Future Directions

The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) has led the global diabetes community for 60 years. Founded in Amsterdam, Holland, on 23 September 1950, IDF spent some years in London, UK, before setting up headquarters at its current location in Brussels, Belgium. It has developed into an umbrella organization of around 200 national diabetes associations, representing the interests of the increasing number of people with diabetes and those at risk.

Treatment with the newly developed drug rimonabant has been found to help to reduce body weight and improve cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors. It has also been shown to help smokers to stop using tobacco without the weight gain often associated with cessation. Beat Lutz reports on the recently discovered body system that links obesity, metabolic disorders and smoking, and the potential of rimonabant as a therapeutic option to tackle these multiple cardiovascular risk factors.

The measurement of glycated haemoglobin (as HbA1c ) is central to diabetes care. This is the measure by which health-care providers can relate blood glucose control to the risk of complications, such as eye damage or kidney failure. However, a lack of standardization in the methods used to measure glycated haemoglobin has produced wide variations among results and is among the current

Since the first vaccine, when Edward Jenner in England used an extract of cow pox to prevent small pox, vaccines have become a part of most people’s life. Many millions of people have received a vaccine of some kind – in most cases, many

People who have a kidney, liver or heart transplant are at high risk of developing diabetes. This can lead to cardiovascular disease and the rejection of the transplant. Factors such as age, weight and family history can increase the risk of new-onset diabetes after transplantation. Importantly, drugs that suppress the immune system and prevent transplant rejection also play a key role. In December 2003, an international panel of experts in transplantation and diabetes met to update the existing guidelines for the management of new-onset diabetes after

A new generation of treatments for Type 1 diabetes is likely to come from within our own bodies. We know that a wide range of cell types have the ability to regenerate. Although some of these cells are found outside the pancreas, their regenerative capacity can be harnessed to replenish the insulin-producing islet cells in the pancreas that are destroyed in diabetes. In this article, Denise Faustman looks at the potential benefits and pitfalls of four biologically based therapies, all of which take advantage of the body’s own capacity for healing and renewal.

When we eat, the concentration of glucose in our blood rises due to the uptake of glucose from the digestion of starch and other carbohydrates in the gut. In healthy people, the increase is modest; eating activates other processes that

US President George W Bush received a letter that came straight to the point. “We urge you to support stem cell research.” This appeal did not waste words. The signatories had already said and done enough that is meaningful: no less than eighty of the signatures were Nobel prize winners. Stem cell research promises help to numerous people affected by chronic diseases and illnesses. The supporting argument is that if the embryos are to be destroyed anyway, would it not be better if they could be used to save the chronically ill.

Recent research from Australia has implicated infections of common garden vegetables as a possible source of chemicals which cause damage to the pancreas, the organ that makes insulin. This damage could thereby cause Type 1 diabetes, the insulin-dependent form of the disease.

Both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes greatly increase the risk of dying from heart disease and are leading causes of blindness, leg amputation and kidney failure. There is now conclusive evidence that these long-term complications of diabetes can be prevented by keeping blood glucose levels as near to normal as possible. However, achieving this with conventional insulin injections results in a three-fold increase in the number of incapacitating attacks due to low glucose levels.