News and Events

GI diet offers infertility hope

28 June 2005

A recent article in the UK's Daily Telegraph reported the benefits of a low GI diet for women with PCOS. These include weight loss which in can, in turn, improve fertility. Read the full article on the Daily Telegraph website.

Seminar

Professor Farid gave a talk entitled 'PCOS: A common metabolic disease; the impact of low GI eating at the GI seminar held at the Royal Society of Medicine, London on 23rd June 05. This was extremely well-received by an audience consisting largely of dieticians and doctors.

Diabetes drug 'may stop cancers'

21 April 2005

The BBC has reported that metformin, a drug commonly used to treat Type 2 diabetes, may prevent cancer. A team of researchers studied cancer rates among 6,000 people with diabetes and found those who took metformin cut their risk of all tumour types by more than 25%. For more information visit the BBC website.

GLP-I analogue may offer a once-daily treatment

The British Journal of Diabetes and Vascular Disease, September/October 2004, Vol 4 Issue 5, pp360

A randomised, double-blind clinical trial in 144 subjects with type 2 diabetes examined the effects on glycaemic control and body weight of liraglutide alone or in combination with metformin compared with metformin alone or in combination with glimepiride. The results were as follows:

Thus, in addition to better glycaemic control, weight loss was observed in the liraglutide + metformin group (2.4) but not in the glimepiride + metformin group where weight gain was seen (+0.09) compared to baseline. There were no biochemically confirmed episodes of hypoglycaemia with iiraglutide treatment (alone or in combination with metformin).

Endocannabinoid blocker halves metabolic syndrome

The British Journal of Diabetes and Vascular Disease, September/October 2004, Vol 4 Issue 5, pp357

A major European study suggests that a new treatment targeting the endocannabinoid system has multiple beneficial effects including weight loss, reduced waist circumference and improvements in lipid and glycemic parameters. Clinically, these effects result in a halving in the number of patients with the metabolic syndrome within a year. The Phase III clinical study, The Rimonabant In Obesity - Europe (RIO-Europe), is being continued for two years.