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Glucose Levels Trigger Compensation For Type 2 Diabetics
Many individuals with type 2 diabetes are diabetic because the cells of their body no longer respond to the hormone insulin, which is crucial for lowering blood sugar levels. However, before individuals become clinically diabetic their body tries to compensate for the increasing resistance to the effects of insulin by increasing both the amount of insulin secreted and the mass of insulin-secreting cells (beta cells) in the pancreas. Several factors have been shown to induce an increase in beta-cell mass, but exactly what triggers this in individuals consuming a high-fat diet has not been clearly established. Source

FDA approves expanded use for Amylin diabetes treatment
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the expanded use of a diabetes treatment created by local drug company Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Eli Lilly and Co., the companies announced Wednesday. Health care professionals will receive education on the treatment in the coming weeks.

The FDA approved BYETTA (exenatide) injection as an add-on therapy to improve blood sugar control in people with type 2 diabetes who have not achieved adequate control on a thiazolidinedione, or TZD. The drug was approved for use with two other diabetes treatments, metformin, sulfonylureas, in 2005.In a clinical trial designed to evaluate BYETTA for use in combination with a TZD, 62 percent of patients who added BYETTA to their existing medicines achieved an A1C (a measure of blood glucose levels over time) of 7 percent or less, compared to 16 percent of the patients on placebo.

People taking BYETTA also lost an average of 3.3 pounds over 16 weeks, compared to an average weight reduction of 0.4 pounds in the other group, according to Amylin. The most common adverse event associated with BYETTA was nausea, which occurred in 40 percent of patients. Source

Drug shows promise against diabetic eye condition
Eye injections of the drug Lucentis (also known as ranibizumab) appear to be useful in the treatment of a potentially blinding eye condition called macular edema that can afflict people with diabetes, a small study suggests.

“The results are impressive,” lead author Dr. Quan Dong Nguyen, from Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute in Baltimore, said in a statement. However, “we will not know until we begin a larger clinical trial what the long-term benefits of the drug might be.”

In diabetic macular edema, fluid accumulates in part of the retina responsible for central vision. Increased expression of the growth factor known as VEGF is thought to play a role in macular edema. Therefore, treatments that block VEGF, like ranibizumab, could potentially be useful.

Previous reports have shown ranibizumab to be effective in cases of age-related macular degeneration. Source

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