In the News.. CGM Disqualifies High School Swimmer, Dexcom Smoothing, T2 Remission and more!

This week "In the News.." Did wearing a CGM in the water disqualify a high school swimmer? What his family says happened and why they're suing. The ADA wants to start using the word "remission" instead of "reversed" for type 2 diabetes - we'll talk about why. Dexcom says they are no long smoothing data, new migraine and diabetes research and T1Interntioanl is out with their latest survey results about the price and use of insulin.

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Episode transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to Diabetes Connections In the News! I’m Stacey Simms and these are the top diabetes stories and headlines of the past seven days.  As always, I’m going to link up my sources in the Facebook comments - where we are live - and in the show notes at d-c dot com when this airs as a podcast.. so you can read more if you want, whenever you want.

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In the News is brought to you by Real Good Foods! Find them in your local grocery store, Target or Costco. Real Food You Feel Good About Eating.

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Top story this week.. A discrimination complaint against the Colorado High School Activities Association has been filed with the U.S. Department of Justice. At issue? A student was disqualified for wearing his continuous glucose monitor.  Ethan Orr is a 16-year-old swimmer whose team qualified for the state championships.

According to his attorney Orr wore a blood glucose monitor taped to his arm during seven prior matches, including the one in which his team qualified for the state championships, with no issue.

But at this meet, the ref said Orr would not be allowed to swim in his last race because of his glucose monitor and tape. They didn’t have a sub so the whole team was disqualified.

The attorney says, “This is simply blatant discrimination against a kid with a disability, and it led to unnecessary and unfair consequences to him, his teammates, and the school,”

According to the lawsuit, Orr is protected under two federal laws - the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

I’ve reached out to the local reporter on this story and hope to talk to the family soon

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People with type 2 diabetes should be considered in remission after sustaining normal blood glucose levels for three months or more without medication. That’s a new consensus statement from the American Diabetes Association® and several other international groups.

They recommend testing every year to determine long term maintenance.

The real news here - as I see it - is trying to get people to stop saying “Reversal” or “cure” when it comes to diabetes. The statement here doesn’t seem to be about the science, but says the word remission “strikes an appropriate balance” between the diabetes not being active and progressive, but also recognizing improvement may not be permanent.

https://www.diabetes.org/newsroom/press-releases/2021/international-experts-outline-diabetes-remission-diagnosis-criteria

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Got lots of comments and questions about some changes noticed on the Dexcom G6 app recently. Turns out, Dexcom has removed what’s called data smoothing from its most recent update. As of August 9^th they say

“The Dexcom G6 app used to smooth all but your current reading on your trend graph. With data smoothing, there can be some differences between the G6 reading you see in real time (the white circle) and the G6 readings you see in the past on your graph (black dots). I’m showing a photo here - I’ll post this with the podcast episode for those listening.

 

To avoid these differences, we removed data smoothing from the Dexcom G6 app in the 1.9 release, but the Follow app and Receiver continue to smooth past CGM data. We will remove smoothing in an upcoming Follow app release to match the G6 app, but we don’t plan to remove data smoothing from the Receiver.”

 

These differences don’t affect the real-time glucose data, alarm, or alerts. Honestly, I’m not sure why they’re doing this or why they smoothed in the first place.. but we’ll follow up and try to find out more

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Not a lot of answers here, but this is interesting.. apparently, people with type 2 diabetes are unlikely to develop migraines and people who get regular migraines are less likely to develop diabetes. To find out why.. scientists are looking at two small proteins that are linked to migraine and drive production of insulin.

This team from the University of Tennessee says some of the newer treatments for migraines could increase the risk of diabetes because of the use of these proteins. They want to figure out how to prevent that.

 

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/research/mouse-study-shows-how-causes-behind-migraine-pain-can-improve-diabetes-treatment

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T1International is out with results of their 2020 global out of pocket cost survey for people with type 1 diabetes.

Worldwide, one out of every four respondents reported having under-used their insulin at least once within the last year due to high cost.

63.2% of participants reported disruption of insulin supplies and 25.3% reported an increase of insulin prices related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

They’ve conducted this survey every two years since 2016, adding additional questions each year. This time, the Results were published as a research paper in the Journal of Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice, linked in the show notes.

https://www.t1international.com/access-survey/

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More to come, including news about a rare form of diabetes, but first, I want to tell you about one of our great sponsors who helps make Diabetes Connections possible.

Real Good Foods. Where the mission is Be Real Good

They make nutritious foods - grain free, high in protein, never added sugar and from real ingredients - I was in Target this week and I saw the new Entrée bowls, I bought the Lemon Chicken and the Lasagna. The Lemon chicken was great! It uses hearts of palm pasta instead of regular noodles which I thought sounded odd but really tasted good. They keep adding to the menu line! You can buy online or find a store near you with their locator right on the website. I’ll put a link in the FB comments and as always at d-c dot com.

Back to the news..

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This is from the UK but I think it’s an important reminder that there are more than 2 types of diabetes. It’s new plan to discover and treat mono-genetic diabetes. That’s caused by a single gene mutation - although the specific gene affected can differ. The condition occurs in two types, neonatal - which can occur within the first six months of life - and MODY that develops later, often before the age of 25. About 2% of all diabetes cases are thought to be monogenetic.. the National Health System in England is forming a new training and treatment program to make sure these patients received the correct treatment sooner.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/aug/30/nhs-england-to-train-staff-in-all-trusts-to-spot-rare-type-of-diabetes

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And finally, thousands of people in the path of Hurricane Ida are still without power and possibly need help getting their medication. I want to make you aware of the Diabetes Disaster Response Coalition (DDRC).

This is a coalition of lots of diabetes groups - if you need immediate help or want to plan for an emergency, they have the resources.

Physicians and health care providers can call 1-314-INSULIN to report diabetes supply shortages and request support.  People with diabetes and their loved ones can call 1-800-DIABETES (800.342.2383) is available to support people with diabetes and their loved ones for more information.

https://diabetesdisasterresponse.org

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Please join me wherever you get podcasts for our next episode -Tuesday -  we’re talking to the folks from Walmart about their deal with Novo to sell their own brand of Novolog Insulin.. The episode out right now is with MannKind, makers of Afrezza inhalable insulin.

That’s In the News for this week.. if you like it, please share it! Thanks for joining me! See you back here soon.