Eli Lilly Suppressed Information That Its Drug Zyprexa Was Linked To Obesity And Diabetes

Drug companies will never learn their lesson. The front page of today's New York Times( Sun., December17th, 2006) disclosed that Eli Lilly suppressed information that its drug Zyprexa was linked to obesity and diabetes.

Apparently, Eli Lilly kept important information from doctors about its drug Zyprexa causing weight gain, links to obesity and risk factors for diabetes. Consumers need to learn the lesson of "Follow the Money". Zyprexa is by far Lilly's best selling product, with sales of about $4.2 billion, and about two million people worldwide taking the drug.

The documents, given to the New York Times by a lawyer representing mentally ill patients, show that Lilly kept important information from the medical community. As early as 1999, the documents show that Lilly worried that side effects from Zyprexa, whose chemical name is olanzapine, would hurt sales.

“Olanzapine-associated weight gain and possible hyperglycemia is a major threat to the long-term success of this critically important molecule,” Dr. Alan Breier wrote in a November 1999 e-mail message to two-dozen Lilly employees that announced the formation of an “executive steering committee for olanzapine-associated weight changes and hyperglycemia.” Hyperglycemia is high blood sugar.

When it was introduced, Zyprexa was the third and most heralded of the atypical antipsychotics. With psychiatrists eager for new treatments for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and dementia, Zyprexa’s sales soared.

But as sales grew, reports rolled in to Lilly and drug regulators that the medicine caused massive weight gain in many patients and was associated with diabetes. Of course Lilly has denied any wrong-doing, despite years of criticism from the American Diabetes Association.
Some psychiatrists say they no longer believe the information Lilly offers.
This is Vioxx deja vu all over again.

Charles Donovan was a patient in the FDA investigational trial of vagus nerve stimulation as a treatment for chronic or recurrent treatment-resistant depression. He was implanted with the vagus nerve stimulator in April of 2001. He chronicles his journey from the grips of depression thanks to vagus nerve stimulation therapy in his book:

Out of the Black Hole: The Patient's Guide to Vagus Nerve Stimulation and Depression
His all inclusive book prepares depression sufferers to make an informed decision about this ninety-minute out-patient procedure. It is a "must read" before you discuss this treatment with your psychiatrist. A prescription for the procedure is required from an M.D. and it is covered by most insurance plans.

He is the founder of the http://www.vagusnervestimulation.com/ Web Site and Bulletin.

Diabetes Symptom and Treatment

Diabetes: Symptoms and Treatment

Diabetes can be difficult to understand unless you first learn about the way your body functions. As you begin to understand how the body fuels itself and how the digestive system works, you can realize that when one of the many parts of this system breaks down, there can be major problems.

Digestion is the process of our body breaking down the food we consume into usable nutritive substances. There are three main categories of these substances in the food we eat. These are fats, proteins and carbohydrates and they are all important to the nutritional support of our bodies. Vegetable oils, cheese, some dairy products and meat contain fat. Our protein is found in meat, eggs, fish and dairy products. Starches and sugars are found in pasta, fruits, vegetables, bread and grains and this is the way we ingest carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates are broken down by the digestive process and turned into glucose or blood sugar. The things we do that require energy, such as walking, running or other aerobic exercises, all rely on carbohydrates to give us the energy to do them. Insulin is the substance that our bodies use to absorb the blood sugar into our cells. Our insulin and other digestive enzymes are provided for our bodies by the pancreas which is close to our stomach. Alcohol abuse and various diseases can cause our pancreas to stop working properly and sometimes it may be necessary to remove it surgically.

If a person is diabetic, either their cells have become insulin resistant, or their body may not be producing enough insulin. When this happens, the glucose will not be absorbed by the cells and will back up into the body. This causes the body to urinate frequently in order to try and eliminate the excess blood sugar. Having to go to the bathroom very often is one of the signs of diabetes. Proper diabetes treatment is absolutely necessary to avoid dangerous complications. A lot of people who suffer from Type 2 diabetes get one of a variety of those complications.
Diabetes results from an inability of our body to regulate blood sugar in our system. Insulin is produced by the pancreas and is the necessary key to let our liver, fat cells and muscles absorb glucose which is needed to produce fuel for energy. The glucose may cause great harm to tissues and organs if it does not move into our cells and continues to maintain a high blood sugar level.
Type 1 diabetes is what you have if your body does not produce enough insulin to keep blood sugar levels at the right amount. In the United States, Type 1 diabetes, (also called diabetes mellitus), is what approximately ten percent of all diabetics have. This is normally discovered when people are children or young teens and can also be called juvenile onset diabetes. If your pancreas is made useless by some type of illness or taken out surgically, then type 1 diabetes can happen to an adult. This type of diabetic must have insulin daily in order to stay alive.
Type 2 diabetes is the type that the other 90 percent of diabetics have. This is usually diagnosed in adults who are 45 years of age or older but it may be found in younger people as well. This type is when the body has become insulin resistant for some reason and it may be able to be controlled through diet, exercise, weight loss or some medication taken orally. However, some people who have this type may still need to take daily insulin.

The number of Americans who are diabetic is becoming greater all the time. Some people may not even be aware that they have this disease. Great harm to the tissues or organs of the body may be done before they even realize that they have diabetes. Be sure you are on the lookout for symptoms, especially if you know that others in your family have had it. Contact your physician if you are urinating more frequently, have increased thirst or a sudden gain or loss of weight, all of which are diabetes symptoms.

