Improved ‘weapons’ vs diabetes, heart disease touted

Hardt Eye Clinic opthalmologist Ron Hardt attended the 76th Annual Scientific Session of the American Diabetes Association held in New Orleans from June 10 to 14.

During this meeting, the 2016 ADA Standards of Care in Diabetes just released that the drug Metformin is also effective against cardiovascular disease and heart attacks.

Metformin is now the initial medications for treatment of diabetes and is also the safest of the medications used to treat diabetes.

“It [2016 ADA Standards of Care in Diabetes] now calls for Metformin to be used as the initial medication,” said Hardt. “All of the major treatment lowers the risk for blindness and kidney disease, but until this year only Metformin was proven to lower death from heart disease. It is the least expensive of all the available medications, and also the safest from serious side effects.”

Hardt attended the many educational presentations about Metformin in the forum and found out that not only does Metformin help battle against diabetes and heart disease, but also other various functions of the body.

“There were studies presented showing how increasing the usage of Metformin would lower the rate of most complications including all causes of mortality, heart disease, kidney failure/dialysis, and of course the complication I see most, blindness and severe vision loss,” says Hardt.

Hardt is also aiming to bring insulin pumps into the CNMI. “We are trying to introduce insulin pumps to the CNMI, I made the initial contacts with the appropriate companies so we can do this in the future,” said Hardt. “Over 30 percent of all patients with Type 1 diabetes (the kind usually starting in childhood) are using an insulin pumps there (the U.S. mainland).”

Hardt wants to bring continuous glucose monitoring into the CNMI. “CGM is very widely used in the mainland U.S. It is very valuable in treating patients at risk for hypoglycemia, and those whose blood sugar patterns are very hard to interpret and treat. It provides 24-hour data on how the blood sugar varies,” claims Hardt.

New forms of insulin are being researched into. “There were also numerous presentations on several new forms of insulin, like Toujeo, which in studies provides more consistent control of blood sugar with lower risk for side effects, and hypoglycemia,” added Hardt.