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Author Interviews, BMJ, Diabetes, Occupational Health / 03.07.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Mahée Gilbert-Ouimet, PhD Postdoctoral fellow/Chercheure postdoctorale Institute for Work & Health Hôpital du St-Sacrement,  Québec  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?  Response: Diabetes is one of the primary causes of death worldwide, in addition to being a major risk factor for several other chronic diseases including cardiovascular diseases. Considering the rapid and substantial increase of diabetes prevalence, identifying modifiable risk factors is of major importance. In this regard, long work hours have recently been linked with diabetes, but more high-quality prospective studies are needed. Our study evaluated the relationship between long work hours and the incidence of diabetes among 7065 workers over a 12-year period in Ontario, Canada. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Infections / 27.06.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sandrine Levet PhD Preclinical Study Manager GeNeuro MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs), remnants of ancestral viral genomic insertions, are known to represent 8% of the human genome and are associated with several pathologies. In particular, the envelope protein of HERV-W family (HERV-W Env) has been involved in multiple sclerosis pathogenesis. A previous study published in JCI Insight revealed that HERV-W Env is also involved in Type 1 diabetes (T1D) pathogenesis. In this study, we observed that HERV-W-Env protein and RNA are detected respectively in sera and peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) of T1D patients. We also demonstrated that this pathogenic protein is expressed by acinar cells in human T1D pancreas and is associated with the recruitment of macrophages within the pancreas of these patients. HERV-W Env also displays direct pathogenic properties as it inhibits insulin secretion by human islets of Langerhans. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, NEJM / 26.06.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Roman Hovorka PhD FMedSci Director of Research University of Cambridge Metabolic Research Laboratories Wellcome Trust-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science Addenbrooke’s Hospital Cambridge MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Inpatient diabetes is generally not managed well when patients are admitted for a range of health issues on the general ward. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Weight Research / 25.06.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Amy Rothberg MD PhD Associate Professor, Endocrinology and Medicine Michigan Medicine Metabolism, Endocrinology and Diabetes Clinic University of Michigan  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Would you briefly outline the essentials of the Optifast plan? Response: OPTIWIN is a year-long, multi-center, open-label, randomized, head-to-head study. It was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the medically-monitored, meal replacement OPTIFAST Program on weight loss and maintenance, in comparison with a standard-of-care, food-based diet among adults with a BMI higher than 30 kg/m2. Nestlé Health Science’s OPTIFAST Program combines proven essential features of weight loss success ‒ medical monitoring, nutrition education, exercise guidance, in-person support, full meal replacement and behavior modification. With OPTIFAST meal replacement products, the program gives patients the prescribed amount of calories and micronutrients each day. It is a non-surgical option designed for people with a Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than 30, and is available in more than 400 weight loss clinics nationwide. The Program is comprised of three core phases ‒ active weight loss (during which total diet replacement is used), transition to self-prepared ‘everyday’ meals and maintenance. Clinical supervision is a key component of the program as it helps assess progress towards better health and emotional well-being. (more…)
AstraZeneca, Author Interviews, Diabetes / 24.06.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Chantal Mathieu, MD, PhD Professor of Medicine Clinical and Experimental Endocrinology Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: People with type 1 diabetes (T1D) are confronted often with the inability to achieve satisfactory glycemic control, being good HbA1c, but in particular stable glycemic control, avoiding hyperglycemic events, but also hypoglycemic events, despite novel insulins and novel technologies. Moreover, intensive insulin therapy is often associated with weight gain, leading to an increase in overweight and obesity also in people with T1D. All of these issues affect quality of life. In the DEPICT 2 study we examined the impact of adding a selective SGLT2 inhibitor, dapagliflozin (two doses tested – 5 and 10mg) in a double blinded manner versus placebo to background insulin (MDI or CSII) in people with T1D reaching insufficient glycemic control (HbA1c 7.5-10.5%). Primary endpoint was lowering in HbA1c at 24 weeks and secondary endpoints included insulin dose reduction and weight reduction as well as a composite endpoint of having a HbA1c drop of >=0.5% without severe hypoglycemia. The study ran internationally, with about 1/3 of patients coming from North America, 1/3 from Europe and 1/5 from Asia (Japan). (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Diabetes, Gastrointestinal Disease, Technology, Weight Research / 13.06.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jeff Karp B.Eng. PhD. Professor of Medicine Center for Nanomedicine and Division of Engineering in Medicine Brigham and Women’s Hospital Harvard Medical School Boston MA MedicalResearch.com: How would you briefly explain the most important findings and conclusions of this study to a non-expert?
