Doctors Debate Danger Of Popular Diabetes Drug After FDA Amputation Warning

Doctors debate danger of popular diabetes drug after FDA amputation warning

Many San Diego doctors are taking their patients off of Invokana, a widely used diabetes drug, after a large industry-sponsored trial found it doubled the risk of lower limb amputations compared with those taking a placebo.
With 23.1 million people in the U.S. diagnosed with diabetes, many of them are taking newer drugs to control glucose. But new research involving one of those drugs, Invokana, shows a doubled rate of leg, foot and toe amputations.
Patients are being switched to other medications even though the study’s authors say the drug’s benefits — a reduced risk of cardiovascular events including death, non-fatal heart attacks and non-fatal strokes — outweigh its risk of amputations.
The drug is prescribed for people with Type 2 diabetes. The patients in the trial were already at high risk for heart disease and other diabetes complications including amputations.
While a number of physicians interviewed said they still prescribe the drug to lower their patients’ glucose levels, attitudes among others began to change after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on May 16 issued what’s called a black box warning about amputations.
It urges patients taking canagliflozin, sold under the brand name Invokana, Invokamet and Invokamet XR, to contact their doctors “right away” if they notice pain or tenderness, sores, ulcers or infections in their legs or feet. About half of the amputations occurring among patients in the trial were of toes, while the rest were across the foot, at the ankle, below the knee and above the knee.
The FDA warning suggests physicians Continue reading

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Is Yogurt Good or Bad for Diabetics?

“Can Diabetics Have Yogurt?” This is a very popular question and in this article, we have tried to highlight the pros and cons of including yogurt in your diet plan if you happen to suffer from diabetes. While yogurt is considered a healthy option, the diabetics have to be really cautious of their diet. So, we have also included some guidelines which when followed will enable you to include yogurt in your diet effectively.
So, come and join in for the article “Is Yogurt Good or Bad for Diabetics?”
Facts About Various Yogurt Types
You get different types of yogurt in the market depending on the ingredients which go into the making of the same. The varieties found may include pain or flavored Greek yogurt, vanilla yogurt, amongst others. The following are some nutritional facts about each type:
6 ounces of plain Greek yogurt contains somewhere around 6 to 8 grams of carbohydrates and around 4 to 8 grams of sugar.
6 ounces of flavored Greek yogurt contains somewhere around 16 to 22 grams of carbohydrates and around 12 to 18 grams of sugar.
6 ounces of plain yogurt contains somewhere around 11 to 15 grams of carbohydrates and around 10 to 12 grams of sugar.
6 ounces of plain vanilla yogurt contain somewhere around 22 to 23 grams of carbohydrates and around 21 to 28 grams of sugar.
It is essential to know the above because when you are a person who suffers from diabetes, you have to be careful of the total amount of carbohydrates and other nutrients that you are consuming on a daily basis.
Benefits of Including Yogurt in a Diabetic Diet
The following are the advantages o Continue reading

UT Health San Antonio team cures diabetes in mice without side effects

SAN ANTONIO, Texas, U.S.A. -- A potential cure for Type 1 diabetes looms on the horizon in San Antonio, and the novel approach would also allow Type 2 diabetics to stop insulin shots.
The discovery, made at The University of Texas Health Science Center, now called UT Health San Antonio, increases the types of pancreatic cells that secrete insulin.
UT Health San Antonio researchers have a goal to reach human clinical trials in three years, but to do so they must first test the strategy in large-animal studies, which will cost an estimated $5 million.
Those studies will precede application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Investigational New Drug (IND) approval, Bruno Doiron, Ph.D., a co-inventor, said.
U.S. patent
The scientists received a U.S. patent in January, and UT Health San Antonio is spinning out a company to begin commercialization.
The strategy has cured diabetes in mice.
"It worked perfectly," Dr. Doiron, assistant professor of medicine at UT Health, said. "We cured mice for one year without any side effects. But it's a mouse model, so caution is needed. We want to bring this to large animals that are closer to humans in physiology of the endocrine system."
Ralph DeFronzo, M.D., professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Diabetes at UT Health, is co-inventor on the patent. He described the therapy:
"The pancreas has many other cell types besides beta cells, and our approach is to alter these cells so that they start to secrete insulin, but only in response to glucose [sugar]," he said. "This is basically just like beta cells."
Insulin, which lo Continue reading

Norwegian researchers make strides toward diabetes cure

This is a short-term step toward finding out how to make implanted cells secrete insulin in the body.
Further down the road the goal is to replace insulin injections and blood sugar monitoring with automatic insulin secretion in keeping with blood sugar levels by implanting a capsule containing custom-made cells for each individual diabetes patient.
“This is a step further in ‘spare-part’ medicine, where much can go awry and everything must fall in place before there can be a permanent, reliable healing of diabetes,” explains Helge Ræder, professor of medicine at the University of Bergen (UiB).
The study was newly published in Scientific Reports.
Too few donors
Nearly a century has passed since the first artificial production of insulin, enabling diabetes patients to survive with injections of the pancreatic protein hormone.
No real revolution in diabetes treatment has occurred since. The main treatment is still with insulin substitutes and various methods of injecting insulin.
Diabetes still requires daily follow-ups by the patients themselves. Those with type 1 diabetes have to gauge their blood sugar levels and inject doses of insulin depending on how much they eat, what they eat and how much exercise they get.
A few diabetes patients receive transplanted insulin producing cells from dead donors. There are not enough of these to go around.
“There are simply not enough donors to help everyone,” explains Ræder.
Another challenge is that the cells can be rejected or attacked and destroyed by immune defence mechanisms or could cause disease.
“This is why we a Continue reading

No Insulin Shots? Diabetes 'Cure' Under Study In San Antonio

A possible cure for diabetes is on the horizon for the millions of people who suffer from the disease. The important research is being conducted in San Antonio. The technique is designed to make the body produce insulin on its own again.
Diabetic patients have to use finger pricks to check blood sugar and insulin shots to control their glucose levels.
"It's part of my daily routine all day and at night before I go to bed, all of it has to be done," said type two diabetic Denise Shank. She has been a slave to this routine for 29 years. She’s among millions of people who have to take injected insulin to control their blood sugar levels.
"It's a pain and it’s time consuming," Shank added. "In other words you can’t just get up in the morning and put your clothes on and go somewhere."
"This becomes a big burden for diabetic patients," explained Ralph DeFronzo, MD, a world renown diabetes researcher and director of the Division of Diabetes at UT Health San Antonio. "So it would be nice if they could just go around, not ever have to take another insulin injection, not ever have to do a finger stick for glucose."
DeFronzo and his colleague, biologist Bruno Doiron, Ph.D., believe they are onto a technique that will be a game changer. It’s called gene transfer.
Using lab-created sections of DNA, scientists injected the pancreases of mice with a cocktail of three molecules delivered by a virus. That virus infects the cells, spreading the new gene information and sparking those cells to produce insulin. Sort of like a cold virus makes your nose run.
"Basically, what we’re goi Continue reading