Finally some good news for Type 2 Diabetics, drug makers Bristol-Myers Squibb and partners Astrazeneca PLC had their latest drug Onglyza approved. Onglyza reduces blood sugar levels in patients with type 2 diabetes, which affects 24 million people in the U.S.

Bristol-Myers Squibb

The drug is the first to gain approval since the agency issued new testing guidelines for diabetes treatments last year. Concerns about heightened risks of heart attack with GlaxoSmithKline’s pill Avandia created a storm of controversy around the FDA and the safety standards for popular diabetes treatments.

Many Type 2 diabetics that I have spoke with have a tough time keeping their levels down, while they still produce some insulin in most cases, it’s a guessing game of how much. The amount of insulin they are producing can change day to day and be affected by mood, emotions, weight and many other variables. Many say they avoid eating pasta, rice and other food high in carbohydrates or sugar all together. They just cannot find a way to control their sugar levels afterward so it isn’t worth it.

There is still some concern with those patients that have heart conditions even though there was no sign higher rates of heart attack, stroke and other problems. Despite such evidence, the FDA said it will require the companies to conduct a follow-up study examining those problems in high-risk patients, including the elderly and those with existing heart conditions.

Hopefully Onglyza will help many of the patients out there with type 2 diabetes that are having trouble with high levels. The drug has not been tested on patients using insulin so it will not be prescribed to those type 2 patients that are currently injecting insulin.

Further information on Onglyza can be found Here

For those of you who do not know what dawn phenomenon is, it is simply an increase in blood sugar in the middle of the night or sometimes referred to as the “dawn effect”. Typically between 4:00 AM and 8:00 AM the sugar levels of some diabetics rise abnormally. Some researchers say that it is due to an increase in hormone production such as epinephrine, cortisol, glucagon and other growth hormones. Some of our hormones tell our liver to release glucose to give us the fuel we need when we wake up. But when these hormones are out of balance with the hormone insulin, the liver releases too much glucose.

For me this was a frustrating thing since I was always trying to perfect my levels in my late teens. It would drive me crazy that no matter how well I left things before bed I would wake up ridiculously high in the morning. After explaining this to my doctor she recommended getting on an insulin pump. I nodded my head and acted interested but after leaving thought to myself; “there is no way I am going to have something attached to me like that”. This is back when cell phones were still pretty large and couldn’t fit in your pocket, so as a guy you had to have a belt clip. All I could think about was having this big pump and a big cell phone on my belt at the same time. Then again going some places like an amusement park was difficult because you cant really carry around a bag the entire time, so you use a locker. The lockers are always on the other end of the park from where you decide you are going to stop and eat and that’s where you have your shots. One of my biggest fears was one of my friends joking around and tackling me or hitting the injection site ( guys in their teens do these things without any notice thinking they are a super hero) and ripping it out. That being one of my main fears I had, the older I got the better of an idea it became.

About 3 and a half years ago I decided to get the pump, insurance was paying for it and at this point there was no reason not to get it. It has not only changed my life completely but has allowed me to have near perfect levels in the morning. Basal (the insulin that trickles in slowly throughout the day) rates can be set to different levels throughout the day. In the middle of the night, or morning however you look at it I set a peak in my basal rate. So from 12 AM to 3AM my basal rate is .85 and then at 3 AM it jumps up to 1.50 to compensate for any increase I would experience from dawn phenomenon. This insulin pump has completely changed my morning levels which make it SO much easier to get out of bed every morning.

Researchers from Duke University Medical Center have analyzed data from nearly 58,000 patients included in the Bariatric Outcomes Longitudinal Database (BOLD), the largest repository of medical information on people who’ve undergone the weight-loss surgery.

Only about 10 percent had complications, according to the study, which was to be presented Wednesday at the annual meeting of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, in Grapevine, Texas.
One of the most common complaints found was nausea or vomiting, though researchers said they had not yet completed their analysis. Total mortality was less than 1 percent.

“This is further evidence, using the world’s largest collection of information about bariatric surgery, to support that it is a safe and valuable treatment option for patients who suffer from morbid obesity,” said lead study author Dr. Eric J. DeMaria, vice chair of the department of surgery at Duke.

There were two other studies also to be presented Wednesday found that weight-loss surgery can lead to the long-term remission of diabetes.

Researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University examined 177 morbidly obese patients with type 2 diabetes who underwent gastric bypass surgery, the most common weight-loss procedure, between 1993 and 2003.

Almost 90 percent of the patients experienced a return to normal blood sugar levels within the first year. And about 60 percent were still diabetes-free five to 16 years later, according to the study.

