Endocrinology

Mindfulness-based treatment for obesity and binge eating disorder can promote self-regulation and yield significant results. A dose-response effect may yield better results for those who practice the approach more intensively.

A recent study has shown that in addition to losing weight patients who undergo weight loss surgery also decrease their chances of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Pediatric obesity is increasing in prevalence, with severe childhood obesity being seen more and more frequently.

There is currently no algorithm to guide clinicians in deciding which medication to choose to help promote weight loss in individuals with obesity. Rather, clinicians must take stock of a variety of factors when making treatment decisions for a particular patient.

The range of medication choices to treat obesity is expanding, and a rational prescribing plan requires a solid grasp of medication side effects.

Using a variety of cognitive strategies may help dampen food cravings and boost inhibitory control in individuals with obesity, according to a small neuroimaging study that draws methods from addiction research.

An intragastric dual-balloon device was well tolerated and proved effective for patients with moderate levels of obesity, owing in part to its ability to conform to stomach anatomy, according to Jaime Ponce, MD, Medical Director for the Bariatric Surgery program at Hamilton Medical Center, in Dalton, Georgia.

Even as Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems become more commonplace in the medical community there is still a large knowledge gap between health care professionals and their patients regarding the availability and use of these systems, according to a recent survey.

Phthalates may be replacing lead as the leading environmental exposure concern. Some studies indicate that there may be a link between phthalates, obesity, endocrine disruption, and metabolic interference.

Homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HoFH) is a rare and severe hereditary lipid disorder. Patients with HoFH generally have very high serum levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) that is treatment-resistant. HoFH puts affected patients at extremely high risk of premature onset coronary heart disease, and many patients die before they reach their mid-30s.

As the number of bariatric surgeries increase, clinicians require more and better data about its long-term outcomes. As we know, as more people take a medication or undergo a surgical procedure, the better the quality of the collective data. It's the strength in numbers concept. In the case of bariatric surgery, many clinicians have questions about treatment failure rates and they suspect that reports of sustained weight loss may be overly optimistic.

Intensify treatment and minimize weight gain/hypoglycemia? It's possible, say results of the first study to compare a GLP-1 agonist with titrated lispro on a background of optimized basal insulin.

While the dangers of smoking are well known to most people there still remains a segment of the population who continues to smoke despite efforts to encourage them to quit.

Looking at patients with asthma it can be easy to group them all together for treatment options. Recent studies have shown that that may not be the best way to approach helping people dealing with both obesity and asthma.

The authors reviews several challenging cases illustrating the utility of the anion gap in the evaluation of an acidotic patient.

As the workload for doctors increases some practices and hospitals are turning to scribes to help with some of the duties. What they should be doing and how much involvement they should have remains a topic of discussion.

A group of international researchers led by Luosheng Li, MD, of the Rolf Luft Research Center for Diabetes and Endocrinology at the Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden, recently demonstrated that age-dependent decline in insulin secretion (and thus glucose homeostasis) from the beta cell in experimental mice models is associated with subtle changes in Ca2+ dynamics.

In the American Journal of Medicine, Christopher Sorli, MD, of the Billings Clinic in Montana, reviewed new developments in insulin therapy for type 2 diabetes. He explained that insulin initiation often involved basal-only therapy in conjunction with existing oral glucose-lowering drugs.

AstraZeneca today announced that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved once-daily Xigduo XR (dapagliflozin and metformin hydrochloride extended-release) for the treatment of adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

The 2013 revision of guidelines on managing overweight and obesity in adults suggests that providers and patients set a goal of a sustained weight loss of 3-5% of baseline body weight to obtain improvements in triglycerides, blood glucose, HbA1c, and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Individuals who engage in physical activity on a regular basis have improved cardiovascular fitness, improved insulin sensitivity, and improved glucose tolerance.

Patients who are overweight or obese have several medication options as an adjunct to lifestyle modification for weight loss.

App will help patients with diabetes log their hypoglycemic events and achieve better control of these events by becoming more aware of preceding signs and symptoms.

Provocative research raises the question of whether we should we look at Alzheimer's disease as "type 3 diabetes."

Presentation at CMHC 2014 provides updates on emerging classes of diabetes treatment, including preliminary data from current clinical trials.

Patients' body weight (BW) is the accepted way to calculate the starting dose of levothyroxine (LT4) after total thyroidectomy. However, Italian researchers sought to find a new way to improve the accuracy of the LT4 starting dose following total thyroidectomy by identifying other major predictive factors of LT4 requirement.

Recent studies of targeted anti-inflammatory therapy show promise for helping patients with high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol levels.

Advances in treatment could provide much needed help for patients with obesity, diabetes, and hypertension

Patients diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy may be able to get a sense of how their condition has progressed without having to leave the comfort of their own home.

Cushing syndrome occurs only rarely in children, but when it does, it causes weight gain and stunting. In young children, adrenal tumors are usually the cause while in adolescents, pituitary tumors are more likely.