Monthly Archives: March 2017

Can sweat patches revolutionise diabetes? BBC News And in extra tests on mice, the sensor was hooked up to a patch of tiny needles to automatically inject diabetes medication. The team at the Seoul National University were trying to overcome the need for "painful blood collection" needed in diabetes ... and more »

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Can sweat patches revolutionise diabetes? - BBC News

MannKind Corp. will sponsor a new television series this summer on the effects of poorly managed diabetes and its impact on people with the disease.

Reversed will air on Discovery Life Channel. It was created and will be hosted by Charles Mattocks, a celebrity chef and diabetes advocate.

MannKind is continually seeking platforms to increase awareness around the challenges, opportunities and success people living with diabetes encounter on a daily basis, said Michael Castagna, the companys chief commercial officer, in a statement.

The show will follow the lives of individuals affected by diabetes and their struggle to change their diet, exercise and mindset about the disease. It will feature experts such as diabetes educators, endocrinologists, therapists, nutritionists, and trainers, as well as celebrity guests who are also living with diabetes, to help encourage the contestants.

Mattocks, a nephew of Bob Marley, said, My uncle made an impact on the world through music and my vision is to impact health. Reversed is about changing the behavior of those with diabetes.

MannKind, the Valencia-based maker of Afrezza, an inhalable form of insulin, is working with Mattocks production company, Bella & Elle Media LLC.

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MannKind Corp. to sponsor TV series on tackling diabetes - Santa Clarita Valley Signal

Alexa? Help pharma find patient solutions.

Thats what Merck & Co. is aiming for in its new partnership with Amazon Web Services to developdigital voice-enabled solutions for people living with chronic diseases.

Using Amazon Lex, the brains behind the Amazon Echo device and its well-known voice-enabled assistant Alexa, Merck plans to initially work on diabetes. Its first initiative will be a call to entrepreneurs, techies and industry types foran innovation challenge expected to begin within the next month.

The yet-to-be-named challenge will be run by strategy and innovation consultancyLuminary Labs. While specifics havent been released, the call to action will be open to solutions broadly enough that innovators of all stripes can come up with really novel ideas but being narrow enough to provide guidance and carefully evaluate submissions, said Sara Holoubek, founder and CEO of Luminary Labs.

An independent jury will evaluate the submissions based on their use ofvoice-enabled technology thataddresses Type 2 diabetes patient issues.

Merck's long-term planis to create tools for otherchronic diseases using the same Amazon Lex platform and the voice-enabled Alexa home system.

Analysts estimate Amazon will sell more than 110 million Amazon Echo devices over the next four years, and many are already pointing to healthcare as an important item on Alexa'seventual to-do list.

Users will soon go far beyond turning on lights or calling an Uber, and will venture deeper into healthcare, helping people better manage treatments and communicate with caregivers," Luminary noteson its website. "From reminding people of their nutrition plans to scheduling their insulin dosages, the Merck-sponsored Alexa challenge will call on developers to push the boundaries of voice technology for people with diabetes."

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Merck aims to put Amazon's Alexa to work on voice-enabled diabetes tools - FiercePharma

by BARBARA MORSE SILVA, NBC 10 NEWS

New biomedical research shows promise in fighting a complication of diabetes.

Richard Clements, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at Brown University and one of the researchers on this project, which was recently funded by the Brown University-based Advance Clinical and Translational Research initiative.

The lab-based, very preliminary research is looking at the vascular system in diabetics and why the blood vessels dont always dilate to accommodate increased blood flow. Thats important for several reasons.

"That can lead to a whole host of problems, said Clements. Vascular problems, coronary artery disease, peripheral vascular disease as well as higher blood pressure."

As part of this research, discarded tissue from diabetic and non-diabetic patients is being used.

"That we can then take and mount in this set up and then we can give it all sorts of drugs without having to worry about patient safety because it's not in the patient anymore," explained Clements.

And then they can, in this lab, measure which drugs improve the condition. Right now, this research is only in the lab. But, eventually, it will involve animal and then human testing.

"This is kind of the beginning stages of what could, 10 years down the line, turn into some sort of treatment," said Clements.

