Insulin

  An $80 million national research plan to attack Alzheimer's, a mind-robbing malady that may affect as many as 16 million Americans by 2050, will start this year with U.S.-sponsored studies on ways to prevent the disease in high-risk people and treat it with an insulin nasal spray. The National Institutes of Health will spend $7.9 million researching the spray and $16 million on the first study to focus on growth of the disease in high-risk patients, according to a statement today by Department of Health and Human Services.

Several large studies have shown that people with diabetes are at especially high risk for Alzheimer's disease. Steven Arnold, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Memory Center, said diabetics are 50 to 100 percent more likely to get the fatal, memory-destroying disease. This has made researchers increasingly interested in the role that insulin, the hormone that's out of whack in diabetes, might play in Alzheimer's. In the brain, Arnold said, insulin is important for cell growth and releasing neurotransmitters that allow cells to communicate.

Nurse Jean Saxon did not apologize to her dead husband's family, nor did she offer any explanations before being sentenced yesterday to life in prison for the insulin-induced murder of Jerry Saxon. "I wasn't expecting any apology because of who she is," said Michael Saxon of Levittown, Jerry's brother. "She still thinks she's innocent. " A jury convicted Jean Saxon, 46, of Levittown, of first-degree murder and other charges Monday in Bucks County Court. In announcing the mandatory life sentence with no chance of parole yesterday, Judge David W. Heckler added one month to seven years for theft and one to six months for possession of a controlled substance, making the sentences run consecutively.

Jean Saxon pleaded not guilty yesterday to murdering her estranged husband with insulin, laying the groundwork for what her lawyer called "a battle of the experts. " At a preliminary hearing in Penndel, Saxon, a licensed practical nurse, sat expressionless as a forensic pathologist testified that Jerry Saxon, 52, died from "a homicidal injection of insulin. " Ian Hood, who conducted an autopsy on Jerry Saxon, said he had never seen a blood-sugar level as low as Saxon's when Saxon was brought by ambulance to Frankford Hospital-Bucks Campus in Fairless Hills on March 17, 2003.

A court-appointed task force studying ways to curb abuse of prisoners and speed up arraignments was touring the Police Administration Building cellblock while a diabetic shoplifting suspect who was said to have pleaded in vain for insulin was being held there. Justice system officials - including a Common Pleas judge - toured the basement lockup the morning of Nov. 6, while Betty Jean Davis, 36, was waiting to be arraigned on charges of retail theft and conspiracy. Later that day, after spending 21 hours in jail, Davis was released without having to post bail.

Eating a meal when it is convenient. Indulging in sweets once considered off-limits. Waking up less often at night to go to the bathroom. Such are the little pleasures that make diabetes an ever more manageable disease. As the American Association of Diabetes Educators gathers in Philadelphia this week, the good news is that new treatments allow people with diabetes to live better. The bad news is that more Americans - more overweight than ever - are getting diabetes, and getting it earlier in life.

Diabetes isn't just about avoiding sugar. It's about needles, pricks and constant monitoring. It's about the long-term effects of extremely high blood-sugar levels: vision problems, kidney disease and amputations. And it's about avoiding extremely low blood-sugar levels that could lead to comas. "It's very difficult, even when they try their hardest, to control their blood glucose," said Jeffrey Joseph, assistant professor of anesthesiology at Jefferson Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University.

Nurse Jean Saxon told a Bucks County jury yesterday that the syringe found in the toilet of her rented home was used not to inject her husband with a fatal dose of insulin, as alleged by prosecutors, but to give a friend a vitamin shot. The prescribed painkillers and antidepressants that she instructed her daughter to hide from police were stolen not by her, but by her former boyfriend, Saxon testified. As for the search stringing the keywords "insulin, ingested and dangerous" found on Jean Saxon's Levittown computer the day before her estranged husband, Jerry, was discovered unconscious in his Bensalem apartment, Saxon said she didn't do it. She offered no explanation as to who had. Jerry Saxon, 52, died in April 2003, five weeks after his wife found him comatose.

The evidence against nurse Jean Saxon was circumstantial, but overwhelming. It took a Bucks County jury only an hour to convict her yesterday of first-degree murder in the insulin-induced death of her husband, Jerry, 52, in March 2003. The prosecution argued that Saxon's weapon was unusual, but her motive wasn't: She injected her nondiabetic husband with insulin, causing his blood sugar to drop to a remarkably low level. She did it to gain $152,000 in life-insurance benefits, her husband's pension, their new home, and the freedom to be with the married coworker with whom she was having an affair, said Michelle A. Henry, chief deputy district attorney.

A Philadelphia cabaret owner who has diabetes sued the city in federal court yesterday, contending he was brought "close to death" last year when police, arresting him on a liquor-code violation, locked him in a holding cell for almost 24 hours and denied him access to insulin and blood-pressure medicine. The civil-rights suit filed by Stephen Rosen, 48, says his is the fourth claim filed against the city since 1997 over police treatment of diabetics in custody, despite a 1982 agreement in which the city settled a suit by the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and promised to implement police training about identifying and handling diabetic emergencies.

