ADA: American Diabetes Association

An innovative education method asks an influential family member to take diabetes classes alongside the person with T2DM. The intervention produced positive health results for African Americans in a North Carolina study.

Patients who received canagliflozin from their health plan showed significant A1C improvement, even though the study group had poor glycemic control despite treatment with multiple therapies. The study period covered the months immediately following FDA approval.

A study of Medicare claims suggests that policies that ask seniors to pay more out of pocket for prescriptions may lead to lower adherence and result in higher healthcare costs.

Studies presented at the 2015 American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions take different approaches on what percentage of carbohydrates should be part of a diet for persons with type 2 diabetes.

Osama Hamdy, MD, PhD, and other researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center showed that patients with obesity and diabetes who lost at least 7% of their weight the first year stood a better chance of keeping it off.

Just as diabetes care started the movement toward population management, it is leading the way to new payment models, according to speakers who appeared at a symposium to open the 75th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association.

Reports that artificial pancreas technology is advancing, and that multiple projects will soon start "at home" studies, created excitement at the 74th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association.

Studies presented at the American Diabetes Association's meeting in San Francisco took a deeper look at what the presence of fat does to overweight children. Researchers found that signs of trouble emerge early, with implications for the treatment of youths with type 1 diabetes, and those at risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

A symposium on the new drug class, SGLT2 inhibitors, drew plenty of interest from attendees at the American Diabetes Association meeting in San Francisco. SGLT2 inhibitors have gained notice, both for their ability to reduce A1C levels and for their potential to help patients lose weight.

A symposium that focused on the relationship between behavioral health and diabetes examined how the challenges of living with the disease wear on patients over time, ahead of results presented Sunday showing that much of what is diagnosed as "depression" in diabetes may not be. Presenters offered 3 models for better coordination of care.

Studies released at the 74th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association included results of programs to get patients to take more control over their own care.

A diabetes patient navigator program in Birmingham, Alabama, a joint project of the American Academy of Family Physicians Foundation and Sanofi US, resulted in lower A1C levels for its participants. Patients also reported higher levels of satisfaction in managing their disease.

Two studies presented at the American Diabetes Association's 74th Scientific Sessions show that evaluating diabetes risk and patient health by nation of origin and ethnic background yields richer insights into how the disease affects populations.​

Trimming the costs of diabetes to the healthcare system will take multiple strategies, but there's a lack of consensus on precisely how each will work. Are the new recommendations on statins worth the cost?

For years, the standard for treating type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) has been step therapy. Patients are told to make changes in their diets and to exercise more. Then, most start metformin; if T2DM progresses, doctors add drugs from among the dozen other classes, either alone but typically in combination.

Highlights from American Diabetes Associations (ADA) which took place on June 21-25, 2013, in Chicago, IL, are available in a newsletter published by The American Journal of Managed Care.

Rodney Hayward, MD, and Sheldon Greenfield, MD, discussed the benefits of quality care measures and explored some of the remaining areas for improvement. Some groups advocate for the use of composite quality care measures that reflect treatment guidelines and suggest that the same targets not be applied to all patients.

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonists and dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors are associated with additional effects beyond prolonging the effect of incretins. Laurie Baggio, PhD, reviewed many of the studies showing the independent anti-inflammatory effects of these drugs, which may be explored for future indications. These effects may help scientists understand some of the mechanisms behind inflammation in the body, as explained by Julio Ayala, PhD. Finally, concerns about pancreatitis with DPP-4 inhibitors and GLP-1 agonists may be largely unfounded, as explained by Vanita Aroda, MD.

In this session, Robert Eckel, MD, discussed new and emerging therapies for obesity. New agents fill a therapeutic gap by allowing patients to achieve weight loss between 5% and 15% of body weight, leading to improved outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes and metabolic disease.

Ronald J. Sigal, MD, MPH, a professor of medicine, cardiac sciences, kinesiology, and community health sciences at the University of Calgary in Canada, and a Health Senior Scholar at the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, pulls from his experience to discuss the reality of the current expectations and goals for exercise and physical activity in the overweight or obese patient with diabetes, and offers his solutions.

Philip R. Schauer, MD, the director of the Bariatric and Metabolic Institute (BMI) at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio contends that accountable care organizations (ACOs) need to recognize obesity as a legitimate disease that is the basis for many other serious conditions. He emphasizes that obesity certainly requires treatment, and surgery is an appropriate intervention for certain patients.

Carl Dean Benton, RPh, explains how pharmacists can contribute to improvements in patient care through counseling programs. With the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, many insurers may begin to recognize the benefits of pharmacist-driven counseling initiatives, and integrate these programs to help improve outcomes for patients with type 2 diabetes.

Todd Brusko, PhD, of the Todd M. Brusko Laboratory at the University of Florida College of Medicine, discussed how knowledge of regulatory T-cells has grown and improved, and noted that research has now entered a phase of harnessing the potential of our immune system through specific cell populations to combat root causes of type 1 diabetes (T1DM).

Allan Geliebter, PhD, the senior research scientist in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University and a professor of psychology at Touro College explains the roles of various hormones in appetite stimulation and suppression, and discusses how functional MRI of the brain may demonstrate a relationship between bariatric surgery in obese patients, neurological response, and hormone regulation.

Bernard Zinman, MD, the director of the Leadership Sinai Centre for Diabetes and the Sam and Judy Pencer Family Chair in Diabetes Research at Mount Sinai Hospital and the University of Toronto in Canada, discusses the new therapies, SGLT-2 inhibitors, that are now approved in the United States and European Union. These drug therapies have shown clinical benefits in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and may also improve cardiovascular outcomes for patients with type 2 diabetes

Jaakko Tuomilehto, MD, PhD, a professor of public health at the University of Helsinki in Finland provides global epidemiological data for T1DM and discusses the World Health Organization's Diabetes Mondiale (DiaMond) study. He compares the rates of incidences of T1DM among well-developed, high-income countries to low- and middle-income nations and takes note of the epidemiological trends.

In light of ongoing healthcare reform in the US, Sheldon Greenfield, MD, the executive co-director of the Health Policy Research Institute and Donald Bren Professor of Medicine at the University of California Irvine School of Medicine, shared his insights on the role of quality care measures in the management of diabetes, and weighed in on the advantages and disadvantages associated with implementing these tools.

Accounting for what is known about the association between diabetes and low testosterone in men, Rita Basu, MD, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN provides her insights on the role of testosterone supplementation in men with diabetes, and notes how clinical and managed care perspectives are integrated in practice.

Cost-effectiveness analyses (CEAs) have real effects on therapeutic approaches for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Dr. Gilmer discusses how studies like the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS) and the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) have affected how researchers and scientists evaluate the benefits of new treatments.

Sandeep Dhindsa, MD, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences discusses the relationship between diabetes and low testosterone in men, and also notes the significance of accounting for BMI and obesity.