Spring Into Fresh Flavors

Take advantage of nature’s healthy treats this season. dLife columnist and registered dietitian Lara Rondinelli has fresh spring flavors that won't hurt your blood sugar control. Get a taste here.

Comments (0) | Digg This! | Send to Newsvine | Add to del.icio.us

Pick of the Week

If you have diabetes you've probably had one or more close encounters with ignorance about the disease. Couple that with a blood sugar low and you have a truly dangerous situation. One of the best d-bloggers out there is Kerri Morrone, and this week at Six Until Me she shares a story that had us fighting mad (and reaching for the Kleenex). Don't miss it.

Comments (3) | Digg This! | Send to Newsvine | Add to del.icio.us

Penny Wise and Pound Foolish?

The idea of universal health care - coverage for every American man, woman, and child - probably sounds pretty appealing to many people living with diabetes. No more out-of-pocket expenses and deductibles, and the uninsured would get the treatment they need. As we often hear, other countries have been doing it for years, and they're the model of efficiency....or are they?

A recent UK decision highlights one of the problems with universal coverage, and interestingly enough, it isn't that different from an issue faced by Americans under many managed care programs - cost pressures that deny life-enhancing drugs. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has recommended that Exubera inhaled insulin not be prescribed by national health care physicians for the treatment of type 1 or type 2 diabetes. The reason? The hefty pricetag.

Exubera, which already has regulatory approval in the UK and throughout Europe, is predicted to cost £1,100 per person per year (about $1,763) - and that doesn't include the cost of injected insulin that type 1 patients will have to continue to take. The UK has had government-run, universal healthcare coverage since the formation of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948. NICE is the branch of the NHS charged with the task of determing which medical technologies and treatments should be adapted based on their clinical and cost effectiveness. Although NICE acknowledged that published clinical trials of patients taking the drug have reported a high degree of patient statisfaction and improved quality of life, deputy chief executive Andrea Sutcliffe told the BBC: "Our review of the evidence indicated that inhaled insulin should not be recommended because it could not be proven to be more clinically or cost effective than existing treatments."

She added: "The clinical experts we asked advised us that using injected insulin is not usually a concern for the majority of people with diabetes." We wonder if they asked any 'patient experts' how they felt about the topic.

It will be interesting to see how high U.S. managed care organizations set the bar for coverage of the drug once Pfizer announces retail pricing for the product and releases it to the marketplace this summer.

The NHS is taking public comment on NICE's preliminary decision until May 10, and will issue final guidelines later that month.

Comments (2) | Digg This! | Send to Newsvine | Add to del.icio.us

Palate Pleasers for Passover

Passover begins this evening at sundown, and dLife has a variety of nutritionally-analyzed, kosher, diabetes-friendly recipes for your passover celebrations. While you're planning your menu, stop by and visit Friends With Diabetes to download one of their Pesach, or Passover, guides to enjoying the holiday when you have diabetes.

Comments (0) | Digg This! | Send to Newsvine | Add to del.icio.us

Scary Statistics

There has been much media attention given to the rise of type 2 diabetes in children in recent years, but very little data available to quantify the problem - until now. A new study of the prescription claims of 3.7 million U.S. children ages 5 to 19 revealed a four-year doubling in those taking type 2 diabetes medications. The study was conducted by Express Scripts, a pharmacy benefit management company that processes over 450 million prescriptions annually.

Comments (1) | Digg This! | Send to Newsvine | Add to del.icio.us

Good News/Bad News

The latest Annals of Internal Medicine* features a report card on diabetes care in the U.S. - and it looks like we continue to squeak by as C students. CDC researchers, using data from several national population-based surveys, looked at data from people with diabetes between the ages of 18 and 75. Among the findings:

The Good

• The proportion of people with an A1c between 6 and 8% increased to 47 percent.
  
• The proportion of people with fair to good lipid control was up 21.9 percent.
  
• Annual flu vaccination, recommended for people with diabetes, was also up by 6.8 percent.
  
• Annual cholesterol testing, dilated eye eamination, and foot examination increased by 8.3, 4.5, and 2.8 percent respectively.

The Bad

• The number of people with an A1c of less than 6% dropped from 23.4 percent to 16.4 percent (down 7 percent).
  
• One in five Americans with diabetes still have poor glycemic control.
  
• Two in five people with diabetes have poor LDL cholesterol control.
  
• One in three people with diabetes have poor blood pressure control.

The Status Quo

• Mean hemoglobin A1c did not change (7.7 percent is the national average for this patient population).

Clearly we still have some work to do.

*Source: Ann Intern Med. 2006; 144:465-474.

Comments (0) | Digg This! | Send to Newsvine | Add to del.icio.us