  An $80 million national research plan to attack Alzheimer's, a mind-robbing malady that may affect as many as 16 million Americans by 2050, will start this year with U.S.-sponsored studies on ways to prevent the disease in high-risk people and treat it with an insulin nasal spray. The National Institutes of Health will spend $7.9 million researching the spray and $16 million on the first study to focus on growth of the disease in high-risk patients, according to a statement today by Department of Health and Human Services.

The number of diabetics in America is growing. The number of unemployed pharmaceutical workers seems to be doing the same. That combination is bad, unless you are Novo Nordisk. A relatively small Danish-based drug company with a U.S. home in Princeton, Novo Nordisk is in a sweet spot in the pharmaceutical landscape because the core of its business is diabetes. With 40 straight quarters of double-digit growth, the company said Friday it plans a 15 percent increase to its U.S. workforce, meaning about 615 more jobs, through the end of this year.

Several large studies have shown that people with diabetes are at especially high risk for Alzheimer's disease. Steven Arnold, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Memory Center, said diabetics are 50 to 100 percent more likely to get the fatal, memory-destroying disease. This has made researchers increasingly interested in the role that insulin, the hormone that's out of whack in diabetes, might play in Alzheimer's. In the brain, Arnold said, insulin is important for cell growth and releasing neurotransmitters that allow cells to communicate.

In the Region Pfizer, Biocon scrap accord Drugmakers Pfizer and Biocon are calling off an agreement to both sell Biocon's insulin and the generic version of several insulin products. The companies say the individual priorities of their so-called biosimilars businesses made them decide to move forward independently. Biosimilars are medicines similar to biologic drugs but are not identical in the way that generic drugs are copies of brand-name pills. Biologic drugs are complex injected drugs manufactured from living cells rather than by mixing chemical compounds together and turning them into pills.

IT IS VERY unfortunate that Philadelphia has decided to reduce the number of school nurses. All children benefit from the expertise provided by the school nurse. However, for the child with diabetes, a number of other caregivers can be trained to administer insulin and to recognize and treat low blood sugar. Parents of newly diagnosed children with diabetes quickly learn to care for their child. They also train others, such as family members and babysitters, to provide care. And, of course, older children can usually administer their own insulin.

Johnson & Johnson's Animas unit kept selling insulin pumps last year after learning of malfunctions with the devices that prompted it to make design changes, the Food and Drug Administration said. The agency faulted the J&J unit, based in West Chester, for not adequately explaining "why your firm continued to manufacture insulin pumps" after they "had known failures. " The issues with Animas' OneTouch Ping and 2020 pumps prompted a company investigation that started in April 2011, according to the FDA's letter.

Dietitian Christine Hazewski picked up a jar of a popular brand of peanut butter and read aloud its ingredients - other than peanuts. "Molasses, fully hydrogenated vegetable oils, mono- and diglycerides, salt. Do you want to eat that?" Hazewski asked a group of 10 people. No way, they answered, even though the extras were present in small amounts. Hazewski then pointed out natural peanut butters that contained only peanuts. The founder and owner of "Eating for Life" Nutrition Counseling Services L.L.C., Hazewski was leading a supermarket tour in December at the Fresh Grocer in East Germantown.

"WE DON'T get fat because we overeat; we overeat because we're getting fat. " So says Gary Taubes, author of the buzzed-about book "Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It" (Borzoi Books, $24.95). Taubes argues that what we've been told for more than 50 years about fat accumulation and weight loss is all wrong ! He unequivocally rejects the "calories-in/calories out" approach, the conventional weight-loss wisdom of "eat less/move more. " We've been following that faulty theory for years with obviously disastrous results, he says.

Quest for a new pancreas For people with Type 1 diabetes, managing blood sugar can be a full-time gig. Jeffrey Joseph, director of Jefferson Medical College's Artificial Pancreas Center, is trying to change that. An artificial pancreas, Joseph explained, would be like a pacemaker for blood sugar. The device would consist of a continuous blood-sugar monitor communicating with a "smart" insulin pump to give just the right dose of insulin. Instead of having to draw blood from four to 12 times a day - and still never knowing if their blood sugar is going up or down - diabetics could go about their day like the rest of us, without the fear of becoming hyper- or hypoglycemic.

In a typical middle school, two or three children have Type 1 diabetes, the form of the disease that typically strikes during puberty (but sometimes in kindergarten or even earlier), wiping out the body's ability to make insulin. Right now, there's no cure. And Type 1 is especially tough to manage because the insulin that kids need to stay alive can't be taken as a pill or a syrup. The biggest new breakthrough is an insulin pump that works in tandem with a glucose monitor using radio signals, says Dr. Steven Willi, director of the Diabetes Center for Children at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.