I have had this article for a while, but did not want to write an entire blog about
it. I feel that it needs some exposure, especially since the
president for medicine and science of the American Diabetes
Association, Vivian Fonseca, MD, of Tulane University in New Orleans
had to vehemently criticize it. If there is any truth to the study,
you know that with the guidelines just issued, the ADA would have to
criticize it to protect their newly published guidelines.
There does seem to
be some discrepancies in the study, but it is still worth knowing
about and pondering. Maybe this will encourage more studies that are
more definitive rather than the multitude of short studies which
cannot lead to accurate conclusions. One thing that
does stand out is noted by the authors - “an overlooked finding
in the UK study was that in non-overweight diabetes patients, the
drug, when combined with sulphonylurea, actually appeared to increase
mortality.” This combination
of medications (metformin and sulphonylurea) is part of the new
guidelines and we should know about this.
The next items are
all about the company Living Cell Technologies. Things are beginning
to move rapidly for this Australian company, headquartered in New
Zealand. First – LCT has
been successful in their patent applications to the United States and
the European Union. This will allow them to begin FDA trials in the
near future with their DIABECELL porcine cell transplantation into
people with type 1 diabetes who are hypoglycemia unaware.
The
product is already on the market in Russia and trials are underway in
New Zealand and Argentina. DIABECELL will improve the quality
of life of people with unstable type 1 diabetes though the
normalization of blood sugar levels, a significant reduction in
sometimes fatal episodes of unaware low blood glucose, as well as
potentially allowing significant reduction of insulin dependency.
The biggest plus is that no immunosuppressants are required
(my emphasis).
I am continuing to
read every press release I can to see what may be next and when. We
know that when dealing with FDA, little or no information will be
available until such time as it is coming out of trials and approval
has been granted for use or it has been rejected.
Also recently Dr
Andrea Grant has been named the new CEO of Living Cell Technologies.
She replaces Dr Ross Macdonald.
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