When the FDA approves a new drug it requires no proof that the drug is more effective than similar, existing drugs, only that it is better than placebo. Which is something to keep in mind as Bristol-Myers Squibb unveils what is sure to be a saturation advertising campaign for its new DPP-4 inhibitor, Onlgyza. This mellifluous moniker is the brand name for Saxagliptin, which alert followers of drug news remember as the Januvia clone developed ...

The great tragedy of Type 2 diabetes it's terrible complications are all avoidable, but they occur because family doctors ignore their patients' Type 2 Diabetes until their blood sugars have been damagingly high for many years. This was documented in a recent study published in Diabetes Care. Sustained Hyperglycemia Among Patients With Diabetes: What matters when action is needed? Jennifer E. Lafata et al. Diabetes Care, Diabetes Care August 2009 ...

This isn't a diabetes story, but I am writing about it because the manufacturer involved in this case, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), is the same company that sells and promotes Avandia and Avandamet to people with diabetes. The behavior of GSK in the way it is promoting blockbuster profit maker Paxil is very similar to what we saw with Avandia: complete disregard for the damage the company's drug caused patients.You can read an excellent discussion of the ...

UPDATE: Health Care Protesters Largely From Out of DistrictThe forces trying to keep us from getting a new health care system are bussing operatives in to disrupt congresspeople's meetings. These protesters are not people who live in the district. The pattern of using violence to shut down discourse is very disturbing. Contact your congresspeople and let them know you don't want policy set in response to gun toting people brought in from outside to ...

People with diabetes have been told for the past five years that they should shoot for a lower blood pressure target than the normal population, ideally one under 120/80. However, recent research is refining the usefulness of this recommendation.Blood pressure control is the second most import step a person with diabetes can take. That is because high blood pressure promotes both heart attack and kidney failure. These are among the most dreaded complications of diabetes. ...

A team at Joslin has been looking for more MODY genes and has found one they say should be added to the six currently tested for. This gene is named BLK. One of its many functions is to trigger insulin production.The discovery is reported here:Mutations at the BLK locus linked to maturity onset diabetes of the young and ?-cell dysfunction. Maciej Borowie et al. PNAS, Published online before print August 10, 2009, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0906474106 ...

This is a question a lot of my readers ask me. Their doctors may tell them that if they lost weight they'd reverse their diabetes and there are books on the market that claim the same thing. Unfortunately, the concept of "reversing" diabetes doesn't hold up well to scrutiny. The media version is that Type 2 Diabetes is caused by gluttony and sloth and can be prevented or cured by diet and exercise, but the ...

There have been quite a few bits of recent diabetes news that don't, individually, rate a blog post, but are well worth your attention. You can find them on my other blog, the one that tracks updates to my main diabetes web site Blood Sugar 101.This widget will give you the links: if (WIDGETBOX) WIDGETBOX.renderWidget('665c99f5-4ee7-4808-a83d-543abc2aa5fb');Also, check out this exciting bit of news which Scott Strumello has just brought my attention to: Exsulin Corporation ...

There is a major contributor to the so-called "obesity epidemic" which never gets cited in the press--the antidepressant drugs which are the most frequently prescribed class of drugs in the pharmacopoeia.Now a study that analyzes data from the Canadian National Population Health Survey (NPHS), a longitudinal study of a representative cohort of household residents in Canada, finds a strong correlation between the use of SSRIs, Effexor, and the development obesity. Lest you think that this ...

An investigative journalist has learned that the EPA has failed to pass on to the public the information that drinking water in four states and more than 40 municipal water systems contains levels of atrazine, a commonly used herbicide, that violate federal safety standards.Huffington Post: EPA Fails To Inform Public About Weed-Killer In Drinking WaterWhy should you care? Because researchers have found "There is an apparent overlap between areas in the USA ...

First off, I apologize for the drop off in post frequency. One "side effect" of getting a three book contract from a major publisher, as exciting as it is, is that I have to write the two sequels to the first book I sold. That gives me less time to read and report on the diabetes news. I'm still at it, but I'm blogging only about issues that stand out to me as ...

Following hot on the heels of my previous post about researcher malfeasance comes a new a new study just published in JAMA which illuminates the persistence of the discredited technique where researchers redefine study endpoints to come up with results that satisfy the research's sponsors.The study is Comparison of Registered and Published Primary Outcomes in Randomized Controlled Trials Sylvain Mathieu. JAMA. 2009;302(9):977-984. It's goal was to see whether requiring researchers to register ...

