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Effective Obesity Treatment with a Removable Medical Device
December 1, 2009
Interim Data From A Clinical Trial Evaluating GI Dynamics' EndoBarrier™ Gastrointestinal Liner In Patients With Type 2 Diabetes | www.medicalnewstoday.com
Promising new medical strategy, in clinical trials, with intriguing worldwide application, but especially in Western markets.
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Zetia Now Off Best Practices List for MI Prevention, But is Niaspan > Diet?
November 15, 2009
Another Vytorin Mess For Merck | www.forbes.com
Abbott Laboratories' (ABT.N) Niaspan, though inexpensive and older, lowered HDL and shrunk artery diameter in heart patients more effectively and safely than Merck & Co's (MRK.N) moderately expensive Zetia.Though there is little reason for doctors to prescribe Zetia now, there are real cautions about Niaspan that many people with liver concerns will appreciate. And so will their physicians.An alternative and winning intervention, essentially unexplored by Pharma, is diet.
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Novel Approaches In Their Back Pocket, and In Others' Too
June 18, 2007
FDA Advisory Committee Did Not Recommend Approval of Rimonabant (ZIMULTI(R)) for Use in Obese and Overweight Patients With Associated Risks Factors | www.pipelinereview.com
Sanofi's competitors have in the pipeline drugs that work similarly. This rejection is one on a string of setbacks for the innovative company, but more forthrightness about the problems would help them in the marketplace, and with physicians. Overseas markets have only partially tapped potential, which will grow.
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Is Suicide Painless? Why Zimulti/Rimonabant Has a Second Chance.
June 15, 2007
FDA Advisory Committee Did Not Recommend Approval Of Rimonabant (ZIMULTI(R)) For Use In Obese And Overweight Patients With Associated Risks Factors | www.medicalnewstoday.com
Ten countries have already approved the drug, and some increased side effects have been noted, but not to the magnitude reported to the FDA. Sanofi is a smart company that will regroup and make something new of this, and already is undertaking educational efforts with key physicians and scholars.
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Vitamin D DustUp Deserves No Damage...But Attention
June 14, 2007
Vitamin D is NOT water soluble. | www.1wp.com
Vitamin D is emerging as one of the few vitamins that should be supplemented. Some 60 percent of the U.S. is probably deficient, from November through May. Anyone can make a mistake on live TV, but Vitamins D, E, A and K are fat soluble: they should be eaten with food with a little healthy fat to maximize absorption.
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FDA 1, Supplement Industry 0: Fair and Balanced
June 11, 2007
Supreme Court Skips Nutraceutical Case | www.forbes.com
Direct link is here: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/05/14/ap3717544.html This is an important case because it shows that the FDA can have some jurisdiction over supplements it deems to be dangerous, and win in Court. Physicians are frustrated with having little say in drug-supplement interactions, and feeling left out of dietary supplements generally. A federal ban on ephedra remains good medicine--for patients and for clinicians.
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Rx: the Mediterranean Diet: But for Which Conditions?
June 11, 2007
'Mediterranean' Diet Reduces COPD Risk | www.medpagetoday.com
1. These excellent data apply only to men in the U.S., but that is a large and lucrative market for COPD prevention. 2. Other, less well-known conditions have also been prevented with dietary patterns and the Mediterranean Diet is one of the best studied. 3. It also has wide palate and culinary appeal...and it makes you feel good. Which counts for something.
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Disease Management for Diabetes: What Are Big Companies Missing?
June 11, 2007
Healthways' Study Shows Medicare Advantage Beneficiaries Benefit from Disease Management Programs | insurancenewsnet.com
In a word, they are missing innovation. This press release offers skim-the-surface-please-call-us results: the devil is in the details. A new model for diabetes disease management is needed to get employers and their employees off the dime, literally. Amazingly, this model is simple, local, personal and effective.
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Avandia/Actos and Phen/Fen: Overlapping Fates
June 11, 2007
U.S. urges strongest warning on 2 diabetes drugs | www.iht.com
A/A and Phen/Fen have disturbing similarities. Black box warnings have been shown to hurt sales, and two seem on the horizon here. Other diabetes drugs and makers are less troubled.
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PBM Ethics: Generics, Yes; MDs, Pharma, Employers, No
May 2, 2007
Consumer Outreach Boosts Generic Cholesterol-Fighting Drugs | www.pharmalive.com
Cholesterol meds--older statins especially--can safely be prescribed as generic, and consumers can benefit.
Financial incentives work for consumers, especially at the POS and for doctors, who do more of what they are paid well to do, like other workers.
