Diabetes

Despite concerns, the use of telehealth visits does not have a significant impact on the overall budget, explained Kristen McGovern, JD, partner at Sirona Strategies. In fact, a recent study found that using telehealth services decreased costs over the long term.

Health is improving around the world, but 7 out of 10 deaths are now due to noncommunicable diseases, like stroke, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, and drug use disorders, according to a special issue of The Lancet.

This week, the top managed care stories included conference coverage from the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy's 2016 Nexus, Bill Clinton courted controversy when discussing the Affordable Care Act, and research finds fear of a job loss can increase the risk of diabetes.

A short online test evaluates respondents’ health status to determine their risk of having prediabetes. However, some doctors worry that too many people will fall into the high-risk category, contributing to an overuse of resources.

It is well known that the current A1C test could be more accurate. A group of researchers at Harvard believes they have found a way to personalize the test.

While the researchers found a "modest risk" of diabetes associated with job insecurity, they said it pointed to the need for policies that promoted job stability and better wages.

Despite a name derived from the Greek terms for "self-eating," autophagy is not harmful; rather, it is essential for insulin secretion.

The Jackson Heart Study continues to yield insights about the nature of cardiovascular disease in minority populations.

According to the CDC, the majority of deaths from the flu occur in people over age 65.

The uptick in BMI among professional baseball players coincides with the steroid era, although there were also advances in nutrition and training that could explain weight gain.

The Abbott system allows physicians to gather up to 14 days' worth of glucose data without the patient having to interact with any device, or even calibrate it.

The company's announcement notably does not use the term "artificial pancreas," although the technology is a considerably more significant advance from the 530G threshold suspend device of 2013. When the description "artificial pancreas" was attached to that product, the term was met with howls of protest from the type 1 diabetes community.

Whether it’s the high cost of insulin or the question of when to start combination therapy, the new issue of Evidence-Based Diabetes Management, a publication of The American Journal of Managed Care, covers up-to-the-minute topics in this special issue on therapeutics. Editor-in-chief Robert A. Gabbay, MD, PhD, FACP, leads off this issue featuring voices of providers, pharmaceutical leaders, payers, and patients.

The new guideline comes as FDA weighs an advisory panel recommendation for CGM dosing, which many see as a first step toward Medicare coverage.

A series of papers in The Lancet highlights how city planning and urban design can prevent chronic diseases and create healthier and more sustainable cities.

Fitbits and other trackers are everywhere, but the study by JAMA finds that they may not help users with sustained weight loss, which has long eluded researchers.

While Omada Health’s Prevent program is designed for individuals with prediabetes, it can be adapted to patients who already have diabetes, because the program is built on behavior change and modification, explained Mike Payne, MBA, MSci, former chief healthcare development officer at Omada Health.

While declining smoking rates have caused cardiovascular disease to decline overall, some risk factors are rising, such as hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.

The study in BMJ found that people with the FTO gene were just as likely to lose weight through interventions, such as diet, exercise, or therapy.

This study conducted a cost-benefit analysis of appointment-based medication synchronization for improving adherence in patients on chronic medications for hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes.

For some patients newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, skipping metformin monotherapy and going straight to fixed-dose combinations with a DPP-4 inhibitor or an SGLT2 inhibitor makes sense, evidence shows.

Given the growing prevalence of type 2 diabetes (T2D) and its contribution to cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular outcomes trials should aim to be more representative of the average patient with T2D.

While obesity is a known risk factor in gestational diabetes, women who were obese and also were depressed when they became pregnant were at greater risk of gestational diabetes than those who did not have depression.

Evidence has been accumulating that links irregular sleep with chronic disease, but today is the first time the American Heart Association has issued a statement on the topic.

Officials say the company will file with FDA some time in the third quarter of 2016 to begin the approval process for the novel delivery system that brings a continuous, microscopic dose of exenatide to patients with type 2 diabetes.