Diabetes Dialogue: January 2023

For years, the diabetes community has operated at full speed ahead as it looks to innovate and advance the field for the betterment of care for people with diabetes. The start of 2023 is no different as those in the field of diabetology and cardiometabolic health has already welcomed what would be months worth of new information and data for many fields.

Less than 10 days into the year, the American Academy of Pediatrics set clinicians at odds over new recommendations related to management of obesity in children, which included recommendations for pharmacologic therapy and bariatric or metabolic surgery for some portions of this patient population. During the first 15 days of January, the community also saw the first and only GLP-1 receptor agonist, oral semaglutide (Rybelsus), received a label update from the US Food and Drug Administration removing a previous indication against use an initial therapy, clearing the way for its use as a first-line therapy in type 2 diabetes.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, new research related to use of automated insulin delivery in people with type 2 diabetes published in Nature Medicine became the main topic of discussion among those with a specific interest in diabetes technology. Staying in the realm of diabetes technology, on January 4, 2023, Beta Bionics announced Steven Russell, MD, PhD, physician investigator in diabetes at Mass General Research Institute and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, as their newest chief medical officer. This move was highlighted within a previous episode of Diabetes Dialogue: Technology, Therapeutics, and Real-World Perspectives, where Russell joined the podcast to discuss his journey with Beta Bionics as well as the prospect and the development of the iLet Bionic Pancreas.

In the January 2022 episode of Diabetes Dialogue, hosts Diana Isaacs, PharmD, an endocrine clinical pharmacy specialist and coordinator of the Continuous Glucose Monitoring Program at the Cleveland Clinic, and Natalie Bellini, DNP, an endocrine nurse practitioner with R&B Medical Group, offer the audience their perspective on the AAP’s obesity guidance, the results of the AID in type 2 diabetes study and what it means for clinicians, and new data calling into question the appropriate target for time in range for people with types 2 diabetes.

All episodes of Diabetes Dialogue: Technology, Therapeutics, & Real-World Perspectives is available in an audio-only format on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.