UPDATE: Sept 16, 2009: Mouse study finds metformin blocks breast cancer stem cells. This is a mouse study, which means it may be irrelevant to humans, but added to the other data linking metformin to reduced cancer incidence, it's worth noting.Science Daily: Diabetes Drug Kills Cancer Stem Cells in Combination Treatment in Mice.ORIGINAL POST:It's well known that people with diabetes have a higher risk of cancer. In some cases, undetected cancer may ...

I've been eating a high fat/lowered carb diet for the past 11 years. During this time I have published three nonfiction books, two of which made it to the tops of their Amazon category bestseller list and one of which, Blood Sugar 101, is currently showing up, on and off, in the top 100 Amazon bestseller list for all disease books. Over the same period, I've written the PHP-based Phlaunt.com software generator ...

It has long been known that people with autoimmune diabetes (Type 1 and LADA) are very likely to also develop gluten allergies. Now a recent study suggests that T-cells in people with Type 1 diabetes may be overly sensitive to wheat and that this sensitivity may be related to the development of the Type 1 diabetes.Type 1 Diabetes Linked To Immune Response To WheatMany people in the low carb community welcome this kind of ...

Doctors have been so brainwashed by the drug companies as to the superiority of their oral drugs to insulin that it is rare to find anyone newly diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes who was put on insulin at diagnosis except for those whose diagnosis occurred during a hospital admission where blood sugars were found to be over 500 mg/dl. This is true, even though there is compelling evidence that putting people with Type 2 on ...

What do you do when you are too poor or lazy to do real research to answer the most important question raised this year about the treatment of Type 2 Diabetes but want to see your name on a journal paper? The answer is obvious: A metastudy. I have blogged several times in the past about the flaws in several studies that are being used to argue that it is dangerous to lower A1c. You ...

As I blogged last week, it is liver fat not, as we have been told for years, visceral fat, that appears to be responsible for the metabolic disorders associated with obesity.Intrahepatic fat, not visceral fat, is linked with metabolic complications of obesity. Elisa Fabbrini et al. PNAS Published online before print August 24, 2009, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0904944106>The abstract of the above study is pretty tough going. Fortunately, you can read a clearer explanation of what ...

It's very common for people to invent an idealized idea of the past to support a point relevant to their current beliefs. For example, conservatives often refer to a mythical American past in which extended patriarchal families lived together in harmony. Demographers who have studied US census records found that the only time significant numbers of Americans lived in three generation families was during the depression of the 1930s when they were forced into that ...

There is quite a lot of evidence suggesting that fish oil, a mixture of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) has strong anti-inflammatory properties and may also improve lipid profiles and heart attack risk. You can read an excellent summary of a review that looked at this data here: Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Cardiovascular Disease Protection (American College of Cardiology CME)One small area of concern about the research cited is that quite ...

A brand new Dutch study published in PLos ONE came up with a dramatic finding that should reassure everyone diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes that their condition is not, necessarily, a death sentence.Since this study did not tout the usefulness any particular drug it got no play in the health media. But it may be the most important study published in the past couple months. Here's the full text of the study: Life ...

The enthusiasm for the low carb diet as a weight loss diet arises in the first few weeks and months when most people experience dramatic weight loss.What rarely gets mentioned--especially in the miracle weight loss books--is that very few low carb dieters ever get to their weight loss goal, especially those who start out with a lot of weight to lose. I am enthusiastic about the power of carb restriction to lower blood sugar to ...

UPDATE OCT 3, 2009: Today Amazon has finally cleaned up the mess left by the attempt by the pirate to sell a sleazy Kindle book as if it were Blood Sugar 101 . Amazon also stopped the sale of the pirate's diabetes book. However, there are still a bunch of other titles that have been hijacked by the same sleazy company the same way mine was on Amazon, and though Amazon unlinked a ...

The latest fad diets promise to reduce the fat in your liver. This is a noble aim--the amount of fat in your liver correlates closely to cardiovascular risk. Liver fat also appears to increase insulin resistance, though it is interesting to note that very recent research has found that pancreatic fat has a strong relationship to the development of Type 2 diabetes and may in fact be more important than liver fat.The problem ...

I have not been blogging much about recently published diabetes-related research papers because there has been nothing in any of the major journals worth noting.As usual, the published research breaks down into the usual categories: 1) Lots of research in rodents fed "high fat diets" that confirm the religious beliefs of the researchers, i.e. fat is bad. The "low fat diets" are always high carb/high fat diets. Even when they aren't the fact that rodents ...

