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This Sunday, Nov. 2, will mark the end of daylight saving time for 2020. I am pleased to share that, finally, serious legislative considerations — in several states — are underway in the quest to end the biannual rituals of changing from standard time to daylight saving time (DST). During the last 3 years, 13 states enacted legislation to provide for year-round daylight saving time if Congress were to allow such a change and, in some cases, if surrounding states would enact the same legislation, according to the website of the National Conference of State Legislatures. Full-time DST is not...

Yellow staining shows CD*+T cells poised to target preproinsulin. The white outline on the right shows the perimeter of an insulin-containing islet in a patient with type 1 diabetes. The image shows that the preproinsulin-specific T cells can wait very close islets, probably poised to destroy the beta cells inside. Credit: Von Herrath Laboratory, La Jolla Institute for Immunology ============================================================================= Your pancreas is studded with cell clusters called islets. In most people, special beta cells live snug in the islets, happily making the insulin that the body uses to regulate blood sugar. But in people with type 1 diabetes, the...

Why brownies or a big açai bowl can make you feel like you’ve been out partying. After just two — OK, four — cheesecake brownies from your newly reopened neighborhood bakery, the headache hits. It's an hour later, and you just want to lie down in a dark room and never see another sugary treat again. It's worth wondering: Are sugar hangovers an actual thing? "Sugar hangovers are a real phenomenon," Dr. Scott Braunstein M.D., medical director for Sollis Health, tells Bustle. "However, the name is slightly misleading." Regular hangovers happen because your liver and stomach are attempting to clear...

LOWERING COST OF INSULIN FOR SENIORS: President Donald J. Trump and his Administration are lowering out-of-pocket insulin costs for Medicare’s seniors. Under President Trump’s leadership, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is announcing that many Medicare Part D plans and Medicare Advantage plans have applied to offer lower out-of-pocket insulin costs to seniors for the 2021 plan year.Across the Nation, participating enhanced Part D plans will provide many seniors with Medicare access to a broad set of insulins at a maximum $35 copay for a month’s supply of each type of insulin.In 2018, Medicare Part D also started covering...

Virginia lawmakers have passed a bill that would see insulin prices capped at $50 per month, potentially making the state the third to set limits on the cost of the life-saving medication.

At least 10 people in Oklahoma were hospitalized Wednesday night after apparently getting insulin injections instead of flu shots, CBS affiliate KOTV reports. Health professionals were administering what they thought were flu shots at Jacquelyn House, a facility for people with disabilities, according to Bartlesville Police and Fire Department.

UBC scientists have demonstrated for the first time a causal link between high insulin levels and pancreatic cancer. In a study published today in Cell Metabolism, researchers lowered insulin levels in mice predisposed to developing pancreatic cancer and found that these lower levels protected the mice against developing the disease. The findings hold promise for early detection and prevention of pancreatic cancer in humans. "Pancreatic cancer can be tricky to detect and is too often diagnosed at a late stage, making it one of the deadliest cancers," said James Johnson, senior co-author of the study, a professor and member of...

After aging out of his family health insurance and switching to a cheaper over-the-counter insulin sold at Walmart, a young man with type 1 diabetes has died. Josh Wilkerson was 27 when he died this past June, The Independent reported Monday. When he turned 26 and became too old to remain on his stepfather’s health insurance, his other option was health insurance provided by his workplace, a dog kennel in Virginia. But that plan didn’t cover his $1,200 per month insulin costs. So in late 2018 he began using the ReliOn brand insulin sold over the counter at Walmart, which...

Researchers led by a team from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston were able to dramatically reduce the pain of fibromyalgia patients with medication that targeted insulin resistance. This discovery could dramatically alter the way that chronic pain can be identified and managed. The UTMB team of researchers, along with collaborators from across the U.S., including the National Institutes of Health, were able for the first time, to separate patients with fibromyalgia from normal individuals using a common blood test for insulin resistance, or pre-diabetes. They then treated the fibromyalgia patients with a medication targeting insulin resistance, which...

Per-person spending on insulin doubled in a recent five-year period, according to a report released Tuesday. Individuals with type 1 diabetes spent an average of $5,705 on insulin in 2016, compared to $2,864 in 2012, according to a study from the Health Care Cost Institute. The dollar amount represents the combined amount paid by a patient and their insurer, and doesn't include discounts given later. The spending jump is largely driven by price increases, the authors wrote, and not because more people are using insulin. Between that period, average daily insulin rose a modest 3 percent, the report says. For...

