Does Naturopathy Help Diabetes?

April 25th, 2012
Written by Michael O'Leary

Would you go to a naturopathic doctor if it would help you lower your HbA1c? A new joint study by researchers at the Group Health Research Institute and Bastyr University Research Institute has found that such an approach might help people with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes lower their blood sugar by twice as much as similar patients treated with conventional therapy alone. (Published site)

Victoza Wins Head-To-Head Battle With Januvia

April 24th, 2012
Written by Michael O'Leary

If you take Victoza to help control your blood sugar for type 2 diabetes, you can now officially wear the foam finger proclaiming your team is number one.

The FDA this week approved an expanded label for Victoza showing data from two large trials that compared Victoza head-to-head with Januvia®. In both studies, Victoza won 2-0 for superior blood sugar control and weight loss. (Published site)

Will Albiglutide Be Approved?

April 13th, 2012

Written by Michael O'Leary

British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline announced this week that it was ready to submit its once-weekly drug for controlling blood sugar for approval. The announcement came following the results of a series of clinical trials, called HARMONY, that have shown effectiveness without wowing investors.


As reported by MedPage Today and the Wall Street Journal, the trial results for HARMONY 6, released April 3, showed that albiglutide reduced HbA1c levels by .82 percent compared to a .66 percent reduction for patients taking insulin before meals.

Metformin Also Helps Pancreatic Cancer Patients

April 12th, 2012
by Michael O'Leary

Dr. Donghui Li, of MD Anderson Cancer
Center

A new study shows that people with diabetes and pancreatic cancer may live longer if they take metformin. In fact, those prescribed metformin had a 32 percent lower risk for death compared to those who didn’t take metformin.

Whether taking metformin might prevent people with diabetes from developing pancreatic cancer, however, is unknown.
This is mostly because the relationship between diabetes and pancreatic cancer is unclear. While about 80 percent of those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer also have diabetes, researchers have been unable to determine if the diabetes causes the cancer, or whether the cancer causes the diabetes.

A 2003 review of multiple studies of the link between the two found that there is no simple answer to which is the cause and which is the result, and that neither theory excludes the possibility that pancreatic cancer is both caused by diabetes and causes diabetes. (Published site)

Does Verapamil Help With Diabetes?

April 11th, 2012
Written by Michael O'Leary

If you are a mouse with human pancreatic islet cells in your body, taking a common drug for high blood pressure appears to reverse the diabetes-related death of those islet cells, which is good news for mice involved in diabetes research.

Dr. Anath Shalev, director of the University of
Alabama Birmingham Comprehensive Diabetes Center

The research team led by Dr. Anath Shalev, director of the University of Alabama Birmingham Comprehensive Diabetes Center, have found that the drug verapamil, which belongs to the family of high blood pressure medicines called calcium channel blockers, slows the progression of type 1 or 2 diabetes, at least in mice. But the authors think it may have clinical application in humans with diabetes, particularly since the drug is already FDA approved for high blood pressure. Their study appears in the March 22 issue of the journal Diabetes. (Published site)

Study points way to showing how vitamins affect brain health

April 4, 2012

Written by Michael O'Leary

You are what you eat, is a long held belief, but determining how nutrients affect our bodies has been difficult. Despite that difficulty, a group of researchers from Oregon Health Sciences University, in Portland, recently published results of a study that tried to determine the relationship between certain vitamins and brain function. (Published site)