A new study confirms that chronic kidney disease (CKD) increases the already-high risk of serious cardiovascular events in diabetic patients with damage to the large blood vessels and suggests that treatment with the anti-diabetic drug pioglitazone may help to lower this risk, reports the January Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

Heart disease hits people with diabetes twice as often as people without diabetes. In those with diabetes, cardiovascular complications occur at an earlier age and often result in premature death, making heart disease the major killer of diabetic people. But why is heart disease so prevalent among diabetics?

Researchers at Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, have discovered that deficiency of thiamine – Vitamin B1 - may be key to a range of vascular problems for people with diabetes. They have also solved the mystery as to why thiamine deficiency in diabetes had remained hidden until now.

A symposium, sponsored by the American Journal of Nursing (AJN) in collaboration with the American Diabetes Association, the American Association of Diabetes Educators, Joslin Diabetes Center and the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing identified barriers to, and strategies for, more effective diabetes self management and reaffirmed the nurse's critical role to facilitate better patient self care. These results are published in a special supplement to the June issue of AJN.

Diabetic patients with NAFLD are at risk for progressive liver disease. In this study, researchers examined connections between white adipose tissue in the abdomen and medical disorders including insulin resistance (IR, inadequate response to insulin) and diabetes mellitus in patients with obesity and NAFLD to evaluate whether cell signaling pathway profiles within WAT are associated with the presence of IR and whether they can predict the resolution of DM after weight loss.

A study showing that diabetic patients who are treated with long-term anti-clotting therapy are less likely to have a heart attack or die more than a year after stenting has been named among the best research papers presented at the 30th Annual Scientific Sessions of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI), May 9-12, 2007.

University of Manchester researchers are ridding diabetic patients of the superbug MRSA - by treating their foot ulcers with maggots.