Show 1453: From Lizard Spit to Ozempic: Rethinking How We Treat Diabetes

Diabetes is a serious metabolic disorder that affects close to 40 million Americans. Most of them have type 2 diabetes, which means their bodies produce insulin, but their cells are not very responsive to it. As a result, blood sugar builds up and people run the risk of cardiovascular complications like heart attacks or strokes, along with kidney disease or vision problems. Nerve damage and even dementia appear to be more common among people with diabetes. Should we be rethinking the way we treat diabetes?

At The People’s Pharmacy, we strive to bring you up to date, rigorously researched insights and conversations about health, medicine, wellness and health policies and health systems. While these conversations intend to offer insight and perspective, the content is provided solely for informational and educational purposes. Please consult your healthcare provider before making any changes to your medical care or treatment.

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Rethinking How We Treat Diabetes:

Our guest, Dr. John Buse, is known for his decades of diabetes research. We began our conversation by asking about his most recent study, called CATALYST. It considered the effects of a medicine that is not usually thought of as a method to treat diabetes: mifepristone. This research highlighted the impact of high cortisol levels (Diabetes Care, Dec. 1, 2025). This placebo-controlled trial compared the effects of mifepristone, which moderates the effects of this stress hormone, to those of placebo.

Although many people found that mifepristone (Korlym) was difficult to take because of side effects, those who stuck with it lowered their HbA1c significantly. That is a measure of blood glucose over weeks rather than an instantaneous read-out. They also lost weight and waist circumference, on average about two belt notches. That made it a bit easier for their bodies to control their blood sugar. Consequently, some needed lower doses or fewer diabetes medicines.

One advantage of this study is that it may help explain why some people have hard-to-control diabetes. Until now, neither patients nor doctors knew why, even though they were trying hard, some patients couldn’t make any progress. Dr. Buse admits that physicians used to blame patients, assuming they were not following their diet or taking their medicines. Now, seeing the dramatic effects of mitigating cortisol, they are starting to re-evaluate those assumptions. This could change how we treat diabetes.

What Are the Side Effects of Mifepristone?

Despite the benefits, nearly half of the study participants assigned to mifepristone missed out on them. They found the fatigue, nausea, vomiting, headaches joint pain and swelling intolerable. These are the consequences of interfering with cortisol. Some people experience dizziness or increased blood pressure. One particularly dangerous side effect is a drop in potassium, which could affect heart rhythm. People who are having trouble controlling their blood sugar despite their best efforts might ask their physician to check their cortisol levels.

Where Does Lizard Spit Come In?

Several years ago, Dr. Buse talked about lizard spit in one of our interviews. Why in the world would he mention lizard spit? It turns out that one of the components in the saliva of the Gila monster led to the first GLP-1 agonist. Rather than a monster, this is actually a very large venomous lizard native to the Sonora desert. It is illegal to capture or kill a Gila monster in Arizona.

Researchers investigating the chemistry of its saliva developed the drug exenatide (Byetta). Subsequently, drug company researchers came up with a wide range of medications that work through GLP-1. You have probably heard of the best-known, which are semaglutide (Ozempic, Rybelsus, Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro, Zepbound). These drugs are already changing the way we treat diabetes.

Can You Reverse Prediabetes?

The lifetime risk for prediabetes is one in three worldwide. Here is a short video clip of our guest, Dr. John Buse, describing the diabetes pandemic:

But if we could identify and intervene before people actually develop diabetes, we might be able to prevent it. Doctors have been testing lifestyle changes and medications that might be able to keep people with prediabetes from progressing any further down that path. Physical activity can make a big difference, as it changes how the muscles utilize glucose. Changes in diet are also promising, although certainly far from easy for most of us. Doctors can also prescribe drugs like metformin as an early intervention. It is almost as effective as exercise.

Other drugs that are changing the way we treat diabetes include the glitazones (pioglitazone and rosiglitazone). Another category of diabetes drug, those similar to empagliflozin (Jardiance), is already making a difference. Of course, like all medicines, these also can cause adverse effects as well as benefits. One exciting treatment for the future will be gene-modifying technology to treat diabetes. Proof of concept studies have already been conducted.

How should the American diet change to reduce our risk of diabetes? Here is a short video clip of our guest, Dr. John Buse, describing the three changes he recommends.

You will want to listen to the whole interview either live on Saturday morning or when it becomes available on this website Monday morning (11/24/2020). You can stream the audio by clicking on the white arrow inside the green circle under the photo of Armour Thyroid. You can also download the mp3 file by scrolling to the bottom of this article. Why not sign up for all our podcasts at this link so you will never miss another People’s Pharmacy episode again?

This Week’s Guest:

John Buse, MD, PhD, is the Verne S. Caviness Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Medicine. He has received international recognition for innovative clinical care and efforts at prevention of type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes and their complications.

Listen to the Podcast:

The podcast of this program will be available Monday, Nov. 24, 2025, after broadcast on Nov. 8. You can stream the show from this site and download the podcast for free. This week’s episode contains some additional discussion of the GLP-1 agonists, as well as the phenomenon of coffee to prevent diabetes.

Download the mp3, or listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Transcript of Show 1453:

A transcript of this show was created using automated speech-to-text software (AI-powered transcription), then carefully reviewed and edited for clarity. While we’ve done our best to ensure both readability and accuracy, please keep in mind that some mistakes may remain. If you have any questions regarding the content of this show, we encourage you to review the original audio recording. This transcript is copyrighted material, all rights reserved. No part of this transcript may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form without prior written permission.

Joe

00:00-00:01:

I’m Joe Graedon.

Terry

00:01-00:05

And I’m Terry Graedon. Welcome to this podcast of the People’s Pharmacy.

Joe

00:06-00:27

You can find previous podcasts and more information on a range of health topics at peoplespharmacy. com. Diabetes remains one of our most prevalent and challenging health problems. What does the latest research show? This is the People’s Pharmacy with Terry and Joe Graedon.

