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FDA Approves New Drug for Type 2 Diabetes
Neopallium writes to tell us that the FDA has approved the first of a new kind of treatment for type 2 diabetes. From the article: "JANUVIA belongs to a new breakthrough class of prescription medications called dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors that improves blood sugar control in patients with type 2 diabetes. JANUVIA enhances a natural body system called the incretin system, which helps to regulate glucose by affecting the beta cells and alpha cells in the pancreas. Through DPP-4 inhibition, JANUVIA works only when blood sugar is elevated to address diminished insulin due to beta-cell dysfunction and uncontrolled production of glucose by the liver due to alpha-cell and beta-cell dysfunction."
Nice troll. Really.
Cause? Or correlation? Some recent research suggests that, in people with so-called metabolic syndrome, the real problem might be systemic inflammation. Systemic inflammation = increased blood fats, increased blood pressure, decreased insulin response, and weight gain.
We really don't understand type II diabetes so well just yet. Type I, we do. Some suggest that type II patients who are obese might be obese because of the diabetes, not have the diabetes because they're obese. I'm not giving them a free pass, but people like you are the reason there's no ribbon for lung cancer -- you think people deserve these diseases. The first question people ask when someone gets lung cancer? "How long did they smoke?" For some of them the answer is, "They didn't."
Maybe the world isn't quite as simple as you think.