What doesn't work for doctors are more needless calls and less time with patients: what doesn't work for Pharma are misaligned employer incentives and conflicts of interest that should embarrass anyone in PBMs, and worse. -
Technology Misused: Why Managed Care Has a Bad Name
April 30, 2007
Telephonic Care Support Improves Adherence to Standards of Care for Diabetic Population | www.genengnews.com
Technology can help control health care costs in the biggest markets.
This study, however, is a misuse: it is all about process and not about outcome. Not what anyone who care about health or resources should be please about.
Those who want to make a difference in disease management should seek out excellent clinicians: there are many who are highly successful: they are just not often in academia, and have not been engaged by entrpreneurs. -
Grape Expectations: Yes If Not No Because.
April 30, 2007
Is Your Favourite Red Wine Really That Good For You? | www.medicalnewstoday.com
1. Yes, relevant: people need and want better information, and want to swim in the fountain of youth if they can, especially while drinking excellent red wine, Sideways.
2. Maybe useful: the jury on resveratrol, its measurement availability in the U.S. hard-to-find, but completely available with detailed inquiry, is out in humans: and mice, fruit flies and worms are not human.
3. Plus, supplements of resveratrol are not derived from red wine, but from Japanese knotweed. Labelling resveratrol content seems like a good idea now, but has not yet proven to be commercially desirable, and there have been others who have tried. -
Is It Weight Loss or Xenical? Will Litigation Decide for Alli too?
April 18, 2007
Gallstone Risk Seen With Roche Weight Drug Xenical: FDA Staff | www.medscape.com
Gallstones are a minor clinical problem compared with Roche's Orlistat's oily leakage, perceived by patients as a major deterrent to use.
The business risk is to sales of GSK's Alli, to be released later this year.
Litigation from recent cholecystectomy patients is, however, a possibility as is class action. -
If Only Flushing Were the Only Problem, Abbott Would Have a Hit
April 11, 2007
Abbott Announces FDA Approval of a New Coated Niaspan Tablet | pharmalive.com
*The major problem with Niaspan is being missed: it is not flushing, it is the liver and the muscles
*Much of the target audience cannot take extended release niacin...statin takers, for example
*Making supplements into drugs requires a better understanding of what consumers want from both
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Flavonoids in Chocolate Work Together, But One May Be a Medication
April 4, 2007
Dark Chocolate May Lower Risk Of Cardiovascular Disease | www.medicalnewstoday.com
Dark chocolate has staying power as a functional food and nutraceutical.
Peripheral arterial disease, impotence and small vessel disease in diabetes may be improved with better flow mediated dilation, shown here.
Sugar could cripple the cocoa, as could cocoa processing. -
Smart Idea, Incomplete Data, Uncertain Market
April 4, 2007
Alba Announces Completion of Enrollment and Dosing of Patients in Phase II Clinical Trial of AT-1001 for the Treatment of Celiac Disease | www.pipelinereview.com
Yes, there are 3m undiagnosed celiacs in the U.S. I wonder if they want to take a compound so they can still eat pasta...which they currently eat.
State of the art design, but uncertain why 6m instead of 12m, as absorption problems can continue after 6m.
Fascinating possibility that Alba could be right...but they will have to convince GPs and IM docs to diagnose the disease first. -
CEOs Who Lead Will Win in Wellness Too
April 4, 2007
The Road to Wellness Is Starting at the Office | online.wsj.com
Use HR to sell wellness to your employees
Expect to pay for, develop and profit from wellness programs yourself: your insurer has not yet figured it out.
Improving employee health is the same as cutting medical costs, without killing morale and sprouting lawsuits. -
Marketing and labeling will determine proper use
February 12, 2007
Obesity pill may treat diabetes | heartpro.healthcentersonline.com
* Rimonabant has promising science but certain side effects, especially psychological side effects
* Treating diabetes has a certain future, while treating obesity with pharmacologic mechanisms has certain, well-known cautions
* Differently than what is stated here, there are 2 other diabetes drugs on the market which cause weight loss and lower A1C -
Extraordinary, Underappreciated and Full of Potential
February 9, 2007
Belly Bacteria Linked to Obesity | www.foxnews.com
1. Infectobesity, or obesity resulting from infection, is reproducible in mice, and implied in people.
2. This is most likely not a fad: there is serious money, and serious research, and it is scientifically logical
3. If there was one diet that worked, we would all be on it: the cause of weight gain is different for different people, is genetically mediated in many, and control of those genes expression is possible, and even likely. -
Less Relevant for Type II than Type I
February 7, 2007
Inhaled Insulin for Diabetes Mellitus | content.nejm.org
*Weight loss must be taken into account in agent selection
*90 percent of type II patients are overweight...not so type I
*The epidemic of diabetes is nearly all type II patients, and most do not require insulin, and should not.
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