Terry

00:34-00:46

Our guest today is one of the country’s leading diabetes researchers. He’ll share some exciting news about a study called Catalyst. It used an old drug for a new use against type 2 diabetes.

Joe

00:47-00:56

What about the GLP-1 agonist medications like Ozempic and Mounjaro? How are they changing the treatment of diabetes?

Terry

00:56-01:01

We’ll also discuss the importance of lifestyle in controlling blood sugar.

Joe

01:01-01:08

Coming up on The People’s Pharmacy, new research points to advances in treating diabetes.

Terry

01:14-02:26

In The People’s Pharmacy Health Headlines: The CDC originally told Americans that this would be a mild flu season, but after more than six weeks of a government shutdown, the agency is detecting an upward trend in cases of H3N2 influenza. The southern hemisphere is six months ahead of us when it comes to winter respiratory infections. Australia, South Africa, Chile, and New Zealand all reported a severe flu season.

Now, public health authorities in Japan, South Korea, Great Britain, and Canada are also reporting an early and severe start to the season. There’s growing concern that the H3N2 strain that’s circulating has mutated. That could mean that the flu shots will be less effective than previously hoped.

Dr. William Schaffner at Vanderbilt University Medical Center is a renowned expert on influenza. He notes that even if there is not a close match, use of the vaccine continues to prevent hospitalizations, intensive care unit admissions, and continues to help keep people out of the cemetery.

Joe

02:27-03:01

For decades, cardiologists, nutrition scientists, and public health authorities have been warning Americans to avoid saturated fat. Now, though, the head of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is planning to release new dietary guidelines that will end the war on saturated fats.

Instead, HHS will promote full-fat dairy, including butter, milk, yogurt, and cheese. It will also recommend red meat. These guidelines will shape school lunches for 30 million children.

Terry

03:03-03:48

Increasingly, health experts are acknowledging that food is medicine. Figuring out how to operationalize that insight is tough, though. A state-level incentive program in Rhode Island called “Eat Well, Be Well” offered SNAP recipients 50 cents of credit for every dollar spent on fruits and vegetables. Two statewide grocery chains participated.

Investigators hoped that this incentive would increase the consumption of fruits and vegetables among low-income plan participants. It worked, but only for those who already were consuming more produce. Those who weren’t eating many vegetables or fruits at the start of the program didn’t increase their consumption very much.

Joe

03:49-04:58

There’s growing interest in lifestyle interventions to reduce the risk of dementia. A new study published in JAMA Network Open used data from the ongoing large-scale Framingham Heart Study. Investigators collected data on physical activity from people as young adults, middle-aged individuals, or late-life participants. These volunteers were followed for many years.

The researchers report that higher levels of physical activity in middle age and later life were associated with significantly lower risk for developing dementia. They hypothesize that physical activity may slow amyloid beta production or reduce tau phosphorylation. They think that physical activity might also improve brain structure and function along with blood flow.

In addition, physical activity has anti-inflammatory effects. And fourth, physical activity improves glucose metabolism and may reduce stress.

Terry

05:00-06:17

GLP-1 receptor agonists like Ozempic and Wegovy have been getting a lot of attention for their ability to control blood sugar and help people lose weight. Now, a new study points to a different advantage.

A study of 6,871 colon cancer patients found that those taking one of these drugs were half as likely to die as those not on a GLP-1 agonist. The five-year mortality rate for people taking such drugs was 15.5%.

Those not taking a GLP-1 drug had a five-year mortality rate of 37.1%. This advantage was seen almost exclusively in people who were obese when they were diagnosed with colon cancer, as it was restricted to those with a BMI of 35 or greater.

Not only were people taking a GLP-1 drug less likely to die of colon cancer, they were also less likely to have fatal heart attacks. And that’s the health news from the People’s Pharmacy this week. Welcome to the People’s Pharmacy. I’m Terry Graedon.

Joe

06:17-06:45

And I’m Joe Graedon. According to the CDC, nearly 40 million Americans have diabetes. The overwhelming majority have type 2, which means they produce insulin, but it just doesn’t control their blood sugar adequately. Insulin resistance occurs when the cells cannot utilize glucose effectively. This condition can result in prediabetes, which may precede a diagnosis of diabetes.

Terry

06:45-07:11

When blood glucose is not well controlled over a long period of time, people are at risk for many serious health consequences. Those can include cardiovascular disease, vision problems, nerve damage, and kidney disease.

People may also be at a higher risk for dementia. But we now have many new strategies for controlling type 2 diabetes. What does the new research reveal?

Joe

07:12-07:26

One of the country’s leading diabetes researchers is Dr. John Buse. He’s the Verne S. Caviness Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

Terry

07:27-07:31

Welcome back to the People’s Pharmacy. Dr. John Buse.

Dr. John Buse

07:31-07:33

It’s a pleasure to be with you again.

Joe

07:34-07:40

Dr. Buse, you have been involved in diabetes research for, dare I say, decades?

Dr. John Buse

07:41-07:52

Yeah. You know, it depends on when you make the starting line. But my first job in a lab was when I was 14 years old, and I just had my 67th birthday.

Joe

07:52-08:05

Wow. So it’s been a while. A long time. And the most recent study that you’ve been involved with is called Catalyst. And it is amazing. Tell us how it got started and what you’re learning.

Dr. John Buse

08:06-08:31

Yeah. So it’s been known for a long time that high levels of steroids in the blood, and particularly what we call glucocorticoids, the medications would be medicines like prednisone, that that causes, you know, can cause diabetes to manifest itself. Or in people who have diabetes, it can make their diabetes care much more complicated.

Joe

08:31-08:53

Well, let me share a quick story with you: my mom, in her 80s, was diagnosed with polymyalgia rheumatica. And for the first time in her life, they put her on a corticosteroid prednisone. And not long after, I’d say within about a year or less, she had type 2 diabetes.

Dr. John Buse

08:54-08:54

Exactly.

Joe

08:55-09:01

And it was a shock to her. And we were like, oh, but there’s no diabetes in the family. But it was the prednisone.

