HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – As rates of Type 2 diabetes increase rapidly worldwide, researchers are trying to come up with a potentially long lasting treatment.
Dr. Chelsea Gordner, an endocrinologist with Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital said while that the standard treatment with GLP-1 agonist drugs is effective, it’s short lived which led researchers to the lab.
“So they added this protein that extends the half-life or duration of action of the GLP-1 hormone and we don’t know how long it’s going to last yet because it’s very premature studies but the home is that it will last longer than the current medications on the market,” she said.
Gordner said GLP-1 agonist drugs help prevent blood sugar levels from rising after eating and make patients feel fuller.
LONELINESS LINKED TO OBESTIY
According to a new study treating loneliness and social isolation may lower health complications for people classified as obese.
The study highlights the major focus in preventing obesity related illness and looked at data from nearly 400,000 people from a U.K. biomedical database.
It revealed all causes of death for people classified as obese was 36 percent lower in people who felt less lonely and socially isolated over time.
Social isolation was the greatest risk factor for all causes of death including cancer and depression.
A.I. STUDIED FOR USE IN CANCER DETECTION
New A.I. technology continues to be tested in an effort to help doctors diagnose cancer more quickly and accurately.
The technology can be trained to detect specific types of diseases like prostate or breast cancer.
Along with catching the cancer it can also determine how much cancer is present in the biopsy.
“So we are in a very exciting time in diagnostic pathology because we have all these new tools available to us which can help oncologists, which can help cancer patients like never before,” said Dr. Anil Parwani, a Pathologist with The Ohio State Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The technology comes at a critical time as new data shows cancer is becoming more prevalent in younger people.