A United Kingdom woman's death by diabetes made the news recently. But empathy had no place in the story. Instead, she was recorded as having died of natural causes, yet also convicted of her own murder.

The point of the story, which was reported nearly six months after she was found dead in her home, appears to be the fact that her boyfriend was found not to be responsible for her death. The death was originally ruled suspicious because the 41-year-old woman who lived alone was found partially disrobed in her home. Turns out, the boyfriend didn't kill her, but saw her dead through a window and decided to rob her. That's not all he did. He paved the way for her to be publicly ridiculed for struggling with a chronic illness and ultimately dying from it.

A coroner's examination "revealed that due to diabetes and a lack of its treatment, she had a chemical imbalance in her blood" and that she "failed to co-operate with doctors who advised her about how to control the condition" and then died "after she let her diabetes get out of control." The coroner recorded that the woman died of diabetic ketoacidosis, apparently considered a "natural cause."

Billboard.com has announced the death of Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Syd Barrett from complications of diabetes. According to Billboard, Barrett left Pink Floyd over thirty years ago due to mental health issues, and lived the remainder of his life in seclusion with his mother in Cambridge, England.

Known for psychedelic rock, Pink Floyd, with Barrett and members Roger Waters, Rick Wright, and Nick Mason, gained an international cult-like following due to its innovative beyond the boundaries rock.

By some accounts, Barrett's LSD drug use created mental problems for him and he eventually retired from the band to live in his hometown of Cambridge. Pink Floyd band members dedicated two songs to Barrett, who was seen as influential in all that Pink Floyd symbolized and position it held in the rock world, with Shine on You Crazy Diamond and Wish You Were Here.

At the Live 8 benefit, Gilmour, Waters, Wright and Mason performed Wish You Were Here in Barrett's honor. Barrett was 60.

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?

Vision loss is a real concern for diabetics. According to researchers, diabetics fear blindness more than they do death. The cause for potential vision loss due to diabetes results when blood vessels in the retina leak, and in a more severe stage, there is a profusion of fragile new blood vessels that form in the back of the eye that can leak.

In late-stage clinical trials, ruboxistaurin, an experimental drug developed by Eli Lilly, has proven effective in reducing vision loss caused by the effects of diabetes on the retina by 41 percent. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has now agreed to review the research data in making a decision on whether to approve ruboxistaurin.

If approved, ruboxistaurin will be sold under the brand name Arxxant. As I understand what I am reading about this drug, it will be the first oral pill designed to slow or prevent vision loss. While the researchers were hoping the drug would slow progression of advanced vision loss, it appeared to be effective only in the early stages of diabetic retinopathy.