Diabetes

The American Medical Association declared obesity a disease in 2013, but insurers have been slow to cover drugs to treat the disease.

The proposed cuts would come just as CMS is gearing up to launch the Diabetes Prevention Program in Medicare starting in January 2018. Diabetes accounts for $1 of every $3 spent in Medicare, and CMS has been looking for ways to slow the number of beneficiaries who develop the disease.

The researchers' hypothesis: improvements in continuous glucose monitoring technology would bring greater quality of life improvements for those with type 1 diabetes, even if they were not using insulin pumps.

Preventing the progression of diabetes can help patients maintain a healthy quality of life while saving significant costs, said Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, MPH, MPA, FAAP, FTOS, of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

The findings come after other data recently showed an overall increase in diabetes incidence among youth, especially minorities.

Every week, The American Journal of Managed Care® recaps the top managed care news of the week, and you can now listen to it on our podcast, Managed Care Cast.

As the weather heats up, the risk of gestational diabetes in pregnant women may rise along with the temperature, according to findings from a study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

This week, the top managed care stories included the White House budget director hinting at mandatory drug rebates in Medicare; a global cyberattack locked physicians out of patient records; and the National Diabetes Prevention Program released promising data from the first 4 years.

Findings from real-world studies will help clinicians and other health stakeholders better understand the use of Toujeo compared with Lantus, particularly regarding treatment dosage patterns, for patients with type 2 diabetes, according to Liz Zhou, MD, director of evidence-based medicine at Sanofi Medical Affairs.

This study highlights disparities in care for diabetes and hypertension for individuals with serious mental illness compared with the general Medicaid and Medicare populations.

The sharp decline in cardiovascular deaths is the good news. The connection between clusters of high death rates and high rates of poverty, limited education, poor diets, and lack of access to care remains the bad news.

The study authors say that communities can invest in mass transit systems as a prevention tool to avoid rising rates of obesity.

Full results of the CANVAS trial are expected to be released in June at the American Diabetes Association.