Tag Archives: william

Major study examines meat-diabetes link

People who increased their consumption of red meat during a four-year period were more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes in a subsequent four-year period, according to an analysis involving about 150,000 people. The analysis, led by researchers at the National University of Singapore, took data from three long-running Harvard University studies involving mostly nurses and doctors. The results were published online Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, a journal of the American Medical Association. The studies were funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health. While prior studies have also found a link between red-meat consumption and the development of Type 2 diabetes, the new analysis is believed to be the first time researchers have tracked changes in red-meat consumption over time with the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. Study participants filled out detailed questionnaires about the types of food and drinks they consumed at the beginning of the study and every four years. The analysis looked at some 20 years of data. Broadly, the study showed that, compared with a group of people who had no change in red-meat intake, increasing red-meat consumption by more than a half-serving per day over a four-year period was associated with a 48 percent increase in the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes during the next four years. However, reducing red-meat consumption by the same amount during the same time period didn't cut the risk of diabetes during the next four years. It did reduce the risk by 14 percent over a longer time period, though. The changes were independent of other factors such as body weight and overall diet quality. “Our results confirm the robustness of the association between red meat and [Type 2 diabetes prevention] and add further evidence that limiting red-meat consumption over time confers benefits for…prevention,” the study authors wrote. An Pan, an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore's Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, was the study's lead author. Other doctors say red meat in and of itself isn't necessarily the trouble. “It is not the type of protein (or meat) that is the problem; it is the type of fat,” said William J. Evans, who is affiliated with both Duke University and GlaxoSmithKline PLC., and who wrote a commentary about the study that was also published online in JAMA Internal Medicine. “It's mischaracterizing red meat as high fat,” Evans said in an interview. He said consumers could choose lean cuts of red meat such as sirloin tips or round steak over high-fat cuts like rib-eye. Dr. Pan could not be reached for comment Monday. Click for more from The Wall Street Journal.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/18/major-study-examines-meat-diabetes-link/

FDA panel votes to relax Avandia restrictions

U.S. health advisers voted on Thursday to recommend relaxing market restrictions on GlaxoSmithKline's diabetes drug Avandia, the former blockbuster at the center of one of the biggest drug controversies in recent years. The vote, by a divided Food and Drug Administration advisory committee of outside health experts, could modestly enlarge the market for Avandia in the United States and lay the groundwork for further research into the drug's health risks. FDA will now take the vote into consideration for a final decision on how the pill also known by the generic name rosiglitazone can be used. The committee did not consider a specific change in protocol. But 13 experts on the 26-member panel who backed modification said current restrictions that require prescribing physicians and pharmacists to be certified should be relaxed or eliminated after a reexamination of Glaxo safety data settled longstanding concerns about the danger of death from cardiovascular disease. “In general, this drug doesn't look any different than any other diabetes drug,” said Dr. William Hiatt, a cardiologist from the University of Colorado, who was among seven experts who backed lifting restrictions altogether. Five committee members favored keeping the current sales restrictions, while one voted to withdraw Avandia from the market altogether. Glaxo, which no longer plans to promote Avandia, issued a statement saying the company would work with FDA as it considers its decision. “We continue to believe that Avandia is a safe and effective treatment option for type 2 diabetes when used for the appropriate patient and in accordance with labeling,” Dr. James Shannon, Glaxo's chief medical officer, said in a statement. The British drugmaker's stock closed nearly 1.5 percent lower in London trading before the committee voted. Avandia was once the world's best-selling treatment for type 2 diabetes, with annual sales of $3.2 billion. In 2010 its use in the United States was heavily restricted and it was withdrawn from the market in Europe because of the possibility of increased risk of heart attack and stroke. Only 3,000 people in the United States take it today, down from about 120,000 just before the restrictions were put in place. Much of the advisory committee's two-day meeting focused on a Duke University reexamination of a Glaxo safety study known as Record that confirmed initial findings of no significant increased heart risk from the drug. That reassured some experts that earlier concerns with the quality of the research had been unwarranted and encouraged support for the restrictive protocols, while retaining continued guidance on potential dangers for patients and care providers. A departing train But others said the original data was incomplete and compiled through a flawed study design, while other research pointed to the possibility of significant increased risk of cardiovascular death. “When you look at the overall totality of evidence, it is not sufficient enough to either implicate or exonerate rosiglitazone versus cardiovascular risk,” said advisory panel member Dr. Sanjay Kaul of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute. Several committee members endorsed suggestions for a major new clinical trial to determine precisely the drug's risks in the face of a growing worldwide diabetes threat. But other experts concluded that years of negative publicity made funding major research unfeasible except for new diabetes treatments now in the pharmaceutical pipeline. “The train has left the station,” said Gerald van Belle, director of the Clinical Trials Center at the University of Washington. Experts including the advisory committee's chairman, Dr. Kenneth Burman of the Washington Hospital Center, favored the creation of a registry to monitor the health of patients who currently take the drug if major studies into safety and efficacy were not an option. Some experts view Avandia as a potential alternative to other diabetes treatments, including insulin, that could become more important as the incidence of obesity and diabetes grows, bringing with it a host of costly chronic ailments ranging from heart and kidney disease to blindness and dementia. “When treating diabetes we really do need drugs that lower blood sugar without causing hypoglycemia, and there's not a lot that's available,” Dr. Ellen Seely of Harvard Medical School. “When you're dealing with individual patients, you come up often against dead ends on what you can do. And it's important to have options,” she said. But panel members agreed the market potential for Avandia may never again be large. Glaxo has settled lawsuits filed by tens of thousands of U.S. patients who had taken Avandia and claimed Glaxo failed to inform them about safety risks. Several thousand other cases remain pending. The drugmaker last July agreed to pay $3 billion to settle what U.S. officials called the largest case of healthcare fraud in U.S. history. The agreement resolved allegations that Glaxo failed through 2007 to provide the FDA safety data on Avandia and that the company improperly marketed other drugs.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/07/fda-panel-votes-to-relax-avandia-restrictions/

Lung cancer screening: CT scans more effective than X-rays

Screening for lung cancer using low-dose computed tomography (CT scans) rather than chest X-rays may be a more effective way of detecting the disease, Medscape Today reported. Researchers hope that these results, collected as part of the National Lung Screening Trial, will provide more detailed information about the benefits of various types of lung cancer screening available to patients and physicians. During the study, 26,309 participants received low-dose CT scans, and 26,035 participants underwent chest radiography to detect for signs of lung cancer. Among those who received CT scans, a total of 7,191 participants (27.3 percent) had a positive screening result, compared to 2,387 (9.2 percent) in the chest X-ray group. Overall, lung cancer was diagnosed in 292 participants (1.1 percent) in the CT group compared with 190 (0.7 percent) in the radiography group. Previously, experts had been concerned that the high level of false-positive screenings that occur during CT scans would lead to undue stress, unnecessary testing and high medical bills for patients, Medscape Today reported. However, the new report reveals that the majority of patients who had a positive result after their CT scan only underwent one additional diagnostic test. “In many of the previous analyses people have assumed that there would be three or four or five additional diagnostic tests for every positive screen, and this has ramifications for the cost effectiveness of screening,” study author Dr. William C. Black, professor of radiology at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., told Medscape Today. Black is hopeful that these results will provide a good frame of reference for other lung cancer screening programs. “If patients and their clinicians are trying to decide whether or not to get screened, they can always refer to these results. They will let patients know what they can expect, what are the likely outcomes, not just in terms of dying of lung cancer, which is only going to happen to a small percentage of people who get screened, but also in terms of the false positives and what happens afterwards,” Dr. Black told Medscape Today. People eligible for lung cancer screening include men and women, ages 55 to 74, who have a 30-pack-per year history of smoking, those who have quit smoking in the last 15 years and those who are medically fit for surgery. Click for more from Medscape Today.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/23/lung-cancer-screening-ct-scans-more-effective-than-x-rays/

Possible new acute leukemia marker, treatment target identified

The study was led by researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center — Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC — James). The researchers found that when microRNA-155 (miR-155) is present at abnormally high levels in CN-AML cells, patients are less likely to have a complete remission, and they experience a shorter disease-free period and shorter overall survival…

Discovery pinpoints cause of two types of leukemia

The study, published in the May 9 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, isolated the molecular mutation that causes chronic neutrophilic leukemia (CNL) and atypical chronic myeloid leukemia (aCML) in some patients. That mutation, occurring in a gene called colony stimulating factor 3 receptor (CSF3R), initiates a chain reaction involving other gene families known as SRC, JAK, and TNK2, which subsequently drives these diseases. This discovery is promising for patients as it will aid in diagnosing these cancers, which are currently difficult for physicians to distinguish from other leukemias…