NCDs

By Oceane Duboust  & Natalie Huet   A diabetes drug is facing shortages worldwide and causing health concerns as social media users boast its properties as a “wonder” weight loss hack. Produced by the Danish company Novo Nordisk, Ozempic is an injectable drug that regulates blood sugar levels and insulin. It’s usually prescribed to adults suffering from Type 2 diabetes, the most common type of diabetes. But the drug’s active ingredient, semaglutide, also mimics a hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) that targets areas of the brain that regulate appetite and food. Because it makes users feel full faster, it can lead them to lose weight. As a result, Ozempic has been touted on the Internet as a miracle diet drug. On TikTok, the hashtag #Ozempic already has...

By Kaushik Ramaiya Noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular conditions account for 41 million deaths each year. That’s more than 70% of all deaths globally. Most of these deaths (77%) are in low-income and middle-income countries – including those in Africa. These conditions are currently more prevalent than infectious diseases. Sixty-seven percent occur before the age of 40. Besides being the leading causes of death worldwide, noncommunicable diseases carry a huge cost to individuals. These also undermine workforce productivity and threaten economic prosperity. Healthcare provision in much of Africa still relies on external donors. There’s insufficient funding to help low-income and middle-income countries c...

GHealth News - WHO hosted several private sector entities who have expressed new commitments and proposed contributions to requested WHO Asks or strengthened previous commitments to increase access to insulin and health technologies. This was part of the 3rd diabetes dialogue to support diabetes diagnosis and monitoring including access to devices such as glucose meters and point-of-care glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) for people that need them most in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Diabetes continues to pose a critical challenge to global health and is among the top causes of death globally with more than 420 million people currently living with diabetes worldwide. Lack of access to insulin, blood glucose monitoring devices, and other essential medicines further compound...

GHealth News - If you needed another reason to get enough sleep, here it is: It may help your heart health. The American Heart Association added sleep duration to its cardiovascular health checklist. It's a part of "Life's Essential 8," a questionnaire that measures eight key areas to determine a person's cardiovascular health. The updated list was published Wednesday in Circulation, AHA's peer-reviewed journal, and replaced the association's "Life's Simple 7" questionnaire, which had been used since 2010. In addition to sleep, the new list retained the original categories: diet, physical activity, nicotine exposure, body mass index, blood lipids, blood glucose and blood pressure. Sleep duration made the list after researchers examined new scientific findings over the past...

GHealth News - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Olumiant (baricitinib) oral tablets to treat adult patients with severe alopecia areata, a disorder that often appears as patchy baldness and affects more than 300,000 people in the U.S. each year. Today’s action marks the first FDA approval of a systemic treatment (i.e. treats the entire body rather than a specific location) for alopecia areata. “Access to safe and effective treatment options is crucial for the significant number of Americans affected by severe alopecia,” said Kendall Marcus, M.D., director of the Division of Dermatology and Dentistry in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “Today’s approval will help fulfill a significant unmet need for patients with severe alopecia areata.” Alopecia areata...

GHealth News - A weekly dose of a medication recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat type 2 diabetes may help adults without diabetes lose weight as well, a new study found. Tirzepatide, which is sold under the brand name Mounjaro, was studied in people without diabetes in three dosages: 5, 10 and 15 milligrams. Participants with obesity or who were overweight and took the 5-milligram dose lost an average of 35 pounds (16 killograms), those on the 10-milligram dose lost an average of 49 pounds (22 kilograms), and participants on the 15-milligram dose lost an average of 52 pounds (23.6 kilograms). "Almost 40% of individuals lost a quarter of their body weight," said coauthor Dr. Ania Jastreboff, codirector of the Yale Center for Weight Management in a briefin...

GHealth News - A new biodegradable gel has been developed to repair the damage caused by a heart attack. Experts at the University of Manchester, backed by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), created the substance, which can be injected directly into the beating heart. The gel works as a scaffold for injected cells to grow new tissue. In the past, when cells have been injected into the heart to reduce the risk of heart failure, only 1% have stayed in place and survived. The new gel is made of amino acids called peptides which are the building blocks of proteins. It behaves like a liquid when it is under stress as the peptides disassemble - which is an ideal state to inject it - and then the peptides work to reassemble, making it a solid. This holds the cells in place as they...

GHealth News - For the first time ever, WHO Member States have supported the creation of global targets for diabetes, as part of recommendations to strengthen and monitor diabetes responses within national noncommunicable disease (NCD) programmes. The five new targets set the standard that, by 2030:   80% of people living with diabetes are diagnosed80% have good control of glycaemia80% of people with diagnosed diabetes have good control of blood pressure60% of people with diabetes of 40 years or older receive statins100% of people with type 1 diabetes have access to affordable insulin and blood glucose self-monitoring.   The aim is to reduce the risk of diabetes, and move towards a world where all people who are diagnosed with diabetes have access to equitable,...

By: Nicola Davis More than one in 10 cases of coronary heart disease could be prevented if people reduced their TV viewing to less than an hour a day, research suggests. Coronary heart disease occurs when fatty material builds up inside the coronary arteries causing them to narrow, reducing the heart’s blood supply. Researchers say cutting down on time spent in front of the TV could lower the risk of developing the disease. “Reducing time spent watching TV should be recognised as a key behavioural target for prevention of coronary heart disease, irrespective of genetic susceptibility and traditional risk markers,” said Dr Youngwon Kim, an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong and an author of the research. While the team did not look at what was behind the asso...

MIT engineers are working on a new kind of device that could streamline the process of blood glucose measurement and insulin injection. Before consuming a meal, many people with diabetes need to inject themselves with insulin. This is a time-consuming process that often requires estimating the carbohydrate content of the meal, drawing blood to measure blood glucose levels, and then calculating and delivering the correct insulin dose. Those steps, which typically must be repeated for every meal, make it difficult for many patients with diabetes to stick with their treatment regimen. A team of MIT researchers has now come up with a new approach to streamline the process and help patients maintain healthy glucose levels. “Any intervention that makes it easier for patients to receive ...