The proportion of U.S. women who develop diabetes during pregnancy — that is, gestational diabetes — appears to be increasing, which may be a reflection of the well-documented obesity epidemic, researchers from Denver report.
Regular exercise among women with type 2 diabetes may not only reduce waist size, but may also reduce the amount of visceral fat surrounding organs in the abdomen — the type of fat known to be associated with insulin resistance, a study shows.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Symlin, an injectable medicine to control blood sugar for adults with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Symlin is to be used in addition to insulin therapy in patients who cannot achieve adequate control of their blood sugars on intensive insulin therapy alone.
Pre-diabetes – the term, recently coined by health officials, indicates a partly elevated blood sugar level that will likely develop into full diabetes within 10 years if nothing is done to stop it.
Men with type 2 diabetes seem to be less likely to develop prostate cancer, overall, a new study indicates.
The new diabetes vaccine involves injecting a protein which stops the body from destroying insulin-producing cells. Currently those with Type 1 diabetes need daily injections of synthetic insulin because the pancreas stops producing its own.
Middle-aged people with diabetes are nearly three times more likely to develop dementia in old age – chronic loss of mental capacity due to an organic cause. Dementia may involve progressive deterioration of thinking, memory, behavior, personality and motor function, and may also be associated with psychological symptoms such as depression and apathy.
Scientists at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases have induced human insulin-producing cells of the pancreas to revert to islet precursor cells. These precursor cells are capable of expansion and appear to naturally and efficiently differentiate into clusters of islet-like cells. This work may help to clarify the natural lifecycle of the beta cell and may eventually have applications for diabetes treatment. The study appears on-line today in Science Express, the rapid publication web site of the journal Science.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Cymbalta, a drug for managing pain associated with diabetic peripheral neuropathy.
Diabetes triples the likelihood that postmenopausal women with coronary heart disease will develop heart failure, according to a study published in Circulation.