnosed also have kidney disease.

In a comprehensive review of recent randomized clinical trials and observational studies of diabetes and nutrition, Joslin Diabetes Center and Harvard School of Public Health investigators have identified specific foods and dietary patterns that are beneficial in preventing and controlling diabetes. The findings were published June 7, 2014 in Lancet.

Overweight individuals with diabetes who lose weight by dieting and increasing their physical activity can reduce their health care costs by an average of more than $500 per year, according to a new study. The research is published in the Aug. 21 online issue of the journal Diabetes Care.

Diabetes education significantly improves outcomes among people with the condition, leading to reduced blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, according to data presented by the Diabetes Self-Management Education Program from New York-Presbyterian Hospital at the American Association of Diabetes Educators Annual Meeting & Exhibition.

Water sports, ghost stories by a campfire, arts and crafts, blood sugar checks before meals….

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s Invokamet to treat adults with type 2 diabetes. Invokamet is a fixed-dose therapy combining canagliflozin (Invokana) and metformin hydrochloride in one tablet. Canagliflozin was approved by the FDA in March 2013 and is a sodium glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly's Jardiance (empagliflozin) tablets to improve glycemic control in adults with type 2 diabetes. Regulators in the European Union approved the drug in May.