This is one of the first pilot awards from the Brown University-based Advance Clinical Translational Research initiative, which received funding from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

The total of this five-year program award is $19.5 million. Its purpose is to fund collaborative research involving multiple partners, depending on the project, including researchers from Brown University, Lifespan, Care New England, the Providence VA Medical Center, URI and the Rhode Island Quality Institute.

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Health Check: Research into diabetes complication - Turn to 10

By Karen Pallarito

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, March 7, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Nearly half of all deaths from heart disease, stroke and diabetes in the United States are associated with diets that skimp on certain foods and nutrients, such as vegetables, and exceed optimal levels of others, like salt, a new study finds.

Using available studies and clinical trials, researchers identified 10 dietary factors with the strongest evidence of a protective or harmful association with death due to "cardiometabolic" disease.

"It wasn't just too much 'bad' in the American diet; it's also not enough 'good,'" said lead author Renata Micha.

"Americans are not eating enough fruits, vegetables, nuts/seeds, whole grains, vegetable oils or fish," she said.

Micha is an assistant research professor at the Tufts University School of Nutrition Science and Policy in Boston.

The researchers used data from multiple national sources to examine deaths from cardiometabolic diseases -- heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes -- in 2012, and the role that diet may have played.

"In the U.S. in 2012, we observed about 700,000 deaths due to those diseases," Micha said. "Nearly half of these were associated with suboptimal intakes of the 10 dietary factors combined."

Too much salt in people's diets was the leading factor, accounting for nearly 10 percent of cardiometabolic deaths, according to the analysis.

The study identifies 2,000 milligrams a day, or less than 1 teaspoon of salt, as the optimal amount. While experts don't agree on how low to go, there is broad consensus that people consume too much salt, Micha noted.

Other key factors in cardiometabolic death included low intake of nuts and seeds, seafood omega-3 fats, vegetables, fruits and whole grains, and high intake of processed meats (such as cold cuts) and sugar-sweetened beverages.

Each of these factors accounted for between 6 percent and 9 percent of deaths from heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

"Optimal" intake of foods and nutrients was based on levels associated with lower disease risk in studies and clinical trials. Micha cautioned that these levels are not conclusive. Optimal intake "could be modestly lower or higher," she explained.

Low consumption of polyunsaturated fats (found in soybean, sunflower and corn oils) accounted for just over 2 percent of cardiometabolic deaths, according to the study. High consumption of unprocessed red meats (such as beef) was responsible for less than one half of 1 percent of these deaths, the analysis showed.

The take-home message: "Eat more of the good and less of the bad," Micha said.

Vegetable intake, for example, was considered optimal at four servings per day. That would be roughly equivalent to 2 cups of cooked or 4 cups of raw veggies, she said.

Fruit intake was deemed optimal at three daily servings: "For example, one apple, one orange and half of an average-size banana," she continued.

"And eat less salt, processed meats, and sugary-sweetened beverages," she said.

The study also found that poor diet was associated with a larger proportion of deaths at younger versus older ages, among people with lower versus higher levels of education, and among minorities versus whites.

Dr. Ashkan Afshin is acting assistant professor of global health at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

"I commend the current study's authors for exploring sociodemographic factors, like ethnicity and education, and their role in the relationship of diet with cardiometabolic disease," said Afshin, who was not involved in the study.

"This is an area that deserves more attention so that we may fully understand the connection between diet and health," he said.

The study doesn't prove that improving your diet reduces risk of death from heart disease, stroke and diabetes, but suggests that dietary changes may have an impact.

"It is important to know which dietary habits affect health the most so that people can make healthy changes in how they eat and how they feed their families," Afshin said.

The study was published March 7 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In an accompanying journal editorial, researchers from Johns Hopkins University urged caution in interpreting the findings.

According to Noel Mueller and Dr. Lawrence Appel, the results may be biased by the number of dietary factors included, the interaction of dietary factors and the authors' "strong assumption" that evidence from observational studies implies a cause-and-effect relationship.

Still, the editorialists concluded that the likely benefits of an improved diet "are substantial and justify policies designed to improve diet quality."

WebMD News from HealthDay

SOURCES: Renata Micha, R.D., Ph.D., assistant research professor, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston; Ashkan Afshin, M.D., Sc.D., acting assistant professor of global health, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle; March 7, 2017, Journal of the American Medical Association

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Poor Diet Tied to Heart Disease, Diabetes Deaths - WebMD