
New diabetes research takes a page from the past with a drug from the 1950s | Miami Herald
Prior to Daniel Dyner having open-heart surgery four years ago, he appeared to be in great health.
He had just moved to Key Biscayne from Venezuela, where he spent his time sailing around the world on solo trips to places like Trinidad, the Mediterranean and the coast of Africa. He swam nearly a mile every day and kept a strict diet.
The 69-year-old Dyner was on the first lap of his daily swim in May 2013 when he “suddenly felt funny.”
He immediately went to see Dr. Gervasio Lamas, his cardiologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach.
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“I remember this so distinctly,” said Dyner, now 73. “The guy said ‘stop’ and he ran over with two doctors. They said I had 24 hours to live.”
Dyner
Jose A. Iglesias [email protected]
The next morning, Dyner underwent open-heart surgery. After that, his sugar levels went “completely crazy.”
Now, Dyner is part of Lamas’ clinical trial at Mount Sinai, where Type 2 diabetics with a history of cardiac arrest might find a solution to their complications. The key? A drug developed in the 1950s.
To treat diabetes in new ways, South Florida physicians and researchers like Lamas and Dr. Camillo Ricordi, director of the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine, are looking to the past for answers.
Both are testing alternative techniques in hopes of bringing unconventional diabetes treatments into the mainstream.
In Type 1 diabetes, which affects about 5 percen
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