Dr. John Buse

09:02-09:55

Right. So, you know, it’s not that everybody who takes prednisone gets diabetes. But the idea behind the Catalyst study was to specifically examine how common was high cortisol an issue for people with, quote, poorly controlled or difficult to control type 2 diabetes.

That was the entire premise of the study. It was divided into two parts. The first part was to find out the prevalence or the frequency of hypercortisolism in difficult to control type 2 diabetes. And the second part was a study to see if mifepristone, a cortisol receptor antagonist, it doesn’t block the cortisol receptor, but it makes it harder for cortisol to work. Would that improve blood sugar control and other things in people with, quote, difficult to control type 2 diabetes?

Terry

09:57-10:10

Well, I do want to ask about difficult to control type 2 diabetes. But first, I want to know the answer. How common is this problem, and how well did the mifepristone work?

Dr. John Buse

10:10-10:51

Right. So the problem is quite common. It was nearly 25% of the people with difficult to control, type 2 diabetes, had an abnormal result on the so-called one milligram overnight dexamethasone suppression test. So that’s the test that was used. And another 25% had a value that was greater than the 95th percentile for the normal range.

So technically, the right answer on your board exam is going to be one in four. But there’s some evidence of a problem in half. At least.

Terry

10:51-10:54

That’s a lot. That’s really a lot.

Dr. John Buse

10:54-11:20

It is far in excess of anything that we expected, the investigators involved in the study. Though, you know, if we’d been a little bit more trusting of some international studies that were smaller, where the definitions they used for hypercortisolism were a bit different, etc., etc., there are other studies that suggest that that number is probably right all around the world.

Joe

11:21-11:44

So all of a sudden, there’s a light bulb that goes off and you say, aha, there’s something going on here. Let’s move on to the second phase of the study. Now, let’s be honest, mifepristone, most people, they’ve never heard of it, but it is a highly controversial drug. Tell us about it.

Dr. John Buse

11:44-13:19

Well, the controversy is around the fact that it is part of tablet medication to terminate a pregnancy. And this is a completely different use and, frankly, a completely different product.

This product that we used, the generic name for the drug is mifepristone. The brand name for the drug is Korlym. And we administered a 300 milligram tablet or a matching placebo. So nobody knew what people were getting.

After a few weeks, they could increase the dose to 600 milligrams if tolerated. And then they could increase again to 900 milligrams as tolerated. What we found was from a baseline hemoglobin A1C, an index of overall blood sugar control of 8.5, which is not great. people came down to about 7% on mifepristone, which is the general target for adults, despite the fact that more than half had some reduction of their pre-existing diabetes medications and almost half stopped taking the drug because of side effects.

So even though not everybody took the drug, on average, It was a 1.5% reduction in A1C and very small reduction, a 0.15 reduction with placebo.

Joe

13:21-13:28

You know, 1.5% doesn’t sound like that big a deal. But the numbers you’re citing are extraordinary.

Terry

13:29-13:37

Well, Joe, 1.5% on the HbA1c is actually a big deal.

Joe

13:37-13:44

But I’m just saying for the average person, they’re listening and they’re going, oh, 1.5% reduction. Uh, who cares?

Dr. John Buse

13:44-13:53

But that’s not like going from $1 to 98.5. This is a scale where 7% is the goal.

Joe

13:54-14:00

5% is pretty much the normal, normal, normal.

Dr. John Buse

14:01-14:05

And a world record high would be 15% to 18%.

Joe

14:05-14:07

An 8.5% is high.

Dr. John Buse

14:08-14:27

Yeah, and we would say an 8.5%, if you were going to give somebody an old school A, B, C, D, F grade, an 8.5%, some people would say it’s a C. Some people might say it’s a B minus. But a 7, you know, where we got is definitely at worst an A minus. Some people say it really should be less than 7.

Joe

14:29-14:30

But stunning results.

Dr. John Buse

14:31-14:47

Stunning results. And people lost on average 5 kilos or 12 pounds in 24 weeks. And the weight was continuing to come down over that period of time. They lost two notches in their belt in their waist size.

Terry

14:48-14:53

It was pretty impressive. They weren’t just losing weight. They were losing waist as well.

Dr. John Buse

14:54-15:38

Right. And hypercortisolism, I’m glad you mentioned that, hypercortisolism is a disease where we talk about central obesity. But the strange thing here is a lot of people with hypercortisolism, they’re not technically obese, but they’re round.

And so the quintessential case, the one that was described by Harvey Cushing’s – Cushing, you know, 70 years ago, when you look at a picture of her, you’d say, oh, she’s really, you know, really round. Her BMI was actually around 23, but she had massive central obesity. And so this was really a waist approach.

Joe

15:38-16:05

Now, there are a lot of people who have hard-to-control diabetes. And, you know, they take not one but two or three different diabetes medicines. They’re trying to lose weight. They’re doing everything that their doctor says, and they’re still having trouble.

And nobody knows why, why isn’t this working? Your discovery would answer that question for a substantial number of people.

Dr. John Buse

16:05-16:46

Right. And it is such a relief to providers and to patients to get this answer, because I think the usual thought process among patients was, you know, I know I’m trying as hard as I can, but my family is disappointed in my results. My doctor is disappointed in my results.

They think I’m not really paying attention to my diabetes. Obviously, I could do more with regards to diet and exercise, but I’m doing the best I can. And the doctor has the same kind of feeling. You know, why am I failing Mrs. Jones? You know, I usually can handle this problem, but obviously I haven’t come up with the right solution. And then sometimes the doctor blames Mrs. Jones.

Terry

16:47-16:48

Exactly what I was thinking.

Dr. John Buse

16:47-17:13

Now, less so now. When I first met with you guys 30 years ago, that was rampant. You know, we called it non-adherence, non-compliance. I think now the understanding is that most people with diabetes actually do the best they can.

You know, they’re not perfect. None of us are. And it’s a very challenging disease to manage. But we have great drugs. And now we have this new insight.

Terry

17:14-17:26

Well, we do have a lot more drugs now than we did the last time we talked to you. Diabetes research has really produced a lot of potential treatments.

