DIABETES RESEARCH RIGHT NOW! #8: Insulin Icodec – Findings Could Move GAME-CHANGING New Drug To Approval By FDA!

From the first moment I discovered I had been diagnosed with DIABETES, I joined a HUGE “club” that has been rapidly expanding since it stopped being a death sentence in the early 20th Century. Currently, there are about HALF A BILLION PEOPLE who have Type 2 Diabetes. For the past 3500 years – dating back to Ancient Egypt – people have suffered from diabetes. Well, I’m one of them now… Not one to shut up for any known reason, I added a section to this blog…

Every month, I’ll be highlighting Diabetes research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites, journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and share them with you. Today: STARTING with a 2014 article, “Diabetes – Will it Ever be cured?”; I check up on the various therapies mentioned…This week: Icodec (https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/articles/year-2023/july-weekly-insulin-found-safe.html#:~:text=DALLAS%20%E2%80%93%20July%2012%2C%202023%20%E2%80%93,a%20UT%20Southwestern%20Medical%20Center)

In a study published on June 20, 2023 at the Journal of American Medical Association’s website. (The abstract is here: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2806635), doctor Ildiko Lingvay (M.D., M.P.H., M.S.C.S., Professor of Internal Medicine in the Peter O'Donnell Jr. School of Public Health at UT Southwestern) reports the unsurprising fact that more than 37 million Americans are diabetic; but 90%-95% of them have Type 2 diabetes. What means that the body does not respond normally to insulin, causing blood sugar (glucose) to become abnormally high. These levels can lead to long-term complications including heart disease, nerve damage, vision loss, and lower-extremity amputations.

One third of those with Type 2 diabetes require insulin injections to keep their blood sugar within a healthy range. Many of those however, basically refuse to do the injections because of the pain, inconvenience, and the perceived stigma of this treatment. They made a study of an alternative type of the standard insulin delivered in DAILY does – one that only had to be injected ONCE A WEEK!

These once-a-week insulin shots could simplify the future of diabetes treatment, but HOLD ON THERE, BABA LOUIE! Taking a fancy pants shot won’t be all…doctors will instead begin to focus on weight loss! I know! I know! No fancy shot to magically cure our Type 2 diabetes AND melt away that pesky fat so we can go ahead and get back to work, ignoring what we eat and consuming fat, sugar, and whatever ELSE we want to shovel into our mouths without a thought or regret in the world!

We’ve already gotten into deep, deep trouble in that medication created to help Type 2 diabetics live with their condition has been coopted by the immense (number of) people who passionately remember 24-inch waistlines and close their eyes to the 54-inch waistline of their present, bloated self and beg their doctors for The Shot that will melt away the pounds and let them eat whatever the heck they WANT TO without consequence.

There is already a shortage because medications like Ozempic (https://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/2023/03/diabetes-research-right-now-3-most.html) are being funneled to a market they were never intended for (or, as my grandchildren like to intone: “Or was it???”)

Back to the end of the study comparing patients who used the usual daily version of insulin called degludec, with the NEW weekly version of insulin called icodec, they noted that “The primary endpoint of the study was a change in a blood measure of longitudinal glucose control, or the patient’s A1C. After 26 weeks of treatment and five weeks of follow-up, patients on weekly icodec had significantly larger improvements in their A1C than those using degludec daily.”

“Both groups had an extremely low rate of adverse events, suggesting that both forms of insulin are safe. Although the patients who received icodec had a slightly higher risk of low-blood sugar events, none of the events were severe enough to require emergency medical attention. The end result appears to be that “patients on icodec stayed in a healthy blood sugar range noticeably more often than patients on degludec…[these] results suggest insulin icodec could be a significant innovation for patients with Type 2 diabetes if it is approved for clinical use. FDA evaluation is the next step.”

NOTE: YOU CAN’T GO ASK FOR THE NEW WEEKLY INSULIN SHOT YET!!!!! It needs to be approved FIRST for clinical use; THEN the FDA has to evaluate it! That means…like years until we even see icodec (with whatever catchy name the FDA and the drug companies decide to advertise it as – maybe something like Weekulin brand weekly Type 2 insulin blood glucose control or SugEven or

Links: (embedded above)
Image: https://asploro.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Diabetes-Research_Open-Access.jpg