Dennis Harris has a health related site that provides help for a wide range of medical and health related issues. You can visit his site at http://www.healthissuestoday.com/

Diabetes symptom and Treatment Info

Diabetes Treatment - Maintain Your Normal and Healthy Lifestyle Even With Your Disease

In the early days, it is hard to treat diabetes to save the lives of the patients. In fact, the absence of proper treatment or medication resulted to the patient’s death one year following the diagnosis.

Today, however, evolution in the medical science has completely changed that. With the discovery of newer treatment and diabetic management methods, patients are no longer doomed to cut their lives sooner than needed. If they could be administered with these treatments properly and earlier, they could live longer years as they can.

The first conventional medical treatment

Insulin is, by far, the primary and the first medication applied to people with diabetes. Method is applied by subcutaneous injections. Since insulin may get destroyed from gastric stomach secretions, it should not be taken by mouth. It should be injected through the skin and is taken in a daily basis with one or more dosage.

Generally, insulin injection is a treatment to regulate and control blood sugar/glucose content. Initial dosage is established with the patient’s initial condition and severity of the disease. After which, succeeding dosage will be dependent upon the progress of the patient.

Food intake as well as daily activities should compromise with the injection. To monitor if there is no irregularity in terms of the relationship between your insulin injection and diet/daily activities, blood sugar testing activity should make it a frequent tour to the doctor.

Regular treatment for diabetes

Aside from the medical treatment, which is the insulin, patients should undergo diabetes management to lessen higher risks of diabetes complications. Specifically, these are:
· Diabetic diet – diets of diabetic patients may be the same with people without the illness. However, heavy concentration on the healthy food and beverages is the lone approach that diabetic patient should follow. Similarly, it is also necessary to check on the nutrition label to ensure that the patient does not exceed or limit on the intake of proper nutrition content. Diets are typically provided by the medical doctors to the patients so they only need to follow these in order for them to be effective.

· Regular physical exercise – regular workouts may lessen the dosage of insulin injection. It is, however, important to note that the patient should follow a regular routine of the workout in a daily basis.

· Diabetic medication – this is now the insulin injection. There are two types of injection that you can take and can be administered by you or with other people capable enough. Dosage is dependent upon the severity of your illness.

· Obtaining ideal weight – healthy weight may not only lessen the risks for diabetes complication but will affect your physical appearance. This aspect is, of course, dependent on your diet and exercise.

What is the medical cost attributing to diabetes treatment?

Cost for treating diabetic patients may be higher due to the frequency of visits to the doctor, physician, and hospital and, of course, the maintenance of daily insulin intake. In the USA alone, there was an estimation that American people who have undergone treatment has reached their health-care costs and was pooled to approximately $100 billion yearly.

With different forms of diabetes treatment, people with this disease will no longer have to worry whether they should live normally as possible as people with the ailment. By strictly following to the methods of diabetic diets, diabetic exercises, medication treatments, and maintaining body weight, there is no reason to worry over severe diabetes complication onset.

Jeanette Pollock is a freelance author and website owner of justdiabeteshelp.com. Visit Jeanette's website to learn more about diabetes treatment!

Diabetes Treatment Info

Diabetes Information - Green Tea as a Diabetes Prevention and Treatment

In diabetes prevention, a diabetic person usually responds very nicely to diet and lifestyle changes.

You have to eat right, drink green tea everyday, and get regular exercise. I call it your diabetes nutrition plan.

There's absolutely no doubt that dietary changes and weight loss can have a major impact on diabetes treatment. If you just lose 10 pounds, for example, you may be able to decrease your insulin resistance. That's a significant breakthrough because insulin ushers blood sugar, or glucose, into your cells. In order for your cells to get the life-giving energy they need, they must accept rather than resist insulin.

How can drinking green tea help control an all-consuming disease like diabetes? Green tea polyphenols have been found to be potent inhibitors of amylase. In recent study, it was shown that just one cup of green tea was found to inhibit 87% of amylase's activity. And if less sugar gets into the bloodstream, blood glucose levels will automatically be lowered.

Dietary supplements like antioxidants may help reverse deficiencies that have developed as a result of diabetes, protect your body from diabetes-related damage, improve your metabolism so you have more energy, and help to stabilize blood sugar.

Antioxidants such as vitamins C and E, are one of the most important diabetes treatment, studies confirmed.

Both these antioxidants can help prevent the major long-term complications of diabetes, such as blindness, kidney disease, and nerve damage due to high sugar levels.

Shortages of B vitamins also lead to nerve damage in the hands and feet. Some studies indicate that people with diabetes develop less of the numbness and tingling associated with diabetes-related nerve damage if they take supplemental B vitamins.

Green tea contains B-vitamins plus vitamins A, E as well as minerals, polyphenols, and catechins which are powerful antioxidants in the market today.

I hope my article on diabetes information is helpful to you or your loved one.

Mary Rose Antonio is a physical therapist for 20 years now and is a great believer in natural healing. She also has a website http://www.best-green-tea.com/ where she offers organic japanese green tea, chinese green tea. She also invites you to learn more about the amazing health benefits of green tea.

Juvenile Diabetes