Joe

17:27-17:49

We’re going to take a short break. But when we come back, how does mifepristone work? This miracle, that’s A, do you know? And then we’re going to talk about the GLP-1 agonists, you know, Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro. All of these drugs are taken the country by storm.

Terry

17:50-17:59

You’re listening to Dr. John Buse, the Verne S. Caviness Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

Joe

18:00-18:05

After the break, we’ll learn more about the study Dr. Buse conducted, Catalyst.

Terry

18:06-18:14

Even though the drug was helpful, a lot of people had to drop out due to side effects. Which side effects were most troublesome?

Joe

18:15-18:19

Are diabetes doctors ready to prescribe mifepristone?

Terry

18:19-18:24

Should patients be asking for this drug? What would suggest that it might be beneficial?

Joe

18:24-18:33

We’ll also learn about semaglutide, known as Ozempic, and Wegovy. Could you take it in a pill to treat diabetes or obesity?

Terry

18:39-18:42

You’re listening to The People’s Pharmacy with Joe and Terry Graedon.

Terry

20:40-20:43

Welcome back to The People’s Pharmacy. I’m Terry Graedon.

Joe

20:44-21:00

And I’m Joe Graedon. The People’s Pharmacy is brought to you in part by Sonu, an FDA-approved drug-free treatment for nasal congestion and runny nose, using sound instead of steroids. More at GetSonu.com. That’s GetS-O-N-U dot com.

Terry

21:00-21:31

Today, we’re talking about research that may lead to new advances in treating diabetes. Our guest is one of the country’s leading diabetes researchers. Dr. John Buse is the Verne S. Caviness Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

He has received international recognition for innovative clinical care and efforts at prevention of type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, and their complications.

Joe

21:33-21:50

Dr. Buse, you’ve described this amazing clinical trial called Catalyst with a drug called mifepristone. The brand name is Koryn?

Dr. John Buse

21:46-21:46

Korlym.

Joe

21:46-21:50

Korlym, K-O-R-L-Y-M.

Dr. John Buse

21:51-21:51

Exactly.

Joe

21:51-21:53

How does it work, this miracle?

Dr. John Buse

21:53-22:30

Well, it works to normally cortisol, the hormone, or prednisone, the drug. It works by binding to receptors that bind to DNA in the nucleus of our cells. And that’s why it has such broad effects.

The mifepristone interferes with that interaction. It’s a competitive agonist or antagonist. So it binds to the place where the cortisol is supposed to bind, and that way diminishes the effect of cortisol.

Joe

22:30-22:33

And has this profound impact on blood sugar.

Dr. John Buse

22:34-23:46

Right. And how does that happen? That’s another question. And we don’t know all the how for that. But I will tell you the one thing that we don’t know yet is, you know, we know in the people who have the overnight dexamethasone suppression test with a value greater than 1.8, those people that were treated with mifepristone did very well from a blood sugar lowering and weight lowering perspective.

We don’t know for the people that have medium high levels what would happen for them. And frankly, we don’t know what would happen is if we put it – if we gave it to every person with diabetes, it wasn’t doing well. And namely, it’s possible that cortisol is so important for many different mechanisms in diabetes that it would work for everybody.

Now, hopefully, we’ll do a study in the near future. There’s a follow-on drug that’s being developed and could be available as early as next year. It’s much better tolerated. And as I mentioned before, that was the fly in the ointment of this study is that a lot of people stopped the drug.

Terry

23:46-24:01

Well, that really is my next question. You mentioned that almost half of your people who were taking the drug had to stop it because they couldn’t deal with the side effects. Tell us about those side effects.

Dr. John Buse

24:01-25:39

Yeah. So it’s interesting. Whether you have surgery to remove a tumor, usually from the adrenal, that makes excess cortisol, or whether you take any drug that interferes with cortisol action, you have something called glucocorticoid withdrawal syndrome or cortisol withdrawal syndrome.

So the body gets used to being exposed to extra cortisol. And when they take the drug that blocks or interferes with the action of cortisol, people start to feel bad. The most common feeling is nausea. Some people just have terrible fatigue. Some people have headaches.

They really don’t feel well at all. Usually that goes away after five to 15 days or it gets better. But you do have to sort of tough people through the process. And then the other thing I would mention, in this study, we didn’t know whether people were getting the drug or the placebo.

And already a lot of the people were on GLP-1 receptor agonists, you know, these drugs that we’ll talk about nausea for them. And so it was a little bit confusing what we really should tell the patients and what they should expect. So I think my clinical practice is in clinic you can do better with patient counseling and support. You can fool around by having people instead of taking it every day, take it every other day and make the symptoms a little bit less worse. But maybe they last a little bit longer.

There was a second side effect, though, that’s a little bit more worrisome, and that’s hypokalemia.

Terry

25:40-25:41

So low potassium.

Dr. John Buse

25:42-26:06

And that is something that’s very well described with the drug. It’s expected. Normally, in clinic, you would use a drug that would interfere with hypokalemia like spironolactone, quite cheap blood pressure medicine, in advance of using the mifepristone here because we didn’t know were they going to get placebo or drug. We didn’t do that.

Joe

26:06-26:26

So here’s a question. This is exciting research. Your colleagues, diabetologists all around the world are going to be shaking their head going, hmm, what about this? Are we ready to start prescribing mifepristone? This is very new and different.

Dr. John Buse

26:27-27:34

Yeah. And to be honest, it’s a great question, right? I want my colleagues to think extra hard about that. Today, I would strongly advocate for looking for hypercortisolism, and when you find it, you know that you’re dealing with a different bear.

You can’t fight this battle in the same way. There are other treatments that can be used and I didn’t mention that in a quarter of the patients that had hypercortisolism, we did adrenal CT scans in everyone. A quarter of them had a tumor in their adrenal that theoretically could be surgically removed.