  • The type-2 diabetes (T2D) epidemic will affect over 642 million people worldwide by 2040. As a result, diabetes costs the US healthcare over $174 billion dollars annually and is the leading cause of blindness, amputations, renal failure, and poor cardiovascular outcomes. Recently, bariatric surgery, bypassing stomach and intestine from the food stream, has shown promising results and shown to be superior to pharmaceuticals in managing T2D. However, the risks of surgery along with permanent changes to gastrointestinal anatomy deters many suitable patients from surgery, with less than 1-2% of Americans who qualify for weight loss surgery actually undergoing the procedure. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a safe, non-invasive and effective treatment for wider diabetic patient population.
  • We envisioned a pill that a patient can take before a meal that transiently coats the gut to replicate the effects of surgery. During the past 8 years, we’ve been working on this idea and have developed a safe gut-coating material that can potentially mimic the beneficial effects of gastric bypass procedures in the form a pill.
  • LuCI can be activated in any part of gastrointestinal tract (e.g. stomach, duodenum, intestine, colon) to form a temporary physical barrier that isolates that part of gastrointestinal tract. In our pre-clinical models, LuCI coated the duodenum to modulate glucose responses in oral glucose tolerance tests.
  • These beneficial effect are observed without any evidence of systemic absorption of the drug.
  • We believe that LuCI could be a new therapeutic approach for T2D that is based on Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery, but is safer, associated with significantly less complications, and thus can potentially help a wide T2D patient population.
  • In a separate set of studies, we also showed that luCi allows delivery of certain proteins and drugs, which would normally be degraded by the gastric acid, to the GI tract, protecting it from gastric acid digestion and prolonging their luminal exposure.
(more…)
Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Diabetes, Education, Outcomes & Safety / 12.06.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Bradley Gray, PhD Senior Health Services Researcher American Board of Internal Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: This study is part of an ongoing effort to improve and validate ABIM’s MOC process through the use of real data that is ongoing here at ABIM. MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?  Response: The paper examines the association between MOC status and a set of HEDIS process quality measures for internists twenty years past the time they initially certified. An example of one HEDIS performance measure we looked at was percentage of patients with diabetes that had twice annual HbA1c testing. The key findings of the paper are that physicians who maintained their certification had better scores on 5 of 6 HEDIS performance measures than similar physicians who did not maintain their certification. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Heart Disease, Lancet, Metabolic Syndrome, Weight Research / 01.06.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Nathalie Eckel, MSc German Diabetes Center Düsseldorf, Germany  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?  Response: Obesity is associated with metabolic disorders such as diabetes, high blood pressure and hypercholesterolemia, and with a higher risk of cardiovacular disease compared to normal weight. However, there is also the phenomenon of the so-called "metabolically healthy obesity" and "metabolically unhealthy normal-weight". So far it has been unclear how metabolic risk factors change over time in metabolically healthy people depending on body weight and what cardiovascular disease risk results from this. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Diabetes, Technology / 05.05.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Apostolos Tsapas, MD PhD MSc(Oxon) Associate Professor of Medicine Director of the Second Medical Department | Aristotle University Thessalonik Cruddas Link Fellow Harris Manchester College University of Oxford   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Artificial pancreas treatment, also referred to as closed loop glucose control, is an emerging treatment option combining a pump and continuous glucose monitoring with a control algorithm to deliver insulin (and potentially glucagon) in a glucose responsive manner. Compared with insulin pumps or sensor augmented pumps, artificial pancreas use can reduce the burden for patients by automatically adjusting the amount of insulin entering the body on the basis of sensor glucose levels. The US Food and Drug Administration has recently approved the first artificial pancreas system for use by people with type 1 diabetes over 14 years of age, based on a safety outpatient study. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Heart Disease / 20.04.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sean Lee Zheng BM BCh MA MRCP Cardiovascular Division King's College Hospital London British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence London, UK MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The growing prevalence of type 2 diabetes and its associated burden on cardiovascular disease is a global problem. A number of drug treatments effective in lowering blood glucose are now available, with the three latest drug classes developed being the DPP-4 inhibitors, GLP-1 agonists and SGLT-2 inhibitors. While the use of medications from these three classes are increasing, it remains unknown how they compare in lowering the risk of death or cardiovascular disease. This leads to clinical uncertainty when it comes to introducing new medicines for our patients. Our study aimed to use data from randomized clinical trials in a network meta-analysis, allowing these three drug classes to be compared with one another. Our study, which included 236 studies enrolling 176310 participants, showed that the use of SGLT-2 inhibitors or GLP-1 agonists were associated with a lower risk of death than with DPP-4 inhibitors. SGLT-2 inhibitors had additional beneficial effects on heart failure events compared with the other two drug classes. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Geriatrics / 19.04.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Diabetes Mellitus” by Steve Davis is licensed under CC BY 2.0Matthew James O'Brien MD Assistant Professor, Medicine General Medicine Division Assistant Professor, Preventive Medicine Northwestern University  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The USPSTF is an expert group that makes recommendations for screening and other preventive services. In December 2015, they recommend that providers screen for diabetes in patients who are 40-70 years old and also overweight/obese. The same recommendation stated that clinicians “should consider screening earlier” in patients who have any of the following risk factors: non-white race/ethnicity, family history of diabetes, or personal history of gestational diabetes or polycystic ovarian syndrome. Using nationally representative data, we studied the performance of the “limited” criteria based on age and weight alone vs. the “expanded criteria” mentioned above. The main findings were that following the “limited” screening criteria of age and weight would result in missing over 50% of adults with prediabetes and diabetes. In other words, if providers followed the “limited” criteria, over 50% of adults with prediabetes and diabetes would not get screened. The “expanded” criteria exhibited much better performance, resulting in 76.8% of adults with prediabetes and diabetes who would be screened.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, NEJM, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 05.04.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Lise Geisler Bjerregaard PhD Postdoc, PhD, M.Sc. Public Health Center for Klinisk Forskning og Sygdomsforebyggelse/ Center for Clinical Research and Disease Prevention Sektion for Klinisk Epidemiologi Frederiksberg Hospital, Frederiksberg MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Being overweight in childhood and early adulthood is associated with an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes in adulthood. We wanted to know whether or not remission of overweight before early adulthood can reduce the risks of type 2 diabetes later in life. We studied the associations between different combinations of weight status in childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, and later development of type 2 diabetes. We found that men who had been overweight at 7 years of age but normalised weight by age 13 years and were normal weight as young men had similar risks of type 2 diabetes as men who were never overweight. Men who normalised weight between age 13 years and early adulthood had increased risks of type 2 diabetes, but lower risks than men who were overweight at all ages.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Gastrointestinal Disease, Pharmacology / 22.03.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Devin Abrahami, graduate student Centre for Clinical Epidemiology, Lady Davis Institute, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: The goal of our study was to assess whether a class of antidiabetic drugs, the dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors, is associated with the risk of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). While these drugs control blood sugar levels in patients with type 2 diabetes, there is some evidence that they may also be involved in immune function, and possibly in conditions such as IBD. In our study, we found that the use of DPP-4 inhibitors was associated with a 75% increased risk of IBD, with the highest risk observed after three to four years of use. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Duke, Heart Disease / 14.03.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Stephen J. Greene, MD Division of Cardiology Duke University Medical Center Durham, NC MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: In 2008, the United States FDA issued an industry guidance specifying that diabetes drugs should routinely be tested in large cardiovascular outcome trials to confirm cardiovascular safety. The guidance specifically mentioned cardiovascular safety in terms of MACE, or major adverse cardiac events, including cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, and stroke.  Largely because of this, these trials have traditionally had a focus on cardiovascular disease in terms of atherosclerotic events. Heart failure was not mentioned in the FDA document and these trials have had a lesser focus on it. As the years have gone by, we have learned more and more about the connection between diabetes and heart failure. There is tremendous overlap between the two patient populations. Also, as more and more of the large cardiovascular outcome trials have been completed, we have seen multiple examples of various glucose lowering therapies either increasing or decreasing risk of heart failure events. Given all these data on heart failure/ diabetes interactions, the goal of our research was to carefully examine all of the completed large cardiovascular outcome trials of diabetes therapies to systematically describe the type of heart failure-related data they capture. As an initial step in improving heart failure characterization in these trials, we wanted to first describe what trials have already been doing and where the gaps in understanding heart failure in these trials exist. Overall, we found major gaps in the amount and quality of the heart failure data capture in these trials. We looked at 21 large trials, including over 150,000 patients. Rates of patients with baseline heart failure were inconsistently provided, and among those trials that did provide it, heart failure patients tended to be underrepresented compared to the general population. Patients with baseline heart failure were also poorly characterized, with minimal data on functional status, ejection fraction, or heart failure medications. Only 6 trials reported rates of new-onset heart failure and the definitions used were non-specific. Most trials tended to report rates of heart failure hospitalization, but did not include data on fatal or other types of heart failure events. Only 2 trials included heart failure events within the primary study endpoint. More details are included in our full manuscript, which was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology to coincide with our presentation at the ACC conference. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Microbiome, Nutrition, Science / 13.03.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Liping Zhao PhD, Professor Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology School of Environmental and Biological Sciences Rutgers University-New Brunswick NJ MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Microbes in the human gut (collectively known as the gut microbiota) provide many functions that are important for human health. A notable example is that some gut bacteria are able to ferment non-digestible carbohydrates in our diet, e.g. dietary fibers, to produce short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). These SCFAs nourish our gut epithelial cells, reduce inflammation, and play a role in appetite control. Deficiency of SCFAs has been associated with many diseases including type 2 diabetes. Many gut bacteria have the genes (and therefore the capacity) to produce SCFAs from carbohydrate fermentation. However, we know little about how these bacteria, as individual strains and as a group, actually respond to an increased supply of carbohydrates. This is key to improve clinical efficacy of dietary fiber interventions to improve human health. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Diabetes, Heart Disease / 12.03.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Muthiah Vaduganathan, MD MPH Heart and Vascular Center Brigham and Women's Hospital  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The prevalence of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) is rising globally, yet no medical therapies are currently available to alter its natural history and its progression remains incompletely understood. Sudden death may represent a target for therapy in this disease entity. In 1,767 patients with HFpEF enrolled in the Americas region of the TOPCAT trial, we found that sudden death accounts for ~20% of all deaths. Male sex and insulin-treated diabetes mellitus identify patients at higher risk for sudden death. Sudden death was numerically lower but not statistically reduced in those randomized to spironolactone. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Heart Disease, JACC, Surgical Research / 21.02.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Jayan Nagendran MD, PhD, FRCSC Director of Research, Division of Cardiac Surgery Associate Professor, Department of Surgery Division of Cardiac Surgery University of Alberta MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The primary modalities of treatment of symptomatic coronary artery disease (coronary heart disease) are either percutaneous coronary intervention (coronary stunting) or coronary artery bypass grafting surgery. There are well designed clinical trials that guide clinical practice for the treatment of patients with diabetes requiring coronary revascularization and there are trials that examine the best modality of coronary revascularization in patients with left ventricular dysfunction. However, there is a lack of evidence for patients with both diabetes and left ventricular dysfunction. As such, we performed a propensity matched study of patients with diabetes and left ventricular dysfunction undergoing either percutaneous coronary intervention compared to coronary artery bypass grafting surgery. We used our provincial database that captures >100,000 patients undergoing coronary angiography to attain our two cohorts for comparison. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Occupational Health / 13.02.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Night Shift - Hard@Work (5of8)” by cell105 is licensed under CC BY 2.0Dr. Céline Vetter Assistant Professor Department of Integrative Physiology University of Colorado at Boulder Boulder, CO MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Shift work, particularly night shifts, can change our social rhythms, as well as the internal biological rhythms including our sleep, and these effects could explain why shift work is linked to conditions such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. However, we don’t know which type of shift pattern is most strongly linked to type 2 diabetes. In addition, we know that some lifestyle factors can modify the link between a genetic predisposition to a disease and the disease itself, but we don’t know if this applies to shift work and type 2 diabetes. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, OBGYNE / 12.02.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rachel McGrath BSc (Hons), PhD Senior Research Fellow - Department of Endocrinology, RNSH Clinical Senior Lecturer - Northern Clinical School University of Sydney  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Women with type 1 diabetes are significantly more likely to experience complications during pregnancy and to have infants with high birth weights. This can result in adverse outcomes at the time of delivery for both mother and baby, and can also predispose infants to obesity and chronic disease in later life. The relationship between maternal blood glucose levels and foetal growth in type 1 diabetes in pregnancy has not been completely elucidated. Thus, we examined the association between maternal glycaemic control and foetal growth by examining serial ultrasound measurements and also by determining the relationship between HbA1c (a measure of circulating glucose exposure over a three month time period) and infant birth weight. We found that maternal glucose levels were directly related to foetal abdominal circumference in the late second and third trimesters and also to birth weight. We also confirmed the results of previous studies to show that the optimal HbA1c during pregnancy to reduce the likelihood of large-for-gestational-age neonates is < 6%.