A major study of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is just out. It found that those treated with hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) - brand name: Plaquenil - an antimalarial drug also prescribed for RA, are much less likely to develop Type 2 diabetes. The study was conducted over a period of more than twenty years and analyzed the treatment of 4,905 adult patients with RA. Bottom line: relative risk for T2 diabetes declined by up to seventy-seven percent in patients who took HCQ for four years. Wow.

But that's not all. The researchers also say the RA patient who did develop diabetes were less likely to need medications for blood sugar control. Moreover, according to Mary Chester M. Wasko, a rheumatologist and professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, the greatest potential application could come in using HCQ as a preventive for people with pre-diabetic symptoms, "much in the same way as a daily baby aspirin is suggested for people at high risk for heart disease."

This is significant because having RA is a condition that usually leads to reduced activity levels and also to weight gain (as a consequence of taking corticosteroids), and these two factors put them at risk for Type 2 diabetes. So this is good news indeed.

The study was directed by scientists at Stanford University, however, researchers from multiple institutions were involved. Funding was provided by the National Institutes of Health. The report has been published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Click here or here to read more.

Several commonly used drugs have adverse effects on glucose metabolism. Among these drugs are: aspirin, and an antibiotic.

Aspirin is a commonly used drug to relieve minor aches and pains, to reduce fever, as an anti-inflammatory and as a blood-thinner. However, studies show it leads to glucose metabolism impairment in insulin-sensitive tissues. A 3g daily dose of aspirin was administered over a three-day period. Although insulin release increased after the aspirin, the glucose remained unchanged. Despite the increased insulin, the body seemed to decrease cellular sensitivity to insulin in the aftermath of aspirin.

A healthcare facility in Scottsdale, AZ advises doctors to avoid giving gatifloxacin to patients with diabetes. They suggest selecting an antibiotic other than a fluoroquinolone for an elderly patient with diabetes, especially those taking sulfonylureas. Beyond elderly diabetics, any person who has recently undergone treatment with an antibiotic in the fluoroquinolone family should raise questions if they are diagnosed with diabetes or deemed pre-diabetic. Drugs included in this family are: Cipro, Ciproxin, Enroxil, Penetrex, Megalone, Maxaquin, Noroxin, Quinabic, Janacin, Floxin, Oxaldin, and Tarivid.

You hear it from your doctors. You hear it from your friends and relatives. You hear it on TV. You hear it, well, all the time: Aspirin can help prevent future heart attacks.

You hear it for good reason, because it does.

That is, unless you are a person with diabetes. Researchers from the Sianai Hospital of Baltimore recently demonstrated that the standard dose of aspirin may not provide adequate protection against future heart attack. Studying 120 aspirin treated patients -- 30 of which had diabetes -- with stable coronary artery disease, the researchers discovered that diabetic patients showed a greater proclivity to aspirin resistance than non-diabetic patients.

This does not mean that aspirin cannot help people with diabetes in preventing future heart attacks, rather it merely points out that physicians should refrain from, as one researcher put it, "the one-size-fits-all approach to aspirin therapy."

USA TODAY ran a feature story that covered an American Diabetes Association, ADA, briefing over the weekend in which Robert Rizza, president of the ADA, stated that 7.2 million diabetic disabilities and deaths could be avoided by a simple daily pill that combined low-dose aspirin with drugs that lower cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar. A polypill is what Rizza called it.

Rizza went on to say that this treatment would cost approximately $100 dollars a year per person. According to the ADA, 21 million Americans have diabetes with an additional 41 million Americans at risk of developing diabetes. When I read this, it struck me that this is either a groundbreaking statement that has profoundly promising implications in the future treatment for diabetes -- or this is common knowledge in the diabetes community and then -- why is no one acting on this knowledge and developing the pill Rizza is referring to? Then again, is creating a mega-pill combining so many different medications in one pill -- prudent?

I am going with groundbreaking news, as the information shared in this weekend briefing was based on a mathematical model produced by Archimedes that predicts various outcomes based on variables in treatments. Now that they have this information, what will they do with it?

There's an article on the website of Business Week that I'd call a "must-read" feature. It profiles the efforts of Dr. David Eddy, who is a proponent of evidence-based medical care. Eddy believes that all too often the health industry is ignorant about which treatments actually work better than others. Not only that, Eddy says that physicians too often pass over cheap and effective treatments in favor of fancy high-tech options when there is sometimes no evidence that they work better than the old treatments. It was Eddy who lead arguments a few years ago that conventional methods of treating diabetes did not help prevent common complications of the disease, primarily heart attacks and strokes. He urged physicians to put at-risk diabetics on simple and inexpensive regimens of aspirin and generic drugs. The result? A dramatic improvement in the incidence of heart attack and stroke amongst diabetics. Eddy is still working on the diabetes problem, helping to develop a major initiative designed to get a million diabetics on these drugs. But this is just the tip of the iceberg - one aspect of a remarkable career. Read this article!