Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic looked at a group of people with diabetes who underwent weight loss, or bariatric, surgery to treat their obesity. After tracking patients for up to nine years after getting the procedure, the researchers found obesity-related health conditions like diabetes vanished for several of them. Specifically, 80 percent of patients who had the surgeries met target blood sugar levels of 7 percent HbA1c, a level recommended by the American Diabetes Association . Nearly 30 percent of those who underwent a gastric bypass procedure experienced complete remission of diabetes that allowed them to stay off medication for at least five years, effectively curing them. “That was a remarkable finding,” Dr.
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Kelly Close: State Of Diabetes Treatment, Companies In The Sector And Challenges Patients Face
Today, the emphasis is on early, optimized treatments, given that nearly 50% of Type 2 diabetics are not at their glycemic target even here in the U.S. Because there are many more oral medications available before a patient is moved to insulin, the best healthcare providers no longer take a wait-and-see approach if a patient can’t control their HbA1c (a three-month average measurement of glucose in the blood); they prescribe a new medication, often a combination of drugs. Another bonus of having many more drugs available today is that treatments can be customized for a patient, which is the promise of personalized medicine – again, this varies with access. Adherence is such a challenge that it will be great to move several medications to one – one pill and one co-pay for patients in the U.S. and, ideally, better adherence. Adherence studies have been very hard to do historically, and this is one of the biggest challenges ever. Historically, taking insulin has also been very challenging.
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Another Diabetes Device Bites The Dust
Yet as so often happens in the wacky world of diabetes devices great products get ruined by inept management. Before Bayer ran Metrika into the ground, something thats normally the domain of Abbott (NYSE:ABT) who has run not one but two glucose monitoring companies into the ground, the possibility existed that sales of the A1cNow could also drive sales of test strips for Bayers line of conventional glucose monitors. Before this disaster unfolded Diabetic Investor was very public with our belief that an A1C result was the simplest test result for a patient to understand, a result of 7 or below was good, above 7 not as good. Heck, even the geniuses who ran Bayer should have been able to see that. The thought was Bayer with their scale, yes at one time the company did have scale in the BGM market, could use the A1CNow as an engagement tool for patients who werent testing their glucose or werent testing as often as they should.
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2013/09/23/another-diabetes-device-bites-the-dust/