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Diabetologia, Technology / 18.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Silvia Conde, PhD CEDOC, NOVA Medical School Faculdade de Ciências Médicas Universidade Nova de Lisboa Lisboa MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: In 2013, Silvia Vilares Conde and her research group described that the carotid body, a paired organ that is located in the bifurcation of the common carotid artery and that is classically defined as an oxygen sensor, regulates peripheral insulin sensitivity and that its dysfunction is involved in the development of metabolic diseases. This first study (Ribeiro et al. 2013, Diabetes, 62:2905-16) and others afterwards performed by her group in diabetic rats (Sacramento et al. 2017, Diabetologia 60(1):158-168) showed that the bilateral resection of the carotid sinus nerve, and therefore the abolishment of the connection between the carotid body and the brain, restore insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance. Although efficient this surgical irreversible approach has disadvantages, since the carotid body possesses other physiological functions as the response to the lack of oxygen (hypoxia) or the adaptation to exercise. Silvia Conde’s team also described that the carotid body is over-activated in animal models of type 2 diabetes, suggesting that decreasing the activity of the organ could be a good therapeutic strategy. In this new work (Sacramento et al. 2018, doi: 10.1007/s00125-017-4533-7), her group in collaboration with Galvani Bioelectronics (former Glaxo Smith Kline Bioelectronics) demonstrated that is possible to electrically modulate the carotid sinus nerve to maintain glucose homeostasis in diabetic animals without significant adverse effects.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, JAMA, OBGYNE, Surgical Research / 16.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Charles Billington MD Chief, Section of Endocrinology and Metabolism Minneapolis VA Health Care System Professor of Medicine, University of Minnesota  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: We wanted to know if adding gastric bypass to intense lifestyle and medical therapy would improve overall diabetes treatment as represented by the triple endpoint of blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol control. We found that adding gastric bypass did provide significant benefit at five years after surgery, but that the size of the benefit declined substantially from the first to the fifth year. We also found that gastric bypass did provide significantly better blood sugar control throughout the five years, but the rate of diabetes remission at five years was low. There were many more adverse events in the gastric bypass group.  (more…)
Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Diabetes, Genetic Research, University of Pittsburgh / 07.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Xiangwei Xiao, M.D., Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Department of Surgery, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Diabetes is a prevalent chronic disease characterized by persistently high blood glucose. Diabetes has two main subtypes, type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. In type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks and destroys insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas, resulting in high blood levels of glucose. In type 2 diabetes, the beta cells do not produce enough insulin or the body is not able to use insulin effectively. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, JAMA, Race/Ethnic Diversity, Weight Research / 02.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michael P. Bancks, PhD Northwestern University Chicago, Illinois  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We know that the disparity in diabetes between black and white youth and young adults is growing, but the reasons why are unclear. We also know that traditional risk factors for diabetes, such as obesity and low socioeconomic status, are more common among blacks as compared with whites. Our study describes how the unequal rates of these traditional diabetes risk factors explain or account for the higher rates of diabetes among blacks. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, JAMA, Nutrition, Pediatrics / 02.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Baby Bottle” by brokinhrt2 is licensed under CC BY 2.0Mikael Knip, MD, PhD Professor of Pediatrics TRIGR PI  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Experimental studies have indicated that the avoidance of early exposure to cow's milk proteins reduces the cumulative incidence of autoimmune diabetes in animal models of human type 1 diabetes, e.g. BB rats and NOD mice. Epidemiological studies in humans have suggested that there may be a link between type 1 diabetes and short breastfeeding or early introduction of infant formulas. All regular infant formulas contain intact cow's milk proteins. The main finding was that weaning to an extensively hydrolyzed formula did not reduce the cumulative incidence of Type 1 diabetes in at-risk children by the mean age of 11 years. The extensively hydrolyzed formula did not contain any intact cow's milk proteins but only small peptides (maximal size 2000 daltons). (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Diabetes, End of Life Care, JAMA / 01.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Laura A. Petrillo MD Instructor in Medicine Harvard Medical School, and Palliative Care Physician Massachusetts General Hospital MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Hospice is end-of-life care focused on maximizing quality of life. Hospice often involves reducing or stopping treatments that are unlikely to have short-term benefit in order to avoid uncomfortable side effects. About a quarter of Americans die in nursing homes, and some of them receive hospice care in their final days. We looked at whether adults with type 2 diabetes experience low blood sugar while on hospice in veterans’ nursing homes, since low blood sugar signals inappropriately aggressive diabetes treatment in patients close to death and contributes to unnecessary discomfort. We found that one in nine people experienced low blood sugar at least once while receiving hospice care. Among people who were on insulin, the number was one in three. