Letter From The Editor

We are less than two weeks away from the American Diabetes Association’s 71st Scientific Sessions in San Diego, and we are starting to get a glimpse of what is going to be on the agenda. In addition to multiple education sessions and data on the treatment of diabetes there are …

Lately I have been doing a lot of education classes for patients and when it comes to complications of diabetes, patients often want to focus (no pun intended) on vision problems. During my discussions it appears that the fear of losing the ability to drive worries them a lot, and …

Welcome to our first edition of our new GLP-1 education series. I am sure that every one of you is familiar with the use of GLP-1 agonists in the treatment of diabetes. Ever since Bayliss and Starling discovered secretin in 1902, and speculated that signals arising from the gut after …

Have you ever seen a patient with lipaemia retinalis? This week’s case discussion focuses on a patient who has this and other problems, and how the “experts” would react. If you have been following our Homerun Slides series on treating neuropathy then you are going to want to check out …

This week there’s been a lot of conflicting press about how much of each food group people should be eating. The new USDA “plate” replaces the food pyramid and already has healthcare experts in an uproar. One USDA representative commented on NPR that the plate method will be better than …

This week’s Case Study deals with the misconceptions that we often make about how people listen to what we are saying and how we think we told them something that we really didn’t. This is especially true when we are trying to get them to break habits or do things …

Now that we are past Memorial Day, school is almost done, and the outdoor season is officially upon us, it is interesting to watch how patients look for excuses to not care for their diabetes. End-of-school graduation parties followed by vacations, cruises and visits to the family can challenge almost …

We often talk of the “whole team” concept when treating our diabetes patients, and that usually includes a prescriber, a nurse, a diabetes educator and a pharmacist, but this week’s Case Discussion offers up the problems a 68-year-old Greek-speaking woman with type 2 diabetes of 20 years’ disease duration was …

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the “flash diet.” This program requires the participant to take a picture of everything that they are about to eat, usually with their phone camera, with the idea that they might not eat as much. I convinced three of my patients to …

While you are reading this, I am in Las Vegas for the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists meeting. These pharmacists work with clinicians and residents in LTC and AL facilities and are specialists in geriatric medicine: they have their work cut out for them when it comes to managing diabetes. …