Letter From The Editor

Now that we have jumped into 2015 many of our patients will be trying to live up to their yearly repeated resolution to lose weight. They will look for every shortcut and newfangled device or product that will "guarantee" that this will be the year they finally reach physical health …

We sometimes think that if our patients are told what to do they will do it. We tend to forget that there is much more to managing diabetes with insulin than with pills. Patients who are very persistent in taking their oral meds can be completely turned off to taking …

This is the time of year when our patients start to think about their New Year’s resolutions and taking care of their diabetes is one of the things they often decide on. Unfortunately, this is usually used as an excuse to gorge themselves for the rest of the year because …

Here is a word that’s associated with diabetes that you might not know — micro­angiopathy. This problem affects between 10-15% of all diabetes patients and is often overlooked, even though it is very simple to diagnose. If you want to know what this condition is and how to diagnose it, then check …

We all know that when it comes to healthcare, "analytics" is a word that has jumped to the forefront. Hospitals, prescribers, and insurance companies all can earn more money if their analytics are good, and can be penalized if the results head downward. This same concept comes into play on …

This week there was some really interesting information about patients, hospitals, rewards, and penalties. Propublica Communications, a non-government watchdog of financial healthcare issues, reported that increasingly non-profit hospitals were suing low-income patients for not paying their medical bills. These non-profit facilities receive generous tax breaks in exchange for taking care …

Our pharmacy was recently included in a large training program from Novo to educate pharmacists on how to use the new FlexTouch pen. This new pen eliminates the thumb throw that makes it hard for many patients to delver larger doses of insulin. One of my colleagues called and asked …

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, and Happy New Year! I was cleaning out some old diabetes slide presentations from 2007-2010 from my computer and I happened to open a few of them to make sure I wasn’t missing any good slides before I deleted them. There were two that were patient-focused …

This past Thursday I got to see just how good cyclists can be when they’re in competition. I had qualified for the Florida Senior Games and was in Cape Coral to attempt to qualify for the nationals in the 60-64 age group. The first race was 20K and, although I …

In our main newsletter last week we had an item about the effects of TZD’s on metabolism and the MEK/ERK pathway. Further research shows that there is also a lot of evidence that pioglitazone is cardioprotective. This week, in our Homerun Slides, Dr. Stanley Schwartz discusses how this TZD has been …