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, JAMA, Ophthalmology, Technology / 13.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Tien Yin Wong MD PhD Singapore Eye Research Institute, Singapore National Eye Center, Duke-NUS Medical School, National University of Singapore Singapore MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Currently, annual screening for diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a universally accepted practice and recommended by American Diabetes Association and the International Council of Ophthalmology (ICO) to prevent vision loss. However, implementation of diabetic retinopathy screening programs across the world require human assessors (ophthalmologists, optometrists or professional technicians trained to read retinal photographs). Such screening programs are thus challenged by issues related to a need for significant human resources and long-term financial sustainability. To address these challenges, we developed an AI-based software using a deep learning, a new machine learning technology. This deep learning system (DLS) utilizes representation-learning methods to process large data and extract meaningful patterns. In our study, we developed and validated this using about 500,000 retinal images in a “real world screening program” and 10 external datasets from global populations. The results suggest excellent accuracy of the deep learning system with sensitivity of 90.5% and specificity of 91.6%, for detecting referable levels of DR and 100% sensitivity and 91.1% specificity for vision-threatening levels of DR (which require urgent referral and should not be missed). In addition, the performance of the deep learning system was also high for detecting referable glaucoma suspects and referable age-related macular degeneration (which also require referral if detected). The deep learning system was tested in 10 external datasets comprising different ethnic groups: Caucasian whites, African-Americans, Hispanics, Chinese, Indians and Malaysians (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Chemotherapy, Diabetes, PLoS / 08.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Terra G Arnason, MD PhD, Associate Professor, Division of Endocrinology, Department of Medicine University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, SK, Canada MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Response: Metformin has been used worldwide for decades to treat Type diabetes. Metformin is a cheap non-toxic compound that was originally plant derived. In the past decade a number of meta-analyses have demonstrated that Type 2 individuals taking metformin have a reduced risk of developing many different cancers and do better longterm. The molecular events facilitating metformin’s activity remain obscure and it is unknown whether metformin can help cancer patients avoid the development of drug resistant cancers years after successful treatment. In our study we asked whether metformin can not only restore sensitivity of multiple drug resistant tumors to chemotherapy once again, but whether metformin can prevent the development of multiple drug resistance in the "rst place. We demonstrate that metformin can sensitize drug resistant cells to chemotherapy once again, which supports recent studies, but we also show for the "first time that Metformin can prevent the progression of cancer cells towards drug resistance using cell culture experiments. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Heart Disease, JAMA, Personalized Medicine / 21.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. MalikDr. Shaista Malik MD PhD MPH Director of Samueli Center For Integrative Medicine Assistant Professor, School of Medicine University of California, Irvine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Having diabetes has been considered to be a risk equivalent to already had a myocardial infarction for predicting future cardiovascular events.  We were interested in testing whether further risk stratification in those with diabetes and metabolic syndrome, using coronary artery calcium (CAC), would result in improved prediction of cardiovascular events. We found that CAC score was associated with incident coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease more than a decade after the scoring was performed.  We also found that even after we controlled for the duration of diabetes (of 10 years or more), insulin use, or hemoglobin A1c level, coronary artery calcium remained a predictor of cardiovascular events. (more…)
Author Interviews, Compliance, Diabetes / 16.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Saeid Shahraz, MD, PhD Heller School of Social Policy and Management Brandeis University Waltham, Massachusetts  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Previous researchers had shown a significant improvement in diabetes control in the US between the years 1998 and 2010. We wanted to show if the betterment in diabetes control continued after then. As previously, we measured hemoglobin A1C that shows the extent to which blood glucose level is under control. Our main finding was that this upward improving trend plateaued for years after 2007 up to 2014, the last year for which we had data. We examined both genders, white and non-white populations as well as three age groups; young, middle age, and elderly population and results were the same: no change. Overall, in 2007, 14% of patients with diabetes showed a poor diabetes control (Hemoglobin A1C more than 9%) ; in 2014, 15% of patients with diabetes fell within the category of poor diabetes control. 55% of the patients had a Good control of diabetes (Hemoglobin A1C less than 7%) in 2007; this measure was 54% in 2014. (more…)