A new Cochrane review of studies of the impact of Chinese herbal medicines on preventing prediabetes. It concludes that, Meta-analysis of eight trials showed that those receiving Chinese herbal medicines combined with lifestyle modification were more than twice as likely to have their fasting plasma glucose levels return to normal levels (i.e. fasting plasma glucose ...

This week was the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) meeting. This is the European equivalent of the ADA Scientific Session and in my experience it usually features some worthwhile research. Of interest to many of my readers was yet another study proving the efficacy of the low carb diet. This one was done by Richard Feinman, PhD, from the Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. His study found to the surprise ...

Every now and then a piece of nutritional research crosses my desk that is so poorly conducted that I can't resist the temptation to post it here and use it as an example of how people who are supposed to be scientists degrade themselves in the pursuit of results that will please their corporate sponsors.The study can be read in all its glorious full text awfulness here:Evaluation of Mangosteen juice blend on biomarkers of ...

The JDRF just sent me one of those mailings that makes me question whether to send them another dime.You know the kind I mean--the ones that contain expensive "gifts" intended to guilt you into sending them a bigger contribution, but which, if you have already sent a contribution or two, make you wonder why your money went to buy greeting cards or stickers and expensive postage for oversize envelopes instead of funding research that might ...

I frequently receive emails asking me about Gestational Diabetes (GD), which is the term used for diabetes that is diagnosed only after a woman, previously considered normal, displays abnormal glucose tolerance test results during pregnancy. Because obstetricians do a very good job of diagnosing and treating GD, I have not discussed it on my web site. If you are pregnant and have GD your doctors are almost certain to give you insulin to normalize your ...

Nothing has been dearer to the hearts of nutritionists than antioxidants. The concept, like all concepts promoted by nutritionists, is easy to understand. Oxidation is the highfaluting word for what happens when things rust. So taking the antioxidant vitamins, Vitamin C and Vitamin E is supposed to "keep your body from rusting." Except it doesn't. A slow trickle of bad news has been coming through over the past couple years linking antioxidants with bad ...

A new, high quality study which I cited in my Updates to Blood Sugar 101 blog found a steep increase in the incidence of retinopathy in people not diagnosed with diabetes whose A1cs were 5.5% or more. The study found that the predictive value of the A1c was much stronger than the predictive value of fasting blood sugars in the same population.At first glance this might be a very disturbing finding to those of ...

Several new studies, two presented at the 2009 IDF World Diabetes Congress and another published in the journal, Diabetes Care, conclude that the Framingham equation used by most doctors to predict your likelihood of developing heart disease even if you have diabetes.This topic was discussed at the 2009 IDF World Diabetes Congress. You can read very good summaries of two presentations there, one based on ADVANCE data and another on a study done in ...

A study just published in Diabetes takes a closer look at the notorious Veterans Study. I have blogged before about that study here: Why Doctors Are Telling Type 2s Not to Lower Blood Sugar And Why They Are Wrong.The veterans study is one of two studies that found that aggressive blood sugar control did not appear to make any difference in the likelihood of having a heart attack.But this new analysis of data from ...

Diabetes Month is here and World Diabetes day is coming, and I am not about to get all excited about either.Diabetes month is an excuse for the merchants who profit from diabetes to tout their wares. Though the drug store flyers may announce that it is "Diabetes month", I note that the prices of the diabetes test strips they are highlighting haven't gone down a penny-and are twice what they were in 1998 when I ...

The latest study to compare low fat with low carb diets came up with the finding that long term the Atkins diet caused more mood problems than the low fat diet. This has caused a flurry of posts from LC bloggers and forum participants dissing the study. But I've had a good look at it and I think people are missing some very important things when they dismiss this study outright.The full text is available ...

As we head into the holiday season it's time to reflect on a food-related issue that doesn't get the respect it deserves: portion size.A study discussed in Science Daily last spring comes up with a fascinating finding about how our minds work--one that explains why we may find ourselves stalled on diets or seeing inexplicable rises in blood sugar. When presented with pictures of the same food in two different portion sizes, people disregard ...

No, this is not a post about the "eating fat causes heart disease" fantasy, nor is it a post about Going Rogue, but the issue I am going to discuss here shares features with those topics the Low Carb community has been very resistant to confronting. The issue is this: The very same people who spend hours hunting through overlooked but well-designed published medical research to provide us gems that help us understand metabolism ...