In ongoing research studies among Korean American populations, Dr. Kim also is leading two unique community-based research initiatives that are providing health literacy, awareness, and interventions to underserved Korean Americans at risk for diabetes and high blood pressure.
A research team at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and the University of Heidelberg has proven that a gene protects some people with diabetes from developing severe kidney failure or “end-stage renal disease.”
Nutrition 21, Inc., today announced the results of a recent placebo controlled, double-blind, randomized, single center study that demonstrated that Diachrome, a patented combination of chromium picolinate and biotin, safely improves blood glucose levels and cholesterol metabolism in people with type 2 diabetes.
Many individuals with type 2 diabetes are diabetic because the cells of their body no longer respond to the hormone insulin, which is crucial for lowering blood sugar levels (blood glucose levels). However, before individuals become clinically diabetic their body tries to compensate for the increasing resistance to the effects of insulin by increasing both the amount of insulin secreted and the mass of insulin-secreting cells (beta cells) in the pancreas.
Undernourished women who take a vitamin and mineral supplement while pregnant may be less likely than women taking only iron and folic acid supplements to have babies weighing less than 2,500 grams, and their newborns may be less likely to have morbidity in the first seven days of life, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins and Yale university medical schools have found that a simple blood test to measure uric acid, a measure of kidney function, might reveal a risk factor for cognitive problems in old age. Of 96 community-dwelling adults aged 60 to 92 years, those with uric-acid levels at the high end of the normal range had the lowest scores on tests of mental processing speed, verbal memory and working memory.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY) and Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. announced Otsuka has been granted exclusive rights in Japan to develop and commercialize the investigational compound saxagliptin, being studied for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes. Saxagliptin, discovered by Bristol-Myers Squibb, is a dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitor currently in Phase III development in the United States and Europe.
Effective treatment of hyperglycaemia and strict glycaemic control are key to reducing microvascular complications in patients with type 2 diabetes.
A study of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) provides further evidence that calpain-10, the “diabetes gene,” is related to PCOS susceptibility. PCOS affects up to five percent of the female population, and those diagnosed with the disease have a 2- to 7-fold risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus. The data suggest that one area of the gene, the SNP ins/del-19, may be related to both PCOS and type 2 diabetes.
Diabetes patients starting out on GlaxoSmithKline drug Avandia have a better chance of keeping blood sugar levels within safe limits than those given older medicines, revealed after a clinical trial by Glaxo.