Issue 537

Letter from the Editor, Sept. 5, 2010: Avoiding Errors When Switching Statins

As we move out of the dog days of summer more of our patients move into the donut hole of part D coverage and they come to us looking for less costly alternatives for their medications. Two of the biggest requests are for cholesterol-lowering and...

Tool for Your Practice: QuickChek™

QuickChek

Novartis Receives FDA approval of Tekamlo ™, a Combination of Aliskiren and Amlodipine to Treat High Blood Pressure

Tekamlo is approved as initial therapy for patients who are likely to need multiple drugs to achieve their blood pressure goals and as replacement therapy for patients whose blood pressure is not adequately controlled with either aliskiren or...

New Product: Tekamlo™, a Combination of Aliskiren and Amlodipine

Tekamlo™, a Combination of Aliskiren and Amlodipine Novartis Receives FDA Approval of...

Test Your Knowledge #537: A 24-year-old woman who has had Type 1 diabetes mellitus for 15 years...

A 24-year-old woman who has had Type 1 diabetes mellitus for 15 years was switched to an intensive insulin regimen that used an insulin pump 4 months ago. She has self-monitored her blood glucose 8 to 10 times daily since initiating...

Medicare to Cover Smoking Cessation

Medicare to Cover Smoking Cessation: Good news for seniors who want to quit smoking: Medicare will now cover tobacco cessation counseling. Previously, Medicare only covered smoking cessation counseling if a recipient had already been diagnosed with...

Diabetes Incidence May Depend on Socioeconomic Status

Diabetes Incidence May Depend on Socioeconomic Status: It seems that women who make less money than their counterparts are more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes, Canadian researchers found in a new study. The study, which was conducted over a...

Simple Solution to Preventing Risk for Diabetes

Simple Solution to Preventing Risk for Diabetes: A change in diet may help reverse the growth in the number of people with Type 2 diabetes. While this number has grown significantly over the past twenty years, British researchers say one specific...

Intensive Glucose Lowering Therapy -- Weighing the Evidence

A review of two intensive therapies to lower blood glucose levels in newly diagnosed Type 2 patients…

Urine Protein Analysis May Help Spot Diabetic Nephropathy

Certain urine proteomic profiles may be useful biomarkers in the differential diagnosis of diabetic glomerulosclerosis, researchers report in Diabetes Care… 

Lifestyle Over and Above Drugs in Diabetes Study

Intensive dietary advice has the potential to appreciably improve glycemic control and anthropometric measures in patients with Type 2 diabetes who are hyperglycemic despite optimized drug treatment… 

Therapeutic Potential of Aleglitazar, a New Dual PPAR Agonist

Given the prevalence of lipid abnormalities in patients with diabetes, dual PPAR-α/γ agonists (glitazars) could potentially benefit patients with diabetes. A phase II trial examining a novel dual PPAR agonist, aleglitazar,...

Switching Statins Often Leads to Wrong Doses: Not All Statins Are the Same

A third of patients on lipid-lowering therapy received inadequate doses of generic simvastatin after being switched from atorvastatin (Lipitor), an analysis of a large pharmacy database showed…  

Coffee Limbers Up the Heart

A daily coffee habit may counteract aortic stiffness in older adults with hypertension, researchers reported…

Insulin Users Have 50% Higher Cancer Risk; Causes Unclear

Diabetes patients who take insulin have a higher risk of developing cancer, according to Danish researchers who say they can't explain the link…  

Childhood Factors May Predict Diabetes Later in Life

Common office-based measures in childhood appear to predict the chances of having Type 2 diabetes later in life, researchers found…  

The Association of Hemoglobin A1c with Heart Failure among People without Diabetes

Elevated A1c (≥5.5–6.0%) was associated with incident heart failure in a middle-aged population without diabetes, suggesting that chronic hyperglycemia prior to the development of diabetes contributes to development of heart...

Mothers Who Don't Breastfeed Have Double Risk of Diabetes

Mothers who breastfeed their children have a considerably lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes when they are older compared to women who have never breastfed, according to researchers….

Risk Factors for Stroke: A Global Study

Studies of modifiable risk factors for stroke have been conducted largely in developed countries. Few data have been collected in the developing world, where 85% of stroke mortality occurs… 

Insulin Resistance Increases Risk of Alzheimer's

Rising numbers of people who are resistant to insulin or who have Type 2 diabetes may also have an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease according to a new study…