Latest Endocrine Society Stories

Being physically fit may improve survival rates among diabetes patients with a particular type of heart abnormality, a new study determines. The results will be presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston. In the United States, nearly 26 million people have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. Being overweight or obese increases the risk of diabetes, and more people are developing the disease as the obesity epidemic continues. Treatment...

The diabetes drug sitagliptin appears to reduce the severity of reactive hypoglycemia, a form of low blood sugar that occurs after a meal, a preliminary study finds. The results will be presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston. "Further studies may determine if it is possible to use sitagliptin as a novel approach to treat this condition, for which there currently is no medical therapy," said the lead investigator, Francisco Gomez-Perez, MD, of Instituto...

Compared to another popular drug, three widely used diabetes medications are associated with a greater risk of death, a large new analysis finds. The results will be presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston. The drugs, glipizide, glyburide, and glimepiride, are known as sulfonylureas, which help decrease blood-sugar levels among type 2 diabetes patients by stimulating the pancreas to produce insulin. In the past, these medications were considered...

An experimental insulin drug prevented low blood sugar among diabetic patients more often than a popular drug on the market, a new study finds. The results will be presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston. Nearly 26 million people in the United States have diabetes, which can cause blood sugar, or glucose, to climb to dangerously high levels. While treatment with the hormone insulin can help control blood sugar, it sometimes leads to abnormally low levels,...

Obese adults with poorly controlled Type 1 diabetes can better control their blood sugar by adding liraglutide, a Type 2 diabetes drug, to their insulin therapy, a new study finds. The results, which will be presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston, also found that these diabetic patients lost weight and lowered their blood pressure. "These results are extremely relevant because in most patients with Type 1 diabetes, the disease is not well controlled,"...

Obese older adults can reduce their chance of developing the metabolic syndrome by losing weight through dieting alone, but adding exercise to a weight loss program has even more benefit, a new study finds. The results, to be presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston, show that a combination of diet-induced weight loss and frequent exercise almost doubled the improvement in insulin sensitivity compared with dieting alone. The metabolic syndrome is a...

Many patients with type 2 diabetes may be aspirin resistant. That means the standard aspirin dose may not protect them against blood clots that cause heart attacks and strokes among diabetics, a new clinical study finds. The results will be presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston. "This result adds to our understanding of the prevalence of this problem, which varies considerably among studies," said lead author Subhashini Yaturu, M.D., section chief of...

A new study suggests that the appetite-inducing hormone ghrelin increases the incentive for humans to eat high-calorie foods, even on a full stomach. The results will be reported Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston. In the study, rats lacking the ghrelin receptor gene ate less of a sweet treat after a full meal than did rodents whose ghrelin receptor gene was intact. "Combined with an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, overconsumption of reward-driven foods...

Deep brain stimulation reduces binge eating in mice, suggesting that this surgery, which is approved for treatment of certain neurologic and psychiatric disorders, may also be an effective therapy for obesity. Presentation of the results will take place Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston. "Doing brain surgery for obesity treatment is a controversial idea," said the study's presenting author, Casey Halpern, MD, a fifth-year neurosurgery resident physician at...

A new study shows that although gastric bypass surgery reverses Type 2 diabetes in a large percentage of obese patients, the disease recurs in about 21 percent of them within three to five years. The study results will be presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston. "The recurrence rate was mainly influenced by a longstanding history of Type 2 diabetes before the surgery," said the study's lead author, Yessica Ramos, MD, an internal medicine resident at...