Those most likely to have their diabetes return were those who were insulin dependent at the time of the surgery, meaning their disease was more severe.

Patients with Type 2 Diabetes may soon get a very different treatment approach: A drug that helps control blood sugar via the brain — an idea sparked, surprisingly, by the metabolism of migrating birds.

The Food and Drug Administration approved Cycloset, maker VeroScience Inc announced. It’s a new version of an old drug called bromocriptine, used in higher doses to treat Parkinson’s disease and a few other conditions. But unlike its older parent, Cycloset is formulated to require a low, quick-acting dose taken just in the morning — not any other time of day.

That timing provides a increase in a brain chemical that seems to reset a body clock that in turn helps control metabolism in Type 2 diabetes said VeroScience’s Anthony Cincotta, who led the drug’s development.

Several company studies suggest that one morning dose helped lower the usual post-meal blood sugar rise at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Over six months, 35 percent of Cycloset users reached recommended average blood sugar levels, compared with 10 percent of diabetics given a dummy drug, Cincotta said.

You may be wondering where the birds come into the picture…  Years ago, Louisiana State University researchers were studying how migrating birds arrived at their destinations without being emaciated. They develop seasonal insulin resistance, the very condition that in people leads to Type 2 diabetes.

Patients with Type 2 diabetes don’t have those seasonal variations but the theory is the dopamine plays a role anyway.

The researchers discovered a biological clock — in the brain’s hypothalamus — that controlled when the metabolism change kicked in for the birds, and also in hibernating mammals. Different concentrations of certain brain chemicals, including dopamine, at different times of day dictated whether the bird metabolized like a fall bird or a summer bird, said Cincotta.

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Two studies conducted in March at the Peninsula Medical School in the South West of England, the University of Brighton and the Department of Pathology at Glasgow Royal Infirmary provide evidence that common viruses may cause childhood Diabetes, paving the way for potential vaccines against the the disease, researchers said.

One team showed that enteroviruses — which normally cause colds, vomiting or diarrhea — were found frequently in the pancreases of young people who had recently died from type 1 diabetes, sometimes called juvenile diabetes, but not in healthy samples. This was a detailed study of a unique collection of pancreases from 72 young people who died less than a year after the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes.

This suggests a virus could trigger the disease in children genetically predisposed to the condition, which affects an estimated 440,000 people worldwide, said Alan Foulis of the Royal Infirmary in Glasgow, who worked on one of the studies.

Type 1 diabetes usually starts in young children and results from the destruction of the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. Patients who develop type 1 diabetes have to take several daily injections of insulin for the rest of their lives. The condition affects around 300,000 people in the UK , including 20,000 children under the age of 15. There are a further estimated 440,000 cases of type 1 diabetes in children worldwide, with more than a fifth living in Europe.

It is thought that children who develop type 1 diabetes inherit a genetic susceptibility to the disease, but studies of identical twins have shown that when one twin has the disease, the other twin will only have approximately a 40 percent chance of developing diabetes – suggesting that other factors are involved.

By contrast, the researchers hardly ever saw infected beta cells in tissue samples taken from 50 children without diabetes, they reported in the journal Diabetologia.

The researchers also found a large proportion of these infected cells in adults with the more common type 2 diabetes, suggesting that viruses may also trigger this form of the disease in some people as well.

A second study from Cambridge University researchers found that rare genetic mutations in a gene involved with the body’s response to viruses reduce the risk of juvenile diabetes.

They looked at 480 young people with type 1 diabetes and another 480 healthy people to identify the gene and the variants involved.

“We have pinpointed a specific gene, which acts as a warning report for virus infection,” John Todd, a Cambridge University researcher, who worked on a study published in the journal Science. “Not only have we found a specific gene but this gene also has an intriguing function in dealing with virus infection.”

While Todd stated that many environmental factors besides viruses could be contributing to type 1 diabetes, Foulis and his team said they wanted to whittle down the some 100 enteroviruses to find which ones played the main roles.

Doing this, and better understanding of how cells respond to viral infection, are steps toward a vaccine that could one day protect children against diabetes, Foulis said.

“The aim would be for a vaccine that would prevent many cases of type 1 diabetes,” he added.

With the swine Flu grabbing the headlines lately I thought I would post some information about how we can avoid putting ourselves at risk.

Since 1997 experts have warned us of a horrific worldwide influenza outbreak, when the first human cases of so-called H5N1 avian influenza were reported in Hong Kong.  Two years ago it was the bird-flu but that didnt ripen into a pandemic. Now we are sitting and waiting to see what will become of the latest – Swine Flu.

Decreasing Chances:

Some of the following may seem very simple but can really help decrease chances for infection.

