The safety of the popular diabetes drug Avandia (rosiglitazone), manufactured by Glaxo, has been called into question by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) staff scientists and the drug was recently placed at risk for a massive recall.  The result of the vote by the FDA panel after a two-day meeting with the endocrinologic and metabolic advisory committees which ended July 14, 2010, was to keep the drug available to the U.S. Market but with significant new restrictions. Most importantly, stronger warnings regarding the cardiovascular risks surrounding the use of Avandia.

The drug’s safety has been in question since 2007, the last time the FDA considered taking it off the market in the United States when a dozen studies showed worrying data regarding the safety of Avandia in response to a 2005 analysis which linked the drug to an increase in heart attacks by 43 percent.  This new labeling could reduce the use of Avandia by 95 percent.

The risks associated with diabetes medications are leading people to look into effective alternative treatments of their condition, such as the recent vitamin D3 and sunlight therapies that are shown in important studies to be quite effective.  For example, the recent study by endocrinologist Esther Krug, MD, from Baltimore’s Sinai Hospital (as well as assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine) showed that over 90 percent of patients with type 2 diabetes were vitamin D3 deficient and that the greater the deficiency, the worse the diabetic condition.  Those findings support previous studies that have linked insulin production cells and the production of the insulin itself with vitamin D3.

Vitamin D can have an impact on glycemic control, so diabetic patients should discuss adding vitamin D3 to their diets through proper nutrition, supplements, and exposure to sunlight or full-spectrum lighting.

Sources:

• http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100709-708932.html
• http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/fda-panel-gives-avandia.html
• http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704682604575369232879016248.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
• http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2010/07/04/6747/vitamin-d-deficiency-common-in-people-with-poor-diabetes-control-/

As my fist official act back in the saddle, I’ve asked Julie Campbell from JBC Online E Publishing (jbconlineepublishing.com) to help me sift through all the light therapy news since October of last year and get this website up to date.  Julie has written for us now and then for what feels like almost 10 years now, and I’m happy to have her in my corner.   Welcome, Julie, and thank you.

Wow.  Just sat down to get back to work and I notice there have been no posts since 10/09.  That’d make me wonder if we’re even still in business. Here’s what’s been going on.  Get ready, it’s not a nice story.

I was scheduled for surgery in November ’09, so I was busy getting my proverbial ducks in a row.

Surgery was canceled at the very last second because, I guess, certain herbs do not play nice with anesthesia.  So surgery was rescheduled to December ’09.  More time to order the ducks, didn’t blog for another month.

Surgery went well but recovery revealed just what a wimp I am, and I didn’t get any work done after surgery, either.

6 weeks into recovery,  January 14th, (here’s the ugly part) my aunts knocked on my door and told me my mother and 2 sisters had been shot, 2 were dead,  one was in the hospital, and they didn’t know which sister was which, but my mom, for sure, was “gone.”   Over the next 5 hours we found out that one of my sisters had actually left the scene a few minutes earlier and was unharmed,  and my little sister (18) was in stable condition after 5 gunshot wounds.

That was 7 months ago.  You would think things could not get worse, but they have, steadily, since that day.   Needless to say, I haven’t worked on my business at all.  I’ve shipped orders, but that’s it.   And today, as I thought hard about getting back to work on a regular schedule, I realized that there’s more to my staying away than I thought.  For instance, my mother taught me this business, and I’ve never worked on it without her around.  Coming back to work is going to be another very raw passageway through the grieving process, which I am not looking forward to at all.   I’m told of this process,  “you have to go through it, there is no way around.”  So here we go.