“These are preliminary findings,” said Dr. Murray Mittleman, who worked on the study at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. “It looks like there may be some favorable effects on blood sugar control, however a lot more needs to be done to have definitive answers on the risks and potential benefits of marijuana usage.”

While the plant has been used to treat glaucoma and to help chemotherapy patients with nausea, those who conducted the study are quick to point out that it’s not enough to prove anything conclusive when it comes to weight loss or diabetes control…but the results are interesting. It’s thought that regular marijuana use could help regulate the hormone adiponectin, which affects blood sugar levels.

Of course, there are adverse affects that come along with smoking marijuana, too, such as respiratory problems, affects on mental health, and lowered I.Q. levels when used during adolescence.

Medicinal marijuana is now legal in 19 states, plus the District of Columbia.

Canagliflozin, which Johnson & Johnson has given the proposed trade name of Invokana, will, if further approved by the FDA later this year, be the first of a new type of diabetes drugs to be available in the U.S. It is a selective glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitor that blocks the reabsorption of glucose by the kidneys, which increases glucose excretion and lowers blood glucose levels. People with type 2 diabetes have kidneys that reabsorb greater-than-normal amounts of glucose back into the body.

“We are pleased with the positive recommendation from the committee and look forward to working with the FDA to bring this important new therapy to patients in the U.S. to help them manage their type 2 diabetes,” said Dr. Peter Stein, head of the Metabolism Development and Diabetes Disease Area departments at Janssen Research & Development, the Johnson & Johnson R&D company that developed the drug. “Today’s outcome represents an important step toward achieving that goal.”

The approval came after the results of a phase 3 clinical trial were presented at diabetes conferences last year. According to Janssen, the trial, which looked at 10,285 patients, was the “largest late-stage development program for an investigational pharmacologic product for the treatment of type 2 diabetes” ever submitted to health authorities. The results showed that canagliflozin improved glycemic control and was associated with weight loss and lower blood pressure. The side effects of the drug included yeast infections and urinary tract infections.

“Overall, metformin lowers blood glucose by decreasing liver production of glucose,” said Dr. Morris Birnbaum, a researcher at the Institute for Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism at the University of Pennsylvania. “But we didn’t really know how the drug accomplished that.”

It was suggested in the past that metformin reduces glucose by activating an enzyme called AMPK. However, this hypothesis was shot down in 2010 when researchers found that mice without AMPK in their livers still responded to metformin, suggesting the drug works in a different way.

Birnbaum and his colleagues this week published the results of a new study in the journal Nature. Their research found that metformin antagonizes the action of glucagon, which reduces fasting glucose levels. Metformin was also shown to accumulate AMP in mice, which leads to the blocking of glucagon-dependent glucose output from the liver.

While the new discovery might be seen as an exercise in curiosity, the new study’s findings may lead to new drugs that work similarly to metformin. The study’s authors stated that new drugs could get around metformin’s affect on cell mitochondria, avoiding some of the side effects that go along with the drug.

(Image courtesy Morris Birnbaum, M.D., Ph.D., Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania/Nature)

The audit is now in its eighth year and is the largest of its kind. It surveyed nearly two million people with diabetes from 2010 to 2011. The study is mamaged by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), Diabetes UK, and Diabetes Health Intelligence.

“These results highlight the huge impact of diabetes on disability and premature death,” said Dr. Bob Young, a consultant diabetologist and clinical lead for the National Diabetes Information Service. “Much can be done to reduce these risks if all health care sectors work together with people who have diabetes. Some districts have appreciably lower diabetes related complications than others. Improving treatment for diabetes should be a top priority for all clinical services.”

The audit shows that diabetics are 48% more likely to suffer a heart attack, 25% more likely to suffer a stroke, 144% more likely to need renal replacement therapy, 331% more likely to need a part of their foot amputated, and 210% more likely to need a major leg amputation. In addition, diabetics have an overall 40% higher risk of death and women with diabetes had a noticeably greater risk of death than men with the disease. The relative risk rate of death for women with type 1 diabetes was found to be 142%.