So that’s a potential surgical cure. And secondly, there are new medicines that are being studied and new medicines that may be approved by the FDA in the next few months that are much better tolerated and easier to use. And so making the diagnosis, I think, is really important to do today. Treating with mifepristone, it’s not the easiest drug to use.

Joe

27:34-27:43

So people who are having a hard time controlling their type 2 diabetes should definitely bring up the possibility that they might have a cortisol problem.

Joe

27:44-27:45

Let’s change gears, Terry.

Terry

27:45-28:28

Well, before we switch away from Catalyst, you mentioned, of course, the drop in blood sugar in HbA1c from 8.5% to 7%, which is excellent. That’s what you were hoping for. you mentioned that some people were losing weight, which, you know, I don’t think mifepristone is thought of as a weight loss agent, but evidently it has that effect.

But one of the reasons that we wanted to talk with you about it is that somebody posted a comment on our website saying they found that blood pressure went down. Was this person misunderstanding what she heard?

Dr. John Buse

28:29-29:05

Right. So blood pressure did not go down. And we kind of thought that it might, but there’s an effect that when you block the action of cortisol with mifepristone, that the cortisol is metabolized to cortisone, which has a variety of actions, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So there is a mechanism by which blood pressure could go up.

On average, the blood pressure went up a tiny bit on average. So that’s something that needs to be monitored as well. But blood pressure definitely did not go down on average.

Joe

29:05-29:31

So now we can change gears. Yes. GLP-1 agonists, Ozempic, Wegovy, semaglutide. And then, of course, there’s Mounjaro and Zepbound, a little bit different because there are two blockers in there. Has this represented a sea change in your world of diabetes control?

Dr. John Buse

29:32-29:40

Absolutely. And I’m pretty sure if you check back in your archives, I came here and talked to you once about lizard spit.

Terry

29:40-29:41

Yes.

Joe

29:41-29:42

You did.

Terry

29:42-29:42

Yes.

Dr. John Buse

29:42-29:53

And there was the first drug in this class, exenatide. And the very first study of exenatide in people with diabetes was done here at UNC.

Joe

29:54-29:56

Now, why did you say lizard spit?

Dr. John Buse

29:56-31:30

Well, it was a peptide, a small protein, a hormone that was discovered from the saliva of the Gila monster, a pretty big, very attractive lizard that lives in the Gila River Valley of Arizona.

And this guy, John Eng, discovered the peptide. It was developed into a drug. So literally you were injecting a thing that is in the saliva of the Gila monster. But in any case, that drug showed good effect on lowering blood sugar.

And it did so without promoting weight gain, which is not, you know, at least in that day, not the usual thing with diabetes drugs. The more effective drugs that lasted longer seem to have this effect on weight loss.

And then semaglutide and tirzepatide, the current hot products, have even more effect on weight loss. So people without diabetes are losing 25%, 20%, 25% weight with the most effective of these agents. People with diabetes are improving their blood sugar control and losing 10% to 15% of body weight, which is a big deal— mostly for diabetes because that is a setting where if you lose 10 to 15 percent of your body weight, basically you can functionally get rid of diabetes. You’re taking a medicine, but the diabetes is gone.

Joe

31:30-31:44

Terry, we just saw a study this week that involved oral semaglutide. Do you remember where it was published? Was it New England Journal of Medicine or JAMA? It was someplace pretty prominent.

Dr. John Buse

31:44-31:47

I think it was Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology. I think I’m an author.

Terry

31:47-31:49

I think it was the New England Journal.

Joe

31:49-31:52

But regardless, what did they find?

Terry

31:53-32:24

Well, what they found, they used a dose of 25 milligrams per day oral semaglutide. And when you talk about semaglutide, almost all the time, what we’re talking about is an injection, like a once-a-week injection.

So this once-a-day pill is a different way for people to get their semaglutide.

And what they found, it was a weight loss, it was a weight loss application for people who did not have diabetes. And it did, it was effective.

Joe

32:24-32:37

A lot of people don’t like shots, let’s be honest. And plus, it has to be refrigerated. So it means, you know, if it’s shipped to your home in the summertime, that’s a bit of a problem. But oral medicine, that could be a game changer.

Dr. John Buse

32:39-33:06

Absolutely. You know, this medicine is not the easiest oral medicine to take. It has to be taken on an empty stomach with a small swallow of water and eat or drink absolutely nothing for 30 minutes.

So it’s not ‘pop this in before the shower and when you get out of the shower, have your cup of coffee.’ No, you cannot eat or drink anything for 30 minutes. So at least in my clinic, you know, most people find taking a shot once a week.

Terry

33:06-33:07

Easier.

Dr. John Buse

33:08-33:11

Arguably easier. Less complicated, let’s put it that way.

Terry

33:11-33:12

Sure.

Dr. John Buse

33:12-33:30

But you have to kind of get over that shot thing. Now, sometimes we encourage people to have their spouse give them the shot because it is kind of a weird thing to put a needle into your own flesh.

But most spouses like the opportunity of putting a needle into their spouse’s flesh.

Terry

33:31-33:32

Well, they know they’re being helpful.

Dr. John Buse

33:33-33:33

Right, exactly.

Terry

33:34-33:35

Even if it hurts.

Dr. John Buse

33:35-33:36

Right, exactly.

Terry

33:36-33:36

Okay.

Dr. John Buse

33:37-33:38

It’s a win-win situation.

Terry

33:39-33:55

And now I’d like to follow up on this idea that you could medicate your way out of diabetes. So we’re talking type 2 diabetes here. So let’s please first explain what are the differences between type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Dr. John Buse

33:56-35:39

So type 1 diabetes proportionally is more common in younger people, but can occur at any age. And the process is one by which the cells that make insulin, specifically just this one cell type called a beta cell, is destroyed usually by an immune process. Rheumatoid arthritis destroys joints. Type 1 diabetes destroys beta cells.

So the treatment for type 1 diabetes is basically just insulin. You just have to replace the insulin production of the body with sophisticated and precise administration of insulin. Completely different game than type 2 diabetes, which is the more common disease in older adults, generally associated with overweight or obesity.

