June 7, 2019 — It’s been a wild ride. Almost 40 years ago, David Jenkins published the first paper to propose that the glycemic index of foods might be an important measure of nutrition quality. Back then, dietary guidance pointed to a low-fat panacea. Research continued quietly on the glycemic index. The pendulum swung from fear of fats to […]
May 30, 2019 — This is now unmistakeable. And it seems like a rare piece of good news. For the first time in decades, diabetes incidence is going down. The real question is, why? And the honest answer is nobody knows. A Trend That Started in 2008 Stephen Benoit and colleagues from CDC analyzed U.S. trends in the diabetes […]
May 20, 2019 — Today we’re at the WHO for the WHA learning all about NCDs and UHC. Alphabet soup for lunch. Obesity? It was hiding behind the chia seeds at the breakfast buffet. Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and universal health coverage (UHC) are big priorities at the 72nd World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva today. But within the global […]
May 4, 2019 — My, how things have changed. Barely more than a decade ago, the dominant drugs for type 2 diabetes caused weight gain. Most big pharma companies were cutting obesity research. Eli Lilly and Sanofi were riding high in diabetes care and turning up their noses at obesity. But now the tables have turned. Sanofi’s diabetes business […]
April 14, 2019 — Tomorrow is tax day in the U.S. Maybe you have it all squared away or maybe it’s not a worry for you. Whatever the case may be, it’s worth taking this moment to think about a tax we could all live without. Writing in Diabetes Care, Timothy Dall tells us that we’re all paying what […]
February 7, 2019 — Why does bariatric surgery have such a profound effect on diabetes? It’s more than you might expect simply from the effects on weight. A large portion of patients with diabetes and obesity have remissions after surgery. Even before they lose much weight. New research in Cell Reports this week points to GLP-1 secretion as a […]
February 4, 2019 — Three years ago, 45 global organizations endorsed guidelines recommending metabolic surgery to reverse type 2 diabetes. At about the same time the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced a big expansion of the Diabetes Prevention Program with great fanfare. But today, very few of the patients who could benefit from either of these options […]
January 11, 2019 — Gestational diabetes (GDM) is one of the most common complications of pregnancy. And it can be serious. As obesity rates are growing, so too is GDM’s prevalence. But new research suggests that we’re missing the mark with the first-line strategy for preventing GDM. A new study from Pennington Biomedical found that diet and exercise prescriptions […]
December 30, 2018 — The expectations are high. We are seeing some tantalizing research on the potential benefits of intermittent fasting. But as yet, we’re not seeing much in the way of definitive data on its effectiveness for delivering objective clinical outcomes. In fact, the latest controlled clinical trial paints the picture of a rather mundane miracle. In a […]
December 27, 2018 — How safe is a drug for type 2 diabetes that causes weight gain? This question pops up as we read a big new study of outcomes with second line drugs for type 2 diabetes. That’s because two types of drugs that cause weight gain – basal insulin and sulfonylureas – had a clear link to bad […]
