In the News.. Dexcom G7 approved in Europe, people with diabetes living longer, non-profit insulin and more!

It’s “In the News…” Got a few minutes? Get caught up! Top stories this week: Dexcom G7 approved in Europe, JDRF speaks out on non-profit insulin plan, Ukraine diabetes aid progress, texting for T2D, Reaction to Pixar's Turning Red
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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. we go live on social media first and then All sources linked up at diabetes dash connections dot com when this airs as a podcast.
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The news is brought to you by The World's Worst Diabetes Mom: Real Life Stories of Parenting a Child With Type 1 Diabetes. Winner of best new non-fiction at the American Book Fest and named a Book Authority best parenting book. Available in paperback, eBook or audio book at amazon.
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Our top story this week.. Dexcom gets the CE Mark for it’s new G7 system, which means it’s approved in Europe. The approval is for people ages 2 and up, including pregnant women. I’m putting the full screen photo up here and I’ll post this on the website and in the FB group for those listening.. interesting to finally get a good look at the much smaller applicator – as expected looks a lot like the Libre. Also interesting, all the PR for this has said, developed in partnership with Verily.. remember them? That was part of google, probably best known for saying they were going to develop a contact lens that would monitor glucose. I’ve reached out to Verily, love to know more about this partnership. Anyway, we’ve done a ton on G7, I’ll link up some of our recent conversations with the folks at Dexcom. They submitted to the US FDA at the end of 2021, no firm timeline on US approval.
https://www.medicaldevice-network.com/news/dexcom-ce-mark-g7-cgm-system/
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Some good news about living longer with chronic conditions, including diabetes. This was a 20-year British study that ended in 2011, so one caveat here, it doesn’t include COVID. Men gained 4-point-6 years of life expectancy; women gained 2-point-1. When it comes to disability-free life expectancy, men gained about a year less and women stayed the same. This included people with chronic conditions including those with diabetes. These researchers do point out that while they’d expect to see the same increase in the US – the lack of health and social safety net programs could make a negative difference here. But they point to CGM technology and better medication as making a big difference for those with diabetes.
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-people-with-chronic-conditions-such-as-diabetes-are-living-longer-without-disability#Cognitive-impairment-is-the-exception
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Children who develop type 1 diabetes show epi-genetic changes in the cells of their immune system long before the antibodies of the disease are detected in their blood. An epigenetic change affects how our genes work. Outside factors such as environmental, viral infections, are usually the cause. These researchers say these are previously unknown changes that signal the increased risk of developing type 1 and could give an even earlier indication than the anti-body marker tests available now.
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220316/Epigenetic-changes-could-be-a-biomarker-for-early-detection-of-type-1-diabetes.aspx
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Could text-messaging with their doctors help people with type 2? A new team in Chicago is looking at text-based intervention in underserved communities. The intervention will deliver personalized information directly to patients through text messages, including reminders about self-monitoring and prescription refills, interactive office hours and general information about diabetes, motivational support and answers to frequently asked questions. These doctors say the idea is to create more opportunities for patients to meaningfully engage and reduce barriers by employing technology already in people’s hands.
https://today.uic.edu/an-sms-solution-for-type-2-diabetes
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Last week we told you about the effort by Civica RX to make affordable insulin. Civica, is a nonprofit generic pharmaceutical company. JDRF directed funds to this effort and CEO Aaron Kowalski wrote an op ed that I’ll link up. In it, he talks about the success Civica has had lowering the costs of other medications. We’ll have Kowalski on the show soon and I’ve reached out to Civica as well. This would lower the price to $35 a vial no matter your insurance. Congress still hung on a $35 co-pay cap for those with insurance.
https://www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/op-ed-jdrf-leader-on-insulin-affordability-for-all-americans
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Over in the UK they keep moving forward – covering all 400-thousand Britons with type 1 for the Libre CGM. Former guest of the podcast, Dr. Partha Kar, says everyone with type 1 will be able to get a CGM if they want one by the end of March. It will no longer be restricted by who doctors think need it the most. By the way, Briton means someone from England, Scotland or Wales. It’s the first time I’m using that word so UK friends.. let me know if I’ve got it right!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10606335/All-400-000-type-1-diabetic-Britons-offered-high-tech-implant.html
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Still a big need for diabetes help to Ukraine. A lot of the efforts are paying off – Insulin for Life showing that the supplies are on their way or have arrived. Spare a Rose reports that individual donations so far have totaled more than 115-thousand-dollars. I’ll keep linking up places to donate
https://www.jdrf.org/blog/2022/03/02/helping-the-diabetes-community-in-ukraine/
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Reaction to Pixar’s Turning Red. I loved this. I put out a call for photos of people seeing themselves in the movie’s tiny little moments of diabetes representation. Thanks to all who sent those in – you can see them on Diabetes Connections on Facebook and Twitter. And my Stacey Simms account on Instagram. It’s all just one account there.
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While Turning Red had diabetes in the background.. this week on the long format episode we’re talking about a movie that wants to put type 1 front and center. And it’s got the Star Trek community excited as well! Meet the Star Trek Discovery actor with type 1 who’s leading this effort.
Next week, we’re going on a deep dive about stem cell research with the folks at Viactye. They’re working on two fronts now.. encapsulation AND gene editing with the people at CRISPR.
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That’s In the News for this week.. if you like it, please share it! Thanks for joining me! See you back here soon.