A Cure for America’s Diabetes Crisis: Early Education
BY SATESH BIDAISEE: The greatest health threat to America’s youth, including Indian Americans, isn’t opioid addiction or cancer – it’s diabetes.
The number of children and teens diagnosed with type 2, so-called “adult” diabetes increased 5 percent every year between 2002 and 2012.
The disease dooms millions of Americans to early deaths. Treating it costs more than $100 billion a year. Consequently, it’s the nation’s costliest chronic condition. Perhaps the saddest thing about these stats is that diabetes is preventable. But efforts to stop young people from contracting the disease have failed. (read more)
Needle in a Haystack: Type 1 Diabetes Arises Equally in Adulthood
BY MIRIAM E TUCKER: Type 1 diabetes occurs with equal frequency throughout the first 60 years of life, according to newly published data from the UK Biobank.
The investigators determined that onset for 42% of the type 1 cases occurred among individuals ages 31 to 60, while 58% were diagnosed prior to age 30 years. Type 1 diabetes accounted for just 4% of all diabetes cases diagnosed among the adults aged 31 to 60 years, however, meaning it is hard for doctors to pick out those individuals. (read more)
Diabetic CKD Patients Survive Longer With Metformin
BY JODY A. CHARNOW: Initiation of metformin rather than a sulfonylurea as treatment for type 2 diabetes among patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with decreased mortality risk, a study found.
Patients with moderately to severely reduced estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) experience the largest absolute risk reduction, according to researchers. (read more)
Looking to cure Type 1 diabetes, investors front $114M to launch a pioneering human study at Semma
BY WENDY HOLDREN: Three years ago, Harvard’s Doug Melton published a landmark study outlining how he had successfully used stem cells to create insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells that were inserted in bulk into mice and successfully protected from an immune response — a breakthrough in regenerative medicine that bore real promise to provide a curative approach for Type 1 diabetes that could conceivably end a lifetime of insulin shots.
It was the culmination of 23 years of lab work, launched when his son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. And that achievement marked the beginning of something new in biotech. (read more)
Adults being diagnosed with the wrong diabetes, study finds
BY KATIE SILVER: More than 40% of Britons diagnosed with the condition are over 30.
Many of these are initially diagnosed with type 2, and receiving the wrong treatment can be life-threatening.
Charity Diabetes UK is calling for doctors not to rule out the possibility a patient over 30 might have type 1. (read more)
