quotable quotes - January 2014

“We’re treating diabetes; we’re not treating A1c levels. Diabetes is a complex disorder… we should be treating diabetes with a combination approach tied to pathogenesis [how diabetes develops] rather than tied to a reduction in A1c levels.”

-Dr. Merlin Thomas (Baker IDI, Melbourne, Australia) on using fixed-dose combinations for diabetes at the World Diabetes Congress in Melbourne, Australia on December 2-6.

“There is a myth that insulin should lower quality of life. If a patient gets the message of “Poor you, you have to take injections,” it makes a total difference. We should be cautious about how we talk about this.”

- Dr. Lars Ryden (Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden) on sending patients the right messages about insulin therapy at the  World Diabetes Congress.

“Social media is only one tool in a toolbox, but an increasingly important one.”

– Kelly Close (Editor in Chief, diaTribe) to a standing-room only audience at her workshop on patient empowerment through social media at World Diabetes Congress.

“I do not cope with diabetes; diabetes copes with me.”

-A character with type 2 diabetes in Novo Nordisk’s play “Getting Straight to The Point”. The play had its world premiere at the World Diabetes Congress. 

"The US badly needs to organize for the care of patients with chronic illness. This is where the cost is, it’s where the demand is, it’s where the human cost is, and the need to deal with true human clinical problems. We need innovation in chronic care management."

-Dr. Hamilton Moses III (Alerion Institute) in his author interview at JAMA about the paper “The Anatomy of Health Care in the United States”.

"The real question is not if this drug is safe in terms of cardiovascular use, but is it safe enough to go to market if it’s approved? ... The process is not to limit development of diabetes drugs or slow down progression to market, but to eliminate those that are clearly not safe at an early stage of development”

-Dr. Abraham Thomas (Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit) on how regulation should not slow down drug development at the FDA Advisory Committee on Forxiga (dapagliflozin) on December 12.