Home / Donna Pacheco (page 3)

Donna Pacheco

Diagnosed Younger: Does Type 1 Onset Shape Later Risk?

Child, teenager, and adult with type 1 diabetes illustrating how age at onset may relate to long-term complication risks.

Does being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 6 carry the same long-term risks as being diagnosed at 16? Researchers have been asking that question for years. Increasingly, evidence suggests that age at type 1 diabetes onset may help explain differences in complication patterns later in life. However, age …

Read More »

After Gestational Diabetes, Could Your Neighborhood Shape Your Future Type 2 Risk?

Mother walking with her baby in a walkable neighborhood, illustrating gestational diabetes prevention and future Type 2 diabetes risk.

Diabetes prevention remains important long after a pregnancy affected by gestational diabetes. For people who have had gestational diabetes, the years after delivery are an important window for lowering the risk of Type 2 diabetes. Yet healthy choices do not happen in a vacuum. Where someone lives may affect whether …

Read More »

Beyond A1C: Can CGM Help Prevent Severe Hypoglycemia and DKA?

Person using a continuous glucose monitor to track glucose levels and help prevent severe hypoglycemia and DKA.

Continuous glucose monitoring has changed how clinicians and people with diabetes think about glucose control. Yet the next question is more important than whether CGM improves A1C or Time in Range. Can it prevent events that send patients to the emergency department or hospital? Growing evidence suggests that CGM may …

Read More »

The Treatment Stopped—Did the Benefit Last? New Baricitinib Data in Type 1 Diabetes

Baricitinib type 1 diabetes research concept showing beta-cell preservation and follow-up after treatment ends.

New follow-up research on baricitinib for type 1 diabetes addresses a crucial question: what happens after the drug is stopped? The original BANDIT trial showed that 48 weeks of oral baricitinib helped preserve beta-cell function in people with recently diagnosed type 1 diabetes. However, new follow-up research examines participants through …

Read More »

Beyond hs-CRP: Could suPAR Reveal Hidden Heart Risk in Type 2 Diabetes?

suPAR biomarker blood test with heart model and glucose meter representing cardiovascular risk in type 2 diabetes

People with type 2 diabetes can face substantial cardiovascular risk even when clinicians address familiar risk factors such as LDL cholesterol, blood pressure, smoking, and blood glucose. Could another blood marker help reveal some of the risk that remains? Emerging research on the suPAR biomarker in diabetes suggests it may …

Read More »

Can Weight Loss Delay Type 1 Diabetes? What the Pre-Symptomatic Data Really Show

Healthy food, exercise shoes, glucose meter, scale, and pancreas illustration representing weight and type 1 diabetes prevention research.

Efforts to prevent or delay type 1 diabetes have traditionally focused on the autoimmune attack that destroys insulin-producing beta cells. However, emerging research suggests metabolic stress may also influence how quickly vulnerable people progress to clinical disease. A 2026 TrialNet analysis found that autoantibody-positive people with overweight or obesity who …

Read More »

A Type 1 Breakthrough: Can We Transplant Islets With Less Toxic Immunosuppression?

Medical illustration of transplanted pancreatic islet cells protected from immune attack during experimental type 1 diabetes treatment.

Donor islet transplantation has long offered an intriguing possibility for people with severe type 1 diabetes: restore the body’s ability to make insulin instead of only replacing insulin from the outside. However, there has always been a major tradeoff. Patients need powerful immunosuppressive drugs to keep transplanted cells alive, and …

Read More »

Two Shots a Year for Hypertension? How RNA Silencing Could Transform Cardiometabolic Care

RNAi hypertension diabetes therapy concept showing an investigational injection, blood pressure monitor, liver, heart, and kidneys.

Poor medication persistence remains one of the hardest barriers to long-term blood pressure control. For people with diabetes, the stakes are especially high because hypertension adds to cardiovascular and kidney risk. Now, research into RNAi for hypertension in people with diabetes is raising an intriguing possibility: could an injection given …

Read More »

Could Dissolving Microneedle Patches Make Diabetes Injections a Thing of the Past?

Dissolving microneedle patch for diabetes shown on the skin alongside insulin delivery and glucose monitoring technology.

For millions of people who use injectable diabetes medications, treatment can mean living with needles every day. What if a small skin patch could eventually deliver insulin or other therapies with far less discomfort? Researchers studying microneedle patches for diabetes hope to make that possibility practical. These experimental patches use …

Read More »