The Diabetes Drug That Could Be An Anti-Aging Miracle

The Diabetes Drug That Could Be an Anti-Aging Miracle

In a slew of recent flashy endeavors, scientists, academics and exceptionally rich people have taken on the aging process. In 2013, Google launched Calico, its billion-dollar anti-aging research and development arm, which the following year formed a partnership with pharmaceutical giant AbbVie. Meanwhile, another major drug company, Novartis, is developing a patentable form of rapamycin—a biological agent discovered in the soil on Easter Island—which has been shown to boost immune function, and the company hopes it could become the first viable anti-aging pill.
But, according to Dr. Nir Barzilai, a scientist based in the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City’s Bronx borough, we might already have the drug we need to slow the aging process—and it’s dirt cheap. Metformin is an old, generic diabetes drug, known for its blood sugar–lowering properties and for being quite safe. It’s common, and it costs about 35 cents per pill. It has also been found to stall the aging process in animal studies.
In June, Barzilai, along with academics from the not-for-profit American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR), approached the Food and Drug Administration with an idea: the Targeting Aging With Metformin (TAME) study, to see if metformin could do for humans what it does for animals. It would be the first clinical trial to test if a drug could slow human aging. The FDA said yes, and since that June meeting the media has exploded with excitement over the purported “fountain of youth” drug, with rumors that it could extend human life span up to 120 years.
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Is Your Child at Risk for Type 2 Diabetes?

Type 2 diabetes was formerly found only in adults. But now doctors find the condition in a rapidly growing number of children in the United States. Poor diet and inactivity are at least partly to blame. Is your child at risk?
According to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine, the number of young people (ages 10-19) diagnosed with the condition increased by nearly 5 percent each year between 2000 and 2012.
This uptick worries experts. The longer you have diabetes, the more likely you are to end up with complications like heart attack, stroke, nerve damage, blindness and kidney damage. You’re more likely to see complications when your diabetes is not well controlled.
What are the risk factors for children?
These factors increase risk of developing type 2 diabetes in children and teens:
Family history of diabetes
Unhealthy diet
Lack of physical activity
Obesity or being overweight
Ethnicity may also play a role in risk. The NEJM study found the rate of increase among Caucasian children was relatively low, but higher among African-Americans and Asian-Americans. Native Americans had the highest rate of increase at nearly 9 percent a year.
What symptoms should you watch for?
Most pediatricians will talk about weight loss or other treatment if your child’s body mass index is 85 percent or higher at a doctor’s visit. Another potential clue that your child may have diabetes is acanthosis nigricans, or a dark discoloration of the skin in the body’s folds and creases.
Unfortunately, most symptoms of type 2 diabetes often don’t show up until the condition is Continue reading

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Cost of diabetes epidemic reaches $850 billion a year

(Reuters) - The number of people living with diabetes has tripled since 2000, pushing the global cost of the disease to $850 billion a year, medical experts said on Tuesday.
The vast majority of those affected have type 2 diabetes, which is linked to obesity and lack of exercise, and the epidemic is spreading particularly fast in poorer countries as people adopt Western diets and urban lifestyles.
The latest estimates from the International Diabetes Federation mean that one in 11 adults worldwide have the condition, which occurs when the amount of sugar in the blood is too high.
The total number of diabetics is now 451 million and is expected to reach 693 million by 2045 if current trends continue.
The high price of dealing with the disease reflects not only the cost of medicines but also the management of a range of complications, such as limb amputations and eye problems. Continue reading

Artificial sweeteners raise risk of type 2 diabetes, study suggests

Artificial sweeteners, which many people with weight issues use as a substitute for sugar, may increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to research.
The study was small and the detailed results have not yet been published, but experts said its findings fitted with previous research showing an association between artificial sweeteners and weight gain.
Type 2 diabetes is linked to obesity and rates of the disease are soaring around the world. Its complications, if it is not controlled, can include blindness, heart attacks and strokes.
The study was carried out by researchers at the University of Adelaide, in Australia, who wanted to investigate whether large amounts of no-calorie artificial sweeteners altered the ability of the body to control the levels of glucose in the blood.
Some of the 27 healthy volunteers who were recruited for the study were given the equivalent of 1.5 litres of diet drink a day, in the form of capsules of two different sweeteners, sucralose and acesulfame K. They took the capsules three times a day for two weeks, before meals. The others in the study were given a placebo.
Tests at the end of the two weeks showed that the body’s response to glucose was impaired. “This study supports the concept that artificial sweeteners could reduce the body’s control of blood sugar levels and highlights the potential for exaggerated post-meal glucose levels in high habitual NAS [non-caloric artificial sweeteners] users, which could predispose them to develop type 2 diabetes,” said the authors.
They presented their findings at the European A Continue reading