And in type 2 diabetes, there are multiple defects. But the big two are insulin resistance, meaning insulin doesn’t work quite as well as it does in normal people. And then insulin deficiency. Not absolute insulin deficiency, but relative insulin deficiency. So they need this bigger need for insulin because of the insulin resistance, but they’re not able to produce that. So they make enough insulin for a non-diabetic person to be perfectly fine. They just don’t make enough insulin for themselves.

And one thing that’s commonly misunderstood about type 2 diabetes, there are people who are very, very, very heavy, you know, 300, 400, 500 pounds, whose blood sugars are completely normal because they’re able to make enough insulin. So diabetes and obesity or overweight are not tightly linked. They do go commonly together.

Joe

35:40-35:55

We’ve heard that type 2 diabetes has become a pandemic. It’s not just in the United States. It’s in India. It’s all over the world. Why? Why has it become such a problem?

Dr. John Buse

35:55-37:47

Yeah. You know, it’s another great question. So there are many, many, many, many genes that contribute to type 2 diabetes. It’s likely that every little tribe on earth, every village and hamlet, they tend to be, you know, a little bit interbred. You know, they would marry the people in the neighborhood, that they developed adaptations that allow them to thrive with their food sources and activity levels.

And through multiple different genetic mechanisms, this ability to thrive was very productive thousands of years ago. So specifically, people were able to gain weight when food was plentiful and then lose it slowly when there were lean times. That’s maladaptive today.

So there are many, many, many genes. There’s about 10 mechanisms that have been well described that contribute to mainstream diabetes, but there’s probably hundreds, if not thousands, of mechanisms. So now we create an environment where there is very little scarcity of food.

Frankly, we have food everywhere. We’re having messages pushing us towards eating this food. It’s delicious. It’s easy to eat in bulk. And so people have gotten heavy. And that promotes the insulin resistance. And so these defects in insulin production and other defects sort of come out and express themselves as diabetes.

The reason why we say it’s a pandemic, it used to be that the U.S. led the way. Now the Middle East is probably the highest, but all across the globe. And the lifetime risk on this planet of developing diabetes is about one in three.

Terry

37:48-38:10

You’re listening to Dr. John Buse, the Verne S. Caviness Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. Dr. Buse works with teams of investigators in diabetes clinical trials, comparative effectiveness research, and translation of basic science research towards clinical application.

Joe

38:11-38:16

After the break, we will talk about pre-diabetes. What is it and what can we do about it?

Terry

38:16-38:24

How well do lifestyle interventions and medicines work to reduce the risk of developing diabetes if you have prediabetes?

Joe

38:25-38:28

How good is exercise as an intervention?

Terry

38:28-38:36

Metformin is currently prescribed to people who already have diabetes. Could metformin help us prevent the development of diabetes?

Joe

38:37-38:53

There are other medications that people take to control their type 2 diabetes, like glitazones or gliflozins, not to mention drugs like semaglutide or tirzepatide, what should we know about them? Can they be used for prevention?

Terry

38:54-39:05

We’ll also find out if continuous glucose monitors could help people who don’t have diabetes. If they could help you change the way you eat, that might make a difference.

Joe

39:06-39:15

The American diet is widely recognized as problematic. If we could change three things about it, what should they be?

Terry

39:28-39:31

You’re listening to The People’s Pharmacy with Joe and Terry Graedon.

Joe

39:40-39:43

Welcome back to The People’s Pharmacy. I’m Joe Graedon.

Terry

39:43-40:02

And I’m Terry Graedon.

Joe

40:03-40:25

The CDC estimates that nearly 100 million Americans have prediabetes. The overwhelming majority don’t know they have this metabolic disorder. There is growing interest in keeping prediabetes from turning into type 2 diabetes. What kinds of interventions could make a difference?

Terry

40:25-40:58

One of the more controversial strategies for detecting prediabetes is for people to wear a continuous glucose monitor, or CGM. The FDA originally approved these devices to help people with diabetes track their response to meals. They were only available by prescription.

But now the agency allows the sale of CGMs over-the-counter. Many people with prediabetes are using continuous glucose monitors to track their blood sugar throughout the day. Is that a good idea?

Joe

40:58-41:13

We are talking with one of the country’s leading diabetes experts. Dr. John Buse is the Verne S. Caviness Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

Terry

41:15-41:50

Dr. Buse, we are interested in this idea of prediabetes, that people may have a condition that could be identified before they develop actual type 2 diabetes. We have heard of people being diagnosed, oh, you have prediabetes. So what is prediabetes and what can we do about it? Because if I were diagnosed with prediabetes, I would want to do something so I didn’t get diabetes.

Dr. John Buse

41:50-43:09

Exactly. So prediabetes is an attempt to communicate something relatively complicated concisely. The important thing to realize is that prediabetes, like pre-malignant, is not a guarantee.

Meaning if you have prediabetes, it means that you’re at increased risk of developing diabetes, but it’s not a guarantee at all. And you can intervene to reduce those risks.

So there have been about five studies done with lifestyle intervention that have shown about a 50% reduction in risk over three to five years. And there have been about 10 studies done with drugs that have shown between 20% and 95% reduction in the risk of developing diabetes over similar periods of time. Generally shorter in the drug studies, let’s say one to three years.

The risk for developing diabetes when you have prediabetes is determined by the elevation of the test. So for instance, with the A1C test, a 6.5 gets you a diagnosis of diabetes. A 6.4 is not diabetes. It’s pre-diabetes.

Terry

43:09-43:12

Pre-diabetes. So that’s not a big difference.

Dr. John Buse

43:12-43:39

Right. A 5.7 is also pre-diabetes.

But your risk of developing diabetes if your A1C is 5.7 is modest, probably on the order of 10% in 20 years. If your A1C is 6.4, your chances of getting diabetes in the next three years is probably nearly 100%. But you can intervene and make that go away.

Terry

43:39-43:59

Let’s talk about those interventions. I know that for a long time, the research has shown that people taking metformin reduce their risk of going from prediabetes to diabetes. What are the other interventions that people have used?

