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Pharmacists now have another way to obtain continuing education credits for diabetes management.

The first non-drug treatment for severe asthma that is not well controlled by anti-inflammatory medicines won FDA approval April 27.

In the business world, it just seems like common sense that you dictate to your customers at your extreme peril. Even when you think God is on your side.

Bumps, bruises, and scrapes happen - especially during the summer months when knees and elbows are bare and so much time is spent outdoors. Many first-aid products can help.

The relationship between prescribing practitioners and nurses working in a long-term-care (LTC) facility is of significant concern to the LTC facility when controlled substances are needed.

Pharmacy directors who want to - or have to - operate 24/7 but don't have the staff to cover all 3 shifts have a new ally, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP).

The number of e-prescriptions filled last year soared 181% to 191 million, according to "Advancing Healthcare in America," a report issued by Surescripts in Alexandria, Va.

As Americans increasingly turn to vitamins and herbal supplements as alternatives to prescription drug use, medical professionals and government leaders worry that few realize the implications.

At 5 years? follow-up, intensive blood-pressure reduction to a target systolic blood pressure (SBP) less than 120 mm Hg did not reduce the risk of a composite cardiovascular outcome, compared with a target SBP of less than 140 mm Hg in patients with type 2 diabetes at high risk of cardiovascular events, although it did reduce the incidence of stroke, said William Cushman, MD, who presented the results from the blood pressure portion of the ACCORD (Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes) study to a gathering at the 70th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association in Orlando, Fla.

A new post-hoc study of rosiglitazone and cardiac events in patients with type 2 diabetes is adding to the controversy surrounding the thiazolidinedione (TZD) agent. Lead author Richard Bach, MD, associate professor of medicine, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., presented the new data during a late-breaking clinical study symposium Tuesday morning at the 70th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association, taking place in Orlando, Fla.

Patients and providers who look for saccharine packets may like the product-or they may not realize the range of nonnutritive, noncaloric sweeteners currently available.

A community-based behavioral lifestyle intervention results in significant reductions in glycated hemoglobin, fasting blood glucose, and body weight in overweight/obese individuals with prediabetes, said David Goff Jr, MD, PHD.

Use of a sensor-augmented pump is superior to multiple daily insulin injections in reducing glycated hemoglobin levels without an increased risk of hypoglycemia in both adults and children with type 1 diabetes who are not in good control on multiple daily injections, said Richard M Bergenstal, MD.

Herbals and supplements such as silymarin (milk thistle), fish oil, and red rice yeast can improve some of the conditions associated with diabetes, but the evidence is slim.

In 1992, researcher Edwin Bierman, MD, described the development of cardiovascular disease in diabetes as a black box. Nearly 20 years later, it is still a black box.

A telemedicine intervention in older adults with diabetes improved hemoglobin (Hb) A1c levels, and this improvement in HbA1c was associated with more frequent uploading of glucose values, found Ruth Weinstock, MD, PhD, addressing a gathering at the 70th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association meeting in Orlando, Florida.

Obesity and leanness are more than calories in and energy out. The amount of adipose tissue an individual carries is also a function of his or her intestinal microbiota. Research in mice and humans suggests that individuals with more Firmicutes and fewer Bacteroidetes tend to be more obese.

Hypoglycemic episodes in type 2 diabetes predict discontinuation of oral antidiabetic drugs as well as higher costs of care.

In patients with diabetes and concomitant heart failure who are naive to oral antidiabetic drugs, the introduction of metformin use is associated with a lower risk of mortality than the introduction of other oral antidiabetic drugs, found Dean T Eurich, PhD.

Although their ability to control glycemia is essentially the same, do other merits of dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP-4) inhibitors favor their replacing sulfonylureas in the treatment armamentarium for type 2 diabetes? Michael Nauck, MD, and David Matthews, FRCP, were on opposing sides of this issue.

Clinical reporting and coaching systems can significantly reduce glycated hemoglobin levels without increasing the costs of care.

Exercise research has found that boosting patients' self-determination is an effective way to improve their motivation to exercise.

A post hoc analysis of 5 clinical trials of liraglutide suggests that it was significantly better than active comparators on a composite end point of glycated hemoglobin less than 7% without hypoglycemia or weight gain, reported French investigators.

Fructose is the sugar consumers love to hate. It gets the blame for obesity, metabolic syndrome, and a variety of dietary ills. But according to at least one expert, the fructose content in high-fructose corn syrup just isn't that high.

In patients with type 2 diabetes, treatment with exenatide once weekly for 1 year results in sustained improvements in glycemic control, body weight, cardiovascular risk markers, and markers of hepatic injury, according to a pooled analysis of 2 large clinical trials.

An ancillary study to the ARIC (Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities) study supports the most recent (2010) ADA risk categories of glycated hemoglobin in identifying future risk of developing diabetes and macrovascular and microvascular disease.

Dietary choices can have a discernable effect on the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. That conclusion is based on analysis of men in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS), which followed 41,212 men for up to 20 years.

In clinical practice, exenatide is often started in patients with type 2 diabetes who are on insulin therapy, even though the prescribing information states that the concurrent use of exenatide with insulin has not been studied and cannot be recommended, according to analysis of a large nationwide database.