Articles

The diabetes drug pioglitazone (Actos) significantly improved psoriasis control when added to oral acitretin (Soriatane), data from a small clinical trial demonstrated. This could be an important finding due to the fact that many people with diabetes also have psoriasis.

Intravenous clot-busting therapy with tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) should be administered up to 4.5 hours from stroke onset in eligible patients, according to a science advisory from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.

Far fewer Americans are engaging in healthy lifestyles than there were just two decades ago, researchers say. So it is not hard to see why a diabetes epidemic is at our doorstep.

An examination of the neck arteries of today’s obese or diabetic young people bodes ill for their future health, researchers report.

This is the first major departure from the way we’ve been diagnosing diabetes for more than 30 years,” David M. Nathan, M.D., of Harvard Medical School who chaired the expert committee, told the press at the start of the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association. … Full Story

Scores comparable to standard therapy on heart attacks, strokes and CV death but doubled incidence of heart failure warrants monitoring by physician.

A1c of less than 7% is not a predictor of mortality risk in Type 2 diabetes and the converse is true in that higher A1cs do increase the risk of mortality. For every 1% higher A1c level above 6%, the risk of death increases by 20%.

No difference is found in mortality risk between drugs that reduce insulin resistance compared to drugs that provide insulin and, “Prompt coronary artery bypass surgery, compared to intensive medical therapy alone, had significantly better outcomes when cardiovascular events were considered in addition to death.

Intensive control is appropriate in the first 15 years after diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes. Initiation of intensive control in first 15 years after diagnosis reduces CV events; initiation of intensive control after 16-20 years results in no benefit; initiation after 20 years.

New research suggests diabetes is becoming a global problem, with more than 60% of all cases likely to occur in Asia. What is so unusual is that many affected individuals are not technically overweight or obese. That is, they are “metabolically obese,” defined as having a normal body weight, but …