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The Senate health committee will hold a hearing next week on the diabetes epidemic in the U.S., committee chairman Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said. Sanders, who earlier this year interrogated drug manufacturers about the high cost of insulin, told The Hill the hearing will focus broadly on the underlying causes of the rise in diabetes, especially in children. “Focusing on why we are seeing a huge increase, and have seen a huge increase over the last 30 years, in the number of diabetics in this country, and the relationship to that explosion … with what our kids are eating,” Sanders...

Mayor Eric Adams tamed his own diabetes — now a report commissioned by his Health Department is recommending a well-funded citywide campaign to curb the debilitating and potentially deadly chronic disease afflicting 1 million other New Yorkers. The report calls for the opening more diabetes treatment centers in hospitals in poor neighborhoods, overhauling Medicaid reimbursement to cover more diabetes monitoring and prevention programs, expanding healthier food options in underserved communities and sponsoring public health campaigns. The report notes an increase of amputations of people with diabetes and that the chronic disease disproportionately impacts residents of color.

Red Meat is an ancestral food for every human, including you. But, what if red meat causes diabetes? This would fly in the face of the results of 1000's of carnivores who've used a carnivore diet to reverse type 2 diabetes. And, if it's not true, then what's really going on with studies like this?

A study reveals a direct link between high insulin levels, common among patients with obesity and type 2 diabetes, and pancreatic cancer. The study provides the first detailed explanation of why people with obesity and type 2 diabetes are at an increased risk of pancreatic cancer. The research demonstrates that excessive insulin levels overstimulate pancreatic acinar cells, which produce digestive juices. This overstimulation leads to inflammation that converts these cells into precancerous cells. "Alongside the rapid increase in both obesity and type 2 diabetes, we're seeing an alarming rise in pancreatic cancer rates," said Dr. James Johnson. "These findings help...

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (Gray News) – A 14-year-old from Virginia was crowned America’s Top Young Scientist for inventing a soap that treats skin cancer. According to a news release, Heman Bekele, a ninth grader at W.T. Woodson High School in Annandale, won the 2023 3M Young Scientist Challenge last week. Heman developed Melanoma Treating Soap, a compound-based bar of soap designed to treat skin cancer. Over the next five years, he hopes to refine his innovation and create a nonprofit organization that will distribute this low-cost solution to communities in need. The final product came out to a shockingly cheap...

New research reveals a marked increase in several common conditions in the years leading up to, and immediately prior to, type 2 diabetes diagnosis, suggesting considerably earlier diagnosis might be possible in some patients. "These novel insights suggest an early phase of inflammation-related disease activity long before any clinical diagnosis of type 2 diabetes is made," says Dr. Adrian Heald. To find out more, researchers analyzed 1,932 adults with and without type 2 diabetes. The trajectory analysis revealed that for individuals eventually diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, a number of common conditions increased consistently in the years leading up to...

Drinking dark tea every day may help to mitigate type 2 diabetes risk and progression in adults through better blood sugar control, suggests new research. The study found that compared with never tea drinkers, daily consumers of dark tea had 53% lower risk for prediabetes and 47% reduced risk for type 2 diabetes, even after taking into account established risk factors known to drive the risk for diabetes, including age, gender, ethnicity, body mass index (BMI), average arterial blood pressure, fasting plasma glucose, cholesterol, alcohol intake, smoking status, family history of diabetes and regular exercise. "Our findings hint at the...

As Ozempic and similar weight loss drugs become more popular, Americans might start buying less food, particularly high-calorie snacks and fast food. Why it matters: That could radically reshape the food industry, and investors and food industry executives are starting to pay attention. Ozempic is approved by the FDA to treat diabetes but is also prescribed for off-label use by doctors for obesity. Driving the news: Earlier this week, Walmart's U.S. CEO told Bloomberg that customers taking Ozempic buy less food. (Walmart mined its own pharmacy and grocery data to pinpoint customer buying patterns, per Bloomberg.) "We definitely do see...

A sugar replacement called erythritol — used to add bulk or sweeten stevia, monkfruit and keto reduced-sugar products — has been linked to blood clotting, stroke, heart attack and death, according to a study. "The degree of risk was not modest," said lead study author Dr. Stanley Hazen, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Diagnostics and Prevention at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute. People with existing risk factors for heart disease, such as diabetes, were twice as likely to experience a heart attack or stroke if they had the highest levels of erythritol in their blood, according to the...

Prediabetes is a condition that precedes type 2 diabetes. Scientists now show how and by which mechanisms prediabetes can be brought into remission, i.e., into a state in which blood glucose levels return to normal. 1,105 individuals with prediabetes underwent a lifestyle intervention involving a healthy diet and increased physical activity for a duration of one year. Responders were the participants whose fasting blood glucose, 2-hour glucose, and HbA1c levels had normalized within twelve months, indicating remission. Non-responders were individuals who did not achieve remission despite losing weight. It was not weight loss that distinguished those who went into remission,...