During the 2012 World Congress on Prevention of Diabetes and Its Complications (WCPD), researchers highlighted the evidence linking coffee to diabetes prevention. It was stated that research has shown three to four cups of coffee per day can cut the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by up to 25%. Another study has shown that each additional cup of coffee reduces the relative risk of type 2 diabetes by seven to eight percent.

Though the correlation between coffee and diabetes prevention has been demonstrated, the researchers were careful to point out that a causal relationship has not been established. It could be that coffee drinking is associated with other habits that prevent diabetes. However, it was also pointed out that the correlation between coffee and diabetes prevention can seem counterintuitive, since coffee drinking is often associated with unhealthy habits such as smoking or low levels of physical activity.

In light of this seemingly conflicting data, the researchers propose an “Energy Expenditure Hypothesis,” suggesting that caffeine stimulates metabolism and increases energy expenditure. Also, a “Carbohydrate metabolic Hypothesis” was put forward, suggesting that coffee components could influence the glucose balance in the body. Other hypotheses suggest that coffee components could improve insulin sensitivity through various mechanisms.

“A dose-dependent inverse association between coffee drinking and total mortality has been demonstrated in general population and it persists among diabetics,” said Dr. Pilar Riobó Serván, a speaker at the WCPD session and associate chief of Endocrinology and Nutrition at Jiménez Díaz-Capio Hospital in Madrid. “Although more research on the effect of coffee in health is yet needed, current information suggests that coffee is not as bad as previously considered!”

Metformin comes from the French Lilac plant and is used to treat type 2 diabetes. Previous studies had suggested that the drug could have anticancer properties. Researchers stated that there is a desperate need for new ovarian cancer treatments.

The study looked at 61 patients with ovarian cancer who took metformin and 178 who did not. Of those patients who took metformin, 67% had not died from their cancer withing 5 years, while only 47% those who did not take the drug survived over the same period. When taking into account factors such as cancer severity and the patients’ body mass index, the researchers stated that patients on metformin were 3.7 times more likely to survive ovarian cancer during the trial.

“This study opens the door for using metformin in large-scale randomized trials in ovarian cancer which can ultimately lead to metformin being one option for treatment of patients with the disease,” said Viji Shridhar, co-author of the study and a researcher at the Mayo Clinic.

Trials are already underway in the treatment of breast cancer using metformin.

“We think that ovarian cancer research needs to follow that example,” said Dr. Sanjeev Kumar another co-author of the study.

The study, published in the journal Population Health Management, also showed that diabetics who received education about diabetes management after they were diagnosed with cancer were more likely to keep their blood sugar under control. They had fewer admissions to hospitals and emergency rooms, and their health care costs were also lower.

“People with diabetes hear cancer and they think that it is a death sentence, so who cares about diabetes at this point?” said Dr. June McKoy, a co-author of the study and the director of geriatric oncology at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. “But if they’re not careful, it’s the diabetes that will take them out of this world, not the cancer. That’s why this education is so critical when cancer comes on board. Patients must take care of both illnesses.”

Type 2 diabetes weakens patient’s immune system, putting them at higher risk for cancer and lowering their body’s ability to fight off cancer. For those with the disease, uncontrolled high blood sugar can cause kidney damage and blindness, or lead to foot amputation if blood vessels are damaged.

“If you are not taking good care of your diabetes, your cancer suffers, too,” said McKoy.

The study looked at five years worth of health records for 166,000 commercial insurance patients and 56,000 Medicare Advantage patients. Researchers found that 65.2% of patients who were educated about diabetes had their hemoglobin tested with a doctor at least twice over a period of three years. Among those who did not receive the education, only 48% had their hemoglobin tested over three years. The group of patients who received education had 416 emergency room visits over three years, while those who did not had 463 visits.

“If you don’t have the power of education, you are flailing in the wind,” said McKoy. “You have to get this information and physicians really need to be information brokers for our patients. Having diabetes and then getting cancer can be overwhelming.”

In the study, published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience, the drug rosiglitazone was used on mice that have been genetically engineered to serve as models for Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers found that treatment with the drug improved learning and memory in the mice, while it also normalized insulin resistance.

