← Diabetes Connections | Type 1 Diabetes
Diabetes Connections | Type 1 Diabetes
In the News.. COVID-19 & T1D, Ozempic Pill Progress, FDA to Consider Afrezza for kids, Faster Insulin, “Beyond Misconceptions,” and More
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n the News.. COVID-19 & T1D, Ozempic Pill Progress, Faster Insulin, “Beyond Misconceptions,” and More It's In the News.. a look at the top headlines and stories in the diabetes community. This week's top stories: A new study looks at the link...
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Foreign welcome to Diabetes Connections in the News. I'm Stacey Sims and every other Friday I bring you a short episode with the top diabetes stories and headlines happening now. Not really a news story, but worth noting that right now Scientific American has a bunch of articles all about type 1 diabetes. I'm going to link this up. It is called Innovations in a part of their ongoing series and this is innovations in type 1 diabetes, a quote, an editorially independent special report that was produced with financial support from Vertex. Several articles worth noting there. I've linked the whole thing up over at diabetes-connections.com, just link on this episode's homepage and of course you will find more information about all of the in the news stories there as well. Our top story this week more evidence linking COVID 19 to type 1 during the COVID 19 pandemic, there was an unexpected increase in the number of cases of type one in Sweden, particularly among children under five and young adult men, and this infection accelerated the onset of diabetes among children between the ages of 5 and 9. These researchers looked at data from a 17 year period on the incidence of type 1among all people under the age of 30 in Sweden. They found the number of cases increased by 12% in 2021 and 9% in 2022 compared with previous years, and in 2023 the number of cases was back to a normal level. But they say they can't distinguish a clear connection between COVID 19 infection and diabetes, except for kids between 5 and 9 years old. They also say that they are ruling out the COVID 19 vaccine as a cause of increase in diabetes cases because the recommendation for the age group where they saw the strongest increase was not to get vaccinated. Novo Nordisk is ending all work in cell therapy, including a type 1 diabetes program. This is part of a very large REG organization. As part of the move, the company's laying off nearly all the division's 250 employees. The R and D here encompasses work across Parkinson's, chronic heart failure, as well as research aimed at reversing or curing type 1 diabetes. A new gene therapy approach aimed at protecting people with type 1 from developing diabetic kidney disease and has shown promising results. This is A study published in Molecular therapy showed a 64% reduction in a damage indicator for kidney disease. The study explored the potential of delivering a protein directly into kidney cells. These researchers say it paves the way for a potential new treatment. The FDA has agreed to consider Afrezza inhaled insulin for children and teens Mankind, which makes Afrezza submitted the proposal a few weeks ago. It has been assigned a decision deadline date at the end of May 2026. Afrezza first received FDA approval for adults. In June of 2014, Eli Lilly released the results of two new phase three trials of their experimental GLP1 pill that the company says could become a foundational treatment for type 2. This is Orforglipron, and they're going to seek approval as an obesity medication by the end of 2025. A study released in August showed that Orforglipron could help patients lose an average of about 12% of their body weight. Lilly's injectable drug Zepbound produced weight loss as much as 21%. Novo Nordisk also is working on a pill and they have achieved 15% weight loss for their oral and injectable versions of Wegovy. Researchers say they have found a surprising culprit behind obesity fatty liver disease. Diabetes. They say it's silent genetic glitches in the blood system that occur naturally as people age. Stem cells in the bone marrow that produce blood cells gradually accumulate mutations in DNA. Most mutations don't cause any issue, but this condition affects about 10% of older people. It is associated with an increased risk of blood cancer and it's also linked to a higher risk of obesity and diabetes. But the prevailing thinking is is that obesity and related conditions promoted the blood cell changes, not the other way around. It looks like these changes may actually put you at higher risk for obesity and diabetes. A long way to go here. But this team is now trying to figure out how to reverse or prevent diseases caused by these blood cell changes. A new ultrarapid insulin continues to move forward. A phase 3 clinical trial of biochaperone Lispro conducted in China found it safe and effective compared with Humalog, along with a significant reduction of the rise of blood glucose after a test meal. They've already done these trials in people with type 2 diabetes. This insulin is a combination of the bio Chaperone technology made by a Chinese company, combined with insulin Lispro, which is the active ingredient in Humalog. Poor blood sugar control in teenagers with type 1 may be associated with a higher risk of neuropathy in adulthood. This is research from the University of Michigan. The study included kids diagnosed with type 1 between 1990 and 1992 and they looked at their complications and their A1Cs throughout stopping at 30 years later. There was a significant association between greater deviation from mean childhood A1C and increased neuropathy risk but not retinopathy it's interesting to me that the average A1Cs here during the teenage years was were about 9% when they're talking about being substantially higher than childhood and adulthood. The average for those for childhood and adulthood in this study was an A1C of 8. Blue Circle Health has expanded to five more states, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kentucky. They now serve 16 states and may add more by the end of the year. Blue Circle Health provides free expert clinical care, education and support for adults living with type 1. It is free due to funding from the Helmsley Charitable Trust and the program is currently active in 11 other states. Go to diabetes-connections.com to see the full list. O'Reilly Automotive, Inc. Is suing major PBMs and insulin manufacturers saying they colluded to inflate insulin prices. This accuses cvs, Caremark, Express Scripts, Optumrx, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi of violating the Ricoh Act. O'Reilly Automotive provides health benefits to about 45,000 members and they are looking for three times the amount of actual damage as well as restitution, punitive damages and to recover the cost of their lawsuit. We will be following this one Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in medicine for discoveries about how the immune system knows to attack germs and not our own bodies. In separate projects over several years, these three scientists identified the importance of what are now called regulatory T cells, and scientists use these findings in a variety of ways to try to find better treatments for autoimmune diseases, to improve organ transplant success, and to enhance the body's own fight against illness. Experts say these findings are critical to understanding autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. There's a new campaign from Beyond Type one about smashing misconceptions about all types of diabetes. This features a, I gotta say, really fun video with Nick Jonas and many others and I was happy to see that this is a video that uses a lot of humor as well as a bunch of real life amazing people with type 1 who aren't all celebrities. There are a few celebrities in there and you'll probably recognize a few very prominent diabetes advocates and some of these folks have been on the podcast. I think this is really well done and worth sharing. I am linking up the article about this and the YouTube video in the show notes and I will share the video probably even before the news episode comes out on social media. November is coming so we are going to see a lot more about diabetes awareness. I think this is a really good example along with Abbott's above the Bias video that came out a couple of weeks ago about using very different tones. Right above the bias was more serious, was really about empathy. This one is about misconceptions, uses a lot of humor but both really good in getting the message to people who aren't in the diabetes community. And that's it for in the News. I'll see you back here in a couple of days for our longer format interview episode. If you're new around here, we do those longer format episodes every Tuesday and In the News comes out every other Friday. Next week's episode is all about exercise and Type one specifically. Where can you get really good, reliable community sourced information? There is a new resource and I can't wait to tell you all about it. I'm Stacey Sims. See you back here Tuesday. Until then, be kind to yourself. Diabetes Connections is a production of Stacy Sims Media. All rights reserved. All wrongs avenged.