Nov. 3, 2008
It was announced in the most recent issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine that the annual cost for diabetes drugs has doubled to $12 billion dollars in a little more than six years. Today about 8 percent of Americans have diabetes, and the rate of increase of this disease still remains at epidemic levels. So you would think with all of the new advances in diabetic medications that we would be turning the corner on this disease. Well, think again.
In June of this year, the results of the Accord study were released that demonstrated that the more aggressively you lower blood sugar levels in diabetics over a three-year period using standard drugs, the more likely they are to die. In a related study from John Hopkins it was found that only the cheapest diabetic drug (metformin) reduced the cardiovascular death rate in diabetics. Since advanced heart disease is the primary complication of diabetes, this should be good news. However, the American Diabetes Association’s new guidelines to physicians suggest using metformin for 30 days, and if that isn’t sufficient to lower blood sugar levels, then doctors are told to begin adding more expensive new drugs to the mix. It’s almost as if the drug companies are writing the guidelines for the American Diabetes Association.
Lost in all this uproar is the fact that the newest dietary recommendations from the Joslin Diabetes Research at Harvard Medical School for the treatment of type 2 diabetes are basically the Zone Diet, and that polyphenols (the chemicals that give fruit and vegetables their color) act like metformin. Call me crazy, but maybe the right diet is the right treatment.