Dr. John Buse

43:59-44:02

Well, I think first it’s important to talk about lifestyle intervention.

Terry

44:02-44:03

Absolutely.

Dr. John Buse

44:03-44:04

Diet and exercise.

Terry

44:06-44:11

But just saying diet and exercise, that’s not quite enough. So please do tell us.

Dr. John Buse

44:11-44:21

It’s 150 minutes a week of moderately vigorous physical activity. So this is brisk walking. 150 minutes a week is 30 minutes, five days a week.

Joe

44:21-44:27

And somebody once said, it’s like you’re late to an appointment or to your flight. You’ve got to really move along.

Dr. John Buse

44:28-44:48

Right. I mean, you know, you don’t have to be huffing and puffing, but it’s not a mosey. And then that coupled with calorie restriction to produce at least 5% and 10% is more than twice as good. So if you can lose 10% of your body weight, your chances of developing diabetes is reduced by 60%.

Terry

44:49-45:01

Let me just throw in one little caveat here. That’s for most of the people we’re talking about because most of them are heavy. But not everyone with prediabetes is overweight, right?

Dr. John Buse

45:02-46:41

Exactly. So that’s a point well taken.

Metformin was studied in some of the studies that lifestyle therapy was also studied in. And in general, lifestyle therapy beat metformin. But metformin was just as good at lifestyle therapy in younger patients under the age of 45, in people with higher glucose levels, you know, the higher A1Cs, the higher fasting glucose levels, in women with prior gestational diabetes that are very high risk for developing future diabetes. So there were settings where metformin worked quite well.

Other drugs that have been studied are the glitazones, pioglitazone [Actos] and rosiglitazone [Avandia], quite effective on the order of 60, 70 percent.

These drugs have more safety concerns. The big one is probably bone health. The scarier one is bladder cancer, which is quite rare. I mean, the risks to an individual taking pioglitazone for bladder cancer is quite rare, quite low.

But then the new studies with these highly effective GLP-1 receptor agonists have been spectacular. Now, they’re controversial because the patients didn’t come off the GLP-1 receptor agonist for a long time, just for a short time. So you don’t really know whether you’re masking the diabetes with a diabetes drug or whether you’re actually preventing diabetes.

But the top line result was a 95% reduction in risk. The sort of more gorier details, it’s probably not quite that high.

Joe

46:41-47:17

What I want to talk about is diet, cause everybody always says, yeah, diet and exercise, but they don’t ever really tell you what to eat or what not to eat.

And we’ve had some controversy with you in the past about the American Diabetes Association and the Feinstein Diet and all the other diets.

But I want to talk specifically about CGMs, continuous glucose monitors. For decades, they’ve been around and they were prescription only. You had to have a diagnosis of type 2 before you could get a little thing that you could slap on your arm and actually monitor your blood glucose.

Dr. John Buse

47:18-47:28

Well, actually, more than that, you had to be on insulin usually or a sulfonylurea drug. You had to have a risk of hypoglycemia, and that was what you were really monitoring for.

Terry

47:29-47:36

And that’s what the insurance companies required so that it would be paid for, and otherwise you probably couldn’t afford it.

Dr. John Buse

47:37-47:37

Right.

Joe

47:37-48:01

Now you can buy them “over the counter” in quotes. I mean, you don’t need a prescription. You do have to pay out of pocket, and most insurance companies aren’t going to pay for them. But I’m guessing around $40 or $50 a month.

And I’ve used them, and they’re incredibly revealing. I mean, I discovered, for example, that oatmeal, which is supposed to be this absolutely wonderful, healthy breakfast.

Terry

48:02-48:07

And I do use steel-cut oats. We’re not using the quick and dirty oatmeal.

Joe

48:08-48:29

But it really pushed my blood sugar up to around 140. And it’s like, what? The oatmeal is supposed to be good. Why is that happening?

Whereas if I have eggs, it doesn’t go up hardly at all. So what about the value of CGMs for people who have prediabetes or just concerned about their blood glucose?

Dr. John Buse

48:30-50:21

Yeah. You know, this is like the nuclear arms race of the 1970s. So in medicine, in society, there’s sort of a bit of a tendency if you can do a little, you could do more. And if a little is good, then more is better.

I would just caution people that I’m not sure that a blood sugar of 140 after oatmeal is a problem. And if you’re changing your life to eating eggs and bacon, I’m not sure that’s a good solution either.

So just be aware this is just another piece of information. It’s not been studied in a way that we really can tell you how that revelation might be beneficial to you. I tend to discourage people from going wild with using technology to monitor every aspect of their life.

I think we know what a healthful diet is. We have some good ideas. You know, the idea of less processed food, a variety of foods from a variety of different categories, cereals, nuts, fruits, vegetables, meats— you know eating a variety of foods in moderation. And at the end of the day people have appetites and um, if you like oatmeal you should eat oatmeal.

You know life is too short to deprive yourself of everything. Um, now if you like eggs and bacon and you want to use this as an excuse to eat eggs and bacon, go for it.

Joe

50:20-50:40

Well, that does bring up a very controversial issue. We interviewed Dr. Eric Westman recently. He is renowned as the ketogenic diet guy, and now he’s moving into the carnivore diet approach. And he maintains that the ketogenic diet will get you off your diabetes drugs.

Dr. John Buse

50:41-51:17

For people that can persist with that kind of diet, it generally is associated with a reduction in the amount of drugs that they need. But it’s a big sacrifice.

And what we don’t know yet is that people that eat a ketogenic diet and specifically a carnivore diet, whether that’s associated with enhanced longevity, is it associated with a higher risk of kidney disease, of bone disease. And there’s a number of unknown issues with these kinds of diets.

Terry

51:18-51:43

So more data needed. We’ve talked a little bit about the GLP-1 agonists, which is a fancy way of saying Ozempic and Mounjaro. I would like to ask about another category of diabetes drugs. And that’s the category that Jardiance is in, empagliflozin, all the “flozins,” there’s lots of “flozins.” What should we know about them?