Jeenah Moon for The New York Times On most afternoons, people arrive from across New York City with backpacks and plastic bags filled with boxes of small plastic strips, forming a line on the sidewalk outside a Harlem storefront. Hanging from the awning, a banner reads: “Get cash with your extra diabetic test strips.” Each strip is a laminate of plastic and chemicals little bigger than a fingernail, a single-use diagnostic test for measuring blood sugar. More than 30 million Americans have Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, and most use several test strips daily to monitor their condition. But...

The damaged immune systems of diabetics can be ‘retrained’ to stop them destroying insulin, scientists believe, following successful trials of a pioneering new therapy. Researchers at King’s College London and Cardiff University showed that injecting patients with tiny protein fragments prevented immune cells from targeting vital insulin. Type 1 diabetes develops when a patient's immune system mistakenly attacks the insulin producing beta cells in the pancreas. Without treatment the number of beta cells will slowly decrease and the body will no longer be able to maintain normal blood sugar (blood glucose) levels, leading to patients needing daily injections. But a...

New Inhaled Insulin Drug Helps People With Diabetes PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — National Diabetes Month is observed every November so individuals, health care professionals, organizations, and communities across the country can bring attention to diabetes and its impact on millions of Americans. More than 400 million adults were living with diabetes in 2015 and this number is expected to increase to around 642 million or one in ten adults by 2040. One in two adults with diabetes is undiagnosed. Daniele Hargendader makes sure to stay fit as a personal trainer. She often works out in Pennypack Park. Daniele also has Type...

Today’s Google Doodle honors the 125th birthday of Sir Frederick Banting, the first person to use insulin to treat people with diabetes. That achievement garnered Banting a share of the 1923 Nobel Prize in Medicine. Most folks know that insulin is a lifesaving treatment, but fewer know how it works. I wouldn’t be writing about it if chemistry weren’t involved in the story, of course. So let’s dive in. Insulin is a natural protein that regulates energy consumption and blood sugar levels in the body. When a person develops Type 1 diabetes, the pancreas no longer produces enough insulin. Nowadays...

Oh yes it is. "My parents were just vacationing in Europe (they go often so they're aware of how stuff works). My mom is diabetic and had a shortage of insulin while in France, they went to the drugstore and she showed the bottle of Humalog which is what she uses in the United States and the price in the United States is around $240 a bottle which is charged to her Medicare and insurance and can only be prescribed by her doctor." "The pharmacist recognized the bottle and without having to go to a doctor sold her a bottle...

Diabetes is a curable disease. As a dietary disease, it demands a dietary treatment. The principles are outlined here.

I can’t wait to get my next A1C test done (who says that?! but it’s true). I am now two-plus months into my use of new inhaled insulin Afrezza, and frankly I’m blown away by how well it performs (ooh, pun!) I’ve been hesitant to be too much of a cheerleader for Afrezza, because I thought maybe I was experiencing beginner’s luck – the thrill of any shiny new diabetes treatment can wear off pretty quickly – and given how controversial this drug is, I didn’t want to stir the pot unnecessarily. But sorry Naysayers, Afrezza is the bomb. At...

When mice with the human equivalent of Type 2 diabetes were injected with the protein FGF1, their blood sugar levels returned to normal over two days. Just one injection of the protein both regulated these levels and even helped reverse insulin insensitivity – the underlying cause of diabetes. Published in the journal Nature, the research on FGF1 could revolutionize diabetes treatment. In addition to being effective against diabetes, the protein has several advantages over current diabetes drugs. It does not result in dangerous side effects seen with other diabetes drugs, such as heart problems, weight gain, or hypoglycemia. Additionally, FGF1...

Scientists have made big progress on a “bionic pancreas” to free some people with diabetes from the daily ordeal of managing their disease. A wearable, experimental device passed a real-world test, constantly monitoring blood sugar and automatically giving insulin or a sugar-boosting drug as needed, doctors said Sunday. The device improved blood-sugar control more than standard monitors and insulin pumps did when tested for five days on 20 adults and 32 teens. Unlike other artificial pancreases in development that just correct high blood sugar, this one also can fix too-low sugar, mimicking what a natural pancreas does. …

A drug that was used to treat a skin disorder has shown signs of being able to treat aspects of type 1 diabetes. A small trial on US patients suggests that alefacept helps the body produce its own insulin, which is key for people with type 1 diabetes.