1. Take the time to learn about the Swine Flu now, prepare yourself for all of the possibilities now.

2. Practice CDC-recommended hygiene techniques that we all should be using on a daily basis anyway:

• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze, and throw the tissue away after you use it.
• Try not to touch your eyes, nose, or mouth since germs can spread this way.  Your children will learn this quickly if you teach them.
• Get in the habit of washing your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. If you are not near water, use an alcohol-based hand cleaner.  Although influenza spreads by respiratory droplets from coughing and sneezing, it can be carried on other surfaces.

3. Purchase face masks now rather than if and when a pandemic begins as they will be harder to come by. They are only a few dollars each and are great to have on hand. (Masks with a rating of N95 or higher are apt to be more protective.)

4. Plan ways to minimize contact with others whether it is through business or school. Large public events, buffets, picnics are all places where we can cut back with human contact now.

Important Websites:

Confirmed cases of swine flu in the U.S. are tracked by the CDC and recent swine flu news can be found at the World Health Organization.  Check travel advisories if you are contemplating travel.

There have been numerous people across the internet and on the streets claiming that Monavie has “cured” or helped sugar levels of diabetics dramatically. Being a diabetic myself I have had people approach me or call me telling me the wonders of this juice. I am a little skeptical knowing this is a business and they are trying to get me hooked into buying a case a month or however it works. I would like to hear from a diabetic using Monavie and hear what it has done for you. The last time I asked a Monavie representative any questions about the claim they were making they had no clue. They didnt even know if the claim was made from a Type 1 diabetic or a Type 2 diabetic… even further they didnt know the difference.

To my understanding most Type 2 diabetics (correct me if I am wrong because I am type 1) can control their sugar levels by eating differently. I am sure there are a lot of cases where the patient could start eating an entirely different way and have near normal sugar levels. So with that being said Monavie has a ton of fruit in it that would fill you up and maybe replace that pasta you at least a portion of a meal in your day. Cutting back the amount of insulin (type 1) or lowering the levels (type 2) you might have experienced without it. Thats just a thought and I am by no means an expert. I would love to hear input from those using it.

I am pretty excited to see this even though my vials of insulin say right on them “Do not take this medication with alcohol”. Recent studies have shown a chemical found in the skins of red grapes and in red wine — can improve the sensitivity of mice to the hormone insulin, according to a report in the October issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication.

I personally would like to know how many glasses of wine these mice are drinking and at what rate will I become more sensitive to the insulin I am taking. I have passed out once in my entire life due to low blood sugar and it was supposedly from the wine I had the night before so I must share this story with all of you. Its quite funny actually! I was working at an Italian restaurant in my early 20′s and after a long night of work I decided to have a glass of red wine at the bar with some co-workers. That glass of red wine turned into about 2 or 3 and then I ended up heading home knowing I had to be back at work for a large event with about 60 guests the next morning. I was one of two people working the event and I had to get a good night of sleep to be on top of things. I went home, went to bed, woke up later than expected and grabbed a granola bar on my way out of the door. I arrived at work, checked my sugar after the granola bar and it was about 165. I took about 3 units and ran into work to start getting ready for the party that was starting in a couple hours. After running up and down the stairs about 40 times with glasses, plates, silverware, and table cloths, I started feeling a little weird and found myself standing in the back of the kitchen fairly close to the line where the chefs cook. Whatever happened after that is still a blur, I re-gained consciousness outside when one of the chefs was shaking me. They were able to give me some orange juice (luckily the knew what was going on and knew how to react) and then I was fine in about 10-15 minutes. At about this time the ambulance arrived because one of my managers thought I was having a heart attack and called the paramedics. The paramedic I spoke with wanted to find out what happened and why it was so sudden. After telling him my story of the last 24 hours he said that alcohol actually lowers blood sugar levels on an empty stomach and to ALWAYS make sure I had some thing in my stomach if I am having a few drinks. Now this could be exactly as described above where the red wine I had the night before was just making my body a little more sensitive to the insulin I took that night and the next morning after the granola bar… I have no idea. I am not sure how long after your body is “extra sensitive” to insulin. One thing I must add to this story is; as I was sitting in a chair regaining myself after the orange juice, I noticed my pant leg was soaked. I asked one of the chefs what the heck was on me and he said ” Oh, there was a huge container filled with scrambled eggs for brunch and you decided to grab onto that as you fell” Needless to say the chefs were not only freaked out but they had to “86″ the scrambled eggs for the rest of the day!

Well the video pretty much says it all, this is huge and will allow the limits of federal funding for stem cell research to be lifted so that we can make some advancements over the next 10 -15 years. The possibilities are endless!