Dr. John Buse

51:44-52:54

Yeah, so they’re really miraculous drugs that soon will be generic and in five years they’ll be dirt cheap because there’ll be multiple generics on the market.

These drugs work basically to make you pee sugar. So whatever food you eat, some of it is excreted in the urine when you take the flozins, drugs like Jardiance or empagliflozin. So there’s some weight loss.

With that loss of glucose, there’s also a bit of loss of sodium. So you have some blood pressure reduction. And then there’s some magical things that happen within the kidney and within the heart.

So it is associated with dramatic improvements in kidney outcomes and heart outcomes, particularly in people who have heart failure or kidney disease. But that is really common in overweight and obese people, particularly with diabetes. Now they’re actually approved for the use of people in general, whether they have diabetes or not, who have kidney disease or heart failure. A really remarkable class of drugs, and the best thing about them is they’re going to be cheap.

Joe

52:55-53:20

Dr. Buse, we’re hearing rumors about something called ‘micro dosing.’ We’re not talking about psilocybin or LSD or any of those hallucinogens. We’re talking about micro dosing the GLP-1 agonist, the drugs like Ozempic, like Mounjaro. What the heck is micro dosing and why would it be interesting?

Dr. John Buse

53:20-54:46

Yeah. So the GLP-1 agonists we’ve known for a while are associated with nausea, vomiting, various kinds of GI side effects.

If you start with a really low dose and you go up slowly, you tend to have much less of those side effects is the first thing. The second thing is that for some people, they are very sensitive to the drug.

And while they’re going up slowly on the dose, they may lose substantial amounts of weight. And I have patients that are able to get by with a 20th of the normal dose with consistent, though generally relatively slow weight loss.

I think that’s a really healthy way of losing weight. It takes people decades to gain weight. We should take years in getting people to lose substantial amounts of weight.

So it’s just it’s an alternative technique that works out quite well in some people. It’s easiest to do with Ozempic because that pen has clicks in it. The other drugs are largely administered as so-called single-use pens where you just push a button and it gives you the dose. So there isn’t really a way to do it.

If you buy the vials, which are now available, you can also micro dose. It’s a little bit more complicated because you have to use a needle and syringe.

Terry

54:46-54:55

Now, you mentioned that you have patients who are doing this, they are losing weight. Are they also gaining better control of their blood sugar at these very low doses?

Dr. John Buse

54:56-55:46

Yes. In general, the GLP-1 receptor agonists provide for what we call a dose-response curve. As the dose goes up, you have a bigger effect on blood sugar lowering than you have on weight. And as you get to higher and higher doses, you get less additional benefit for glucose lowering and more benefit for weight on average.

Now, what I’m mostly talking about here is people where overweight and obesity are the main problems is where the micro dosing is worked out. Or in people who have tried GLP-1 receptor agonists in the past and had a rough time with regards to nausea, vomiting and stopped. So I think that’s where the biggest opportunity is.

Joe

55:47-55:52

Dr. Buse, one last question: coffee and diabetes.

Dr. John Buse

55:54-56:55

It’s like my pet peeve. And the reason is there are probably a thousand papers that have been written about coffee. It takes time to review them, time to publish them, time to read them.

And it’s not quite a 50-50 split that coffee is good for diabetes, but it’s pretty close to a 50-50 split.

I think it’s inherently a problem with this kind of food epidemiology research that, you know, coffee drinkers are just different than people who don’t drink coffee, right? And particularly people who drink six cups of coffee a day are different than people who drink one cup of coffee a day. So it’s just a really hard study to do.

So now that said, you know, if a patient says, ‘You know, I love my coffee’ and I said, ‘Well, that’s great. You should have it just because you love it. And maybe it’s even good for your diabetes.’ And if they say, ‘You know, somebody told me I should drink coffee for my diabetes, but I hate it.’ I say, ‘Do not drink coffee for your diabetes.’

Joe

56:57-57:25

Thank you. We are almost out of time. If you could change three things about the American diet, what would it be? And then what does your crystal ball hold for the future of diabetes research and especially for type 1 diabetes?

Cause, you know, as you said: insulin, insulin, insulin. We haven’t had any breakthroughs. We don’t have any cures yet. So: diet and crystal ball?

Dr. John Buse

57:25-58:06

Yeah, I think the most important thing about the diet in America is we do need to eat less processed foods. That’s a big ask. It’s easy to eat processed foods. But I think that is number one on my list.

And then secondly, a wide variety of foods. You know, I went through my list before. I think those are number one and number two.

And then if you’re going to lose weight, if you’re aiming to lose weight, make sure not to forget exercise as part of your, quote, diet, close quotes. Because if you don’t exercise and you start, you know, you’re losing weight and you don’t feel energetic, you will lose muscle mass. And that’s not a good thing.

Joe

58:06-58:06

Crystal Ball?

Dr. John Buse

58:07-59:28

Crystal Ball in type 1 diabetes, we’re working on a lot of adjunctive therapies using the same drugs that we’ve used in type 2 diabetes and then developing novel adjunctive therapies.

So in our clinical trials program, we’re studying GLP-1 receptor agonists in type 1 diabetes. There are major programs from at least two pharmaceutical companies.

We’re studying a new class of drugs called glucokinase activators in type 1 diabetes. And then the sort of prevention strategies, generally immune-modifying strategies, are super exciting.

And lastly, stem cell-derived therapies. So these would be cells that you can make billions of beta cells, the insulin-producing cells, and infuse them back into people with immunosuppression.

And then in the last month in the New England Journal, cadaveric donors, you know, organ donors, their pancreases were disassembled, the islets taken out. They were genetically modified to make them non-immune, and they actually did a sort of proof of concept in a single case, do a transplant for type 1 diabetes reversal without any immunosuppression, so without the dangerous drugs that come along with islet transplantation.

Terry

59:28-59:48

So they had somebody who had died in an accident or something. They had signed the form that says, yes, I’m donating my organs. The organ they donated was a pancreas, and the part of the pancