Cancer Drugs Find New Role as Insulin Regenerators
Both drugs are already approved by the FDA—they just need to be tested and re-approved as diabetes treatments.
By Adrianna Nine January 12, 2024 https://www.extremetech.com/science/can ... generators
A pair of pharmaceuticals currently used to treat cancer could find its way into some people’s diabetes care regimens. New research led by Australia’s Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute shows that small molecule inhibitors GSK126 and Tazemetostat can be repurposed to stabilize insulin production in people with type 1 diabetes. And because both drugs are already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), there are fewer questions about their inherent risks.
Type 1 diabetes is characterized by inactive or missing β-cells typically found in the pancreas. β-cells are responsible for generating insulin, vital to the body’s ability to turn glucose into energy. Without sufficient “natural” insulin, people with type 1 diabetes must inject themselves with insulin multiple times per day for the rest of their lives. Not only is this inconvenient to manage throughout patients’ day-to-day lives, but it’s also costly, making it difficult for most type 1 patients to maintain the recommended blood sugar levels.
Weight loss injection to be made available in UK within weeks
Thu 25 Jan 2024 19.43 GMT
A new weight loss injection will be available in the UK within weeks to treat thousands of patients with type 2 diabetes or obesity, after the medicines watchdog became the first major regulator in the world to greenlight the drug in a more convenient device.
Mounjaro was developed by the US pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly. Trials show it helps those on the highest dose lose more than three stone on average. It is injected under the skin of a patient’s stomach area, thigh or upper arm, and is to be used together with a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity.
The drug itself, also known as tirzepatide, won approval for obesity and type 2 diabetes from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) late last year but it has not yet been available due to enormous global demand.
The watchdog has approved a new device for delivering the drug – a four-dose pen branded as KwikPen, covering a month’s treatment – which Eli Lilly said would enable it to supply the drug to the UK within weeks.
The development, announced by the MHRA on Thursday, means there will be an alternative to the weight-loss drug Wegovy, also known as semaglutide, manufactured by the Danish company Novo Nordisk. It has been given to tens of thousands of patients on the NHS but global shortages mean it has been available only to a fraction of those eligible to take it.
Bariatric surgery is more effective than medical and lifestyle modifications for achieving long-term type 2 diabetes control and remission, according to new research led by a University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine surgeon-scientist and published in JAMA.
In the largest and longest randomized follow-up study to date, the researchers also found that bariatric surgery improved cholesterol and triglyceride levels more effectively than did medical and lifestyle modifications. Since diabetes and cholesterol are important risk factors for heart disease, the management of both may contribute to fewer heart attacks, strokes and other complications.
"This analysis is the strongest evidence we have to date that bariatric surgery is a safe and effective tool for achieving diabetes control and remission," said lead author Anita Courcoulas, M.D., M.P.H., professor in Pitt's Department of Surgery and chief of the Minimally Invasive Bariatric Surgery Program at UPMC.
Yogurts can now make limited claim that they lower type 2 diabetes risk, FDA says
Source: CNN Health
Updated 1:52 PM EST, Sat March 2, 2024
CNN — In a decision nearly five years in the making, the US Food and Drug Administration has decided that yogurts can now make a limited claim that the food may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, the federal agency concluded Friday.
The decision marks the first-ever qualified health claim the federal agency has issued for yogurt.
Qualified health claims “are supported by scientific evidence, but do not meet the more rigorous ‘significant scientific agreement’ standard required for an authorized health claim,” according to the FDA. “To ensure that these claims are not misleading, they must be accompanied by a disclaimer or other qualifying language to accurately communicate to consumers the level of scientific evidence supporting the claim.”
In the case of yogurt, the claim states that according to limited scientific evidence, “eating yogurt regularly, at least 2 cups (3 servings) per week,” may reduce risk of the disease that affects about 38 million people in the US and roughly 462 million individuals worldwide.
A genetically modified cow has produced milk containing human insulin, according to a new study. The proof-of-concept achievement could be scaled up to, eventually, produce enough insulin to ensure availability and reduced cost for all diabetics requiring the life-maintaining drug.
Unable to rely on their own supply due to damaged pancreatic cells, type 1 diabetics need injectable insulin to live. As do some type 2 diabetics. The World Health Organization estimates that of those who require insulin, between 150 and 200 million people worldwide, only about half are being treated with it. Access to insulin remains inadequate in many low- and middle-income countries – and some high-income countries – and its cost and unavailability have been well-documented.
In a newly published study led by the Department of Animal Sciences in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Universidade de São Paulo, researchers say they may have developed a way of eliminating insulin scarcity and reducing its cost using cows. Yep, cows.
A new study has shown that risk scores based on our genes and gut bacteria can improve the prediction of diseases such as type 2 diabetes and prostate cancer over traditional risk factors alone.
When it comes to the prediction of a person's risk of coronary artery disease, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, and prostate cancer, combining traditional risk factors that are used by doctors today with new technologies that quantify our genetic risk (polygenic risk scores) and gut bacteria (gut microbiome) resulted in the most powerful predictors of common chronic diseases.
