It’s In the News, a look at the top stories and headlines from the diabetes community happening now. Top stories this week: a new study looks at pancreatic exocrine-endocrine “crosstalk,” weekly basal for T1D moves forward, a Chinese company gets European approval for its CGM, a look at air pollution as a cause of T2D, lots of info and advocacy for Diabetes Awareness Month including some movies and documentaries.
Links and transcript below
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Episode Transcript:
Hello and welcome to Diabetes Connections In the News! I’m Stacey Simms and every other Friday I bring you a short episode with the top diabetes stories and headlines happening now.
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In the news is brought to you by Edgepark simplify your diabetes journey with Edgepark
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It’s Diabetes Awareness Month so you’re going to see a lot of advocacy posts and hear about all types of diabetes and technology and advances. It’s always diabetes awareness month around here, so I’m not going to talk about each and every one of these campaigns.. but I’ll share more on social.
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Our top story this week, In the largest study of its kind, researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have identified unexpected alterations in the exocrine tissues of the pancreas that occur in the two major forms of diabetes, and with aging and obesity.
They’re calling this a report on pancreatic exocrine-endocrine “crosstalk.” I’m not going to do it justice, it’s pretty complex, so please check out the show notes with all the links.
They say their work, published in the journal Diabetes, represents a significant advance in understanding how Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, alter the digestive enzyme-secreting exocrine portion of the pancreas. Not just the parts that make insulin.
The pancreas has been very difficult to study because it is surrounded by other vital organs, hard to access, and it quickly deteriorates. Pancreas tissue for study must come from deceased donors or fragments of surgical specimens and those are hard to come by. This group says they were able to study an unprecedently large and well-preserved group of tissue samples from 119 donors.
https://news.vumc.org/2023/11/01/pancreas-crosstalk-may-influence-course-of-type-1-and-type-2-diabetes/#:~:text=VUMC%20Reporter-,Pancreas%20%E2%80%9Ccrosstalk%E2%80%9D%20may%20influence%20course%20of%20Type,1%20and%20Type%202%20diabetes&text=In%20the%20largest%20study%20of,and%20with%20aging%20and%20obesity.
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Another promising study about Insulin icodec, a once-weekly basal injection – this time for type 1 diabetes. We’ve been following this for a while and the results of the year-long phase 3 clinical trial are in.
After 26 weeks, once weekly basal looks just about the same as daily basal in terms of overall diabetes control. The group that received daily injections had their A1Cs go down to 7.1, the group that got the weekly basal was at 7.15.
These researchers say it’s very promising, but further analysis of CGM data and real world studies are needed to keep moving forward.
https://www.technologynetworks.com/drug-discovery/news/weekly-insulin-for-type-1-diabetes-has-the-potential-to-be-as-effective-as-daily-regimens-trial-380487
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air pollution raises risk of type 2 diabetes, says a landmark study out of India. This was a seven year study of 12,000 people and showed Inhaling polluted air increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, the first study of its kind in India has found.
When inhaled, PM2.5 particles – which are 30 times thinner than a strand of hair – can enter the bloodstream and cause several respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. India is one of the worst countries in the world for air pollution. These researchers say
“Until now, we had assumed that diet, obesity and physical exercise were some of the factors explaining why urban Indians had higher prevalence of diabetes than rural Indians,” said Dr V Mohan, chairman of the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation and one of the authors of the paper. “This study is an eye-opener because now we have found a new cause for diabetes that is pollution.”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/nov/01/air-pollution-raises-risk-of-type-2-diabetes-says-landmark-indian-study-acc
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Time-restricted eating, also known as intermittent fasting, can help people with Type 2 diabetes lose weight and control their blood sugar levels, according to a new study published in JAMA Network Open from researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Participants who ate only during an eight-hour window between noon and 8 p.m. each day actually lost more weight over six months than participants who were instructed to reduce their calorie intake by 25%. Both groups had similar reductions in long-term blood sugar levels, as measured by a test of hemoglobin A1C, which shows blood sugar levels over the past three months.
Senior author Krista Varady said that participants in the time-restricted eating group had an easier time following the regime than those in the calorie-reducing group. The researchers believe this is partly because patients with diabetes are generally told to cut back on calories by their doctors as a first line of defense, so many of these participants likely had already tried — and struggled with — that form of dieting. And while the participants in the time-restricted eating group were not instructed to reduce their calorie intake, they ended up doing so by eating within a fixed window.
Just over half the participants in the study were Black and another 40% were Hispanic. This is notable as diabetes is particularly prevalent among those groups, so having studies that document the success of time-restricted eating for them is particularly useful, the researchers said.
The study was small a
https://today.uic.edu/intermittent-fasting-diabetes-weight-loss/
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New CGM approved in Europe. Sibionics CGM says they have more than 600-thousand users for their GS1 CGM, mostly in hospitals. It’s a 14 day no calibration system with data sharing. They also make a Continuous Ketone Monitoring System(CKM). The company, based in China, says GS1 CGM products will gradually become available for pre-sales in EU countries, the UK, and other European countries.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sibionics-achieves-milestone-receiving-ce-mark-for-its-groundbreaking-gs1-continuous-glucose-monitoring-system-301974051.html
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Commercial – Edgepark
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Couple of movie updates for Diabetes Month! We’ve been following Pay or Die since it was in production, and it’s now in selected theaters with a digital release on Paramont Plus coming Nov 14th. All about the high price of insulin – and the personal cost – this release means the movie is eligible for an Oscar nomination for best documentary.
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The short film Type 1 is also available to stream.. you may recall we talked to the writer behind this project is Noah Averbach-Katz, who appeared in Star Trek Discovery. His wife Mary Wiseman has a starring role and the whole Star Trek community got behind this project. The two star in the short movie which explores the barriers to insulin access put in place for diabetics through a Type 1 diabetic and his wife during their desperate search for insulin. It’s presented in partnership with
with T1 International and it’s the film directorial debut of Anthony Rapp, the original Mark in RENT and current star of Star Trek: Discovery.
https://playbill.com/article/watch-anthony-rapp-directed-short-film-type-1
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This is where in the past I’ve talked about what’s coming up next week on the show.. well now we have two shows! In the news will appear in both DC1 and DC2 feeds.. but the weekly interview shows will only occasionally cross over. I’ll try this and see how it goes – next week on DC 1 – Dr. Mike Natter – he’s an adult endo who lives with type 1, he’s also an artist and has a huge following on social media. We’ll find out why – he’s also used the new Beta Bionics iLet pump and lets us know what he thinks about that. Next up for DC 2 – professional golfer Ken Duke talks about his diagnosis and how he manages diabetes on tour.
Join us again soon!