The researchers believe that the drug reduced the negative influence of Alzheimer’s on a brain-signaling molecule called extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK). ERK becomes hyperactive in the brains of Alsheimer’s patients when they begin to exhibit mild cognitive impairment. This leads to improper synaptic transmission between neurons. The study shows that the drug activates the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARy) pathway in the brain, reducing ERK activity.

“Using this drug appears to restore the neuronal signaling required for proper cognitive function,” said Larry Denner, lead author of the study and a University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) professor. “It gives us an opportunity to test several FDA-approved drugs to normalize insulin resistance in Alzheimer’s patients and possibly also enhance memory, and it also gives us a remarkable tool to use in animal models to understand the molecular mechanisms that underlie cognitive issues in Alzheimer’s.”

The new research was a joint UTMB effort by animal cognitive neuroscientists, biochemists, molecular biologists, mass spectrometrists, statisticians, and bioinformaticists.

“We were extraordinarily lucky to have this diverse group of experts right here on our campus at UTMB that could coalesce to bring such different ways of thinking to bear on a common problem,” said Denner. “It was quite a challenge to get all of these experts communicating in a common scientific language. But now that we have this team working, we can move on to even more detailed and difficult questions.”

“About 26 million Americans now have type 2 diabetes,” said Dr. Carlos Bernal-Mizrachi, co-author of the study and assistant professor of cell biology and physiology at the Washington University School of Medicine. “And as obesity rates rise, we expect even more people will develop diabetes. Those patients are more likely to experience heart problems due to an increase in vascular inflammation, so we have been investigating why this occurs.”

Bernal-Mizrachi had previously found that vitamin D plays a “key” role in heart disease. The new research shows that a certain type of white blood cell is mire likely to adhere to cells in the wall of blood vessels when vitamin D levels are low.

The study, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, looked at vitamin D levels in 43 patients with type 2 diabetes and 25 others who did not have diabetes. It found that white blood cells called monocytes were more likely to transform in to macrophages and adhere to the walls of blood vessels in patients with low vitamin D. This causes cholesterol to build and blocks blood flow.

“We took everything into account,” said Dr. Amy Riek, lead author of the study. “We looked at blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes control, body weight and race. But only vitamin D levels correlated to whether these cells stuck to the blood vessel wall.”

Riek and Bernal-Mizrachi are now treating mice with vitamin D to see whether giving the vitamin to diabetics might reverse their risk of clogged arteries. They are also conducting clinical trials in patients.

“In the future, we hope to generate medications, potentially even vitamin D itself, that help prevent the deposit of cholesterol in the blood vessels,” said Bernal-Mizrachi. “Previous studies have linked vitamin D deficiency in these patients to increases in cardiovascular disease and in mortality. Other work has suggested that vitamin D may improve insulin release from the pancreas and insulin sensitivity. Our ultimate goal is to intervene in people with diabetes and to see whether vitamin D might decrease inflammation, reduce blood pressure and lessen the likelihood that they will develop atherosclerosis or other vascular complications.”

“Previous studies proposed the existence of an association between vitamin D deficiency and risk of and Type 1 diabetes, but this is the first time that the theory has been tested in a way that provides the dose-response relationship,” said Dr. Cedric Garland, lead author of the study and professor at the University of California at San Diego’s Department of Family and Preventive Medicine.

Researchers thawed 2000 serum samples, half of which were from people who later developed type 1 diabetes. By comparing serum concentrations of Vitamin D, they were able to determine the optimal serum level needed to lower an individual’s risk of developing type 1 diabetes. Garland estimates that 50 ng/ml of the predominantly circulating form of vitamin D is needed to cut the risk.

“While there are a few conditions that influence vitamin D metabolism, for most people, 4000 IU per day of vitamin D3 will be needed to achieve the effective levels,” said Garland. “This beneficial effect is present at these intakes only for vitamin D3. Reliance should not be placed on different forms of vitamin D and mega doses should be avoided, as most of the benefits for prevention of disease are for doses less than 10,000 IU/day.”

Garland cautioned that patients should consult their doctor before increading their D3 intake.