Researchers have identified a mechanistic link between zinc levels in humans and the risk of type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease. Converging lines of evidence have shown that zinc plays a crucial role in insulin production and glucose metabolism. "We know that increasing zinc intake improves blood glucose control in people with prediabetes or type 2 diabetes, and people with a mutation in a key zinc transporter protein have reduced risk of diabetes." says Shek Man Chim. Chim and colleagues identified a mutation called SLC39A5, associated with increased circulating zinc levels. The team explored its function by genetically engineering...

Researchers from Pritzker Molecular Engineering, under the guidance of Prof. Jeffrey Hubbell, demonstrated that their compound can eliminate the autoimmune response linked to multiple sclerosis. Researchers at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) have developed a novel vaccine that, in laboratory tests, can completely reverse autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, and Crohn’s disease — all without shutting down the rest of the immune system. A typical vaccine teaches the human immune system to recognize a virus or bacteria as an enemy that should be attacked. The new “inverse vaccine” does just the opposite:...

New findings indicate that the type of protein in the diet is not as important as the overall amount of weight loss for those with type 2 diabetes. In a study, 106 adults with T2D were randomly assigned to either the high-protein or normal-protein diet for 52 weeks. Both diets were energy-restricted. The high-protein diet included recommendations to include lean beef in the diet, while the normal-protein diet instructed participants to refrain from eating any red meats. The team of researchers found that both a high-protein diet (40% of total calories from protein) and a moderate-protein diet (21% of total...

Treating newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes patients with semaglutide (trade names Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus) may drastically reduce or even eliminate their need for injected insulin. Those are the remarkable findings of a small study. "Our findings from this admittedly small study are, nevertheless, so promising for newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes patients that we are now absolutely focused on pursuing a larger study for a longer period of time," says Paresh Dandona, MD, Ph.D. A total of 10 patients were studied, all of whom had been diagnosed in the past three to six months with type 1 diabetes. The...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden, struggling to convince Americans that he's improved their lives as he runs for reelection, hailed his administration's Tuesday announcement that several drugs would be targeted for Medicare's first-ever price negotiations. The drugs include the blood thinner Eliquis, diabetes treatment Jardiance and eight other medications. The negotiation process was authorized under the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed last year, capping decades of debate over whether the federal government should be allowed to haggle with pharmaceutical companies. Any lower prices won't take effect for three years, and the path forward could be further complicated by...

Patients with localized prostate cancer have a good chance of survival, but mortality rates among those with advanced, metastatic forms of the condition remain high. Until now, the precise mechanism behind the spread of the tumor has not been fully explained. But a research team has succeeded in decoding the underlying cellular signal pathway and has carried out research using a common diabetes medication that could provide a new treatment option. The research team examined prostate cancer cells and identified the key factors in the regulation of tumor cell growth and the way they interact with each other. The protein...

Amelia had been intent on losing weight most of her life — but this concern had never caused the 35-year-old to consider ending her life. Last summer, the Canadian woman was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and prescribed the wildly popular “miracle” drug Ozempic (semaglutide) by her doctor, who presented the drug as an easy way for Amelia to shed a few pounds and manage her blood sugar. Amelia, who asked that her last name be withheld for privacy reasons, avoided filling the prescription for three months since she “didn’t want to focus on the number on the scale.” However,...

People with type 2 diabetes who drank the fermented tea drink kombucha for four weeks had lower fasting blood glucose levels compared to when they consumed a similar-tasting placebo beverage, according to results from a clinical trial. This finding, from a pilot 12-person feasibility trial, points to the potential for a dietary intervention that could help lower blood sugar levels in people with diabetes and also establishes the basis for a larger trial to confirm and expand upon these results. Kombucha is a tea fermented with bacteria and yeasts and was consumed as early as 200 B.C. in China, but...

Losing weight is often a goal for people with type 2 diabetes, which is strongly associated with being overweight or obese. However, it hasn't been clear what dieting strategy works best. A randomized controlled study of people with type 2 diabetes showed that study participants who restricted eating to between noon and 8 p.m. daily lost more weight than those who reduced their overall calorie intake by counting calories. Both dieting strategies produced similar improvements in blood sugar levels. Participants were placed into one of three groups: time-restricted eating, calorie restriction, or control. The people in the time-restricted eating group...

An extract from dahlia flower petals has been found to stabilize blood sugar levels of diabetes patients in clinical trials. Associate Professor Alexander Tups showed that the inhibition of brain inflammation—brought about by the excess consumption of a Western diet—markedly improves blood sugar regulation. His team then went on to discover an anti-inflammatory plant molecule that acts in the brain and potently improves the ability of the body to process blood sugar. "We then found that the dahlia plant is a cultivatable source of this molecule and that it contains two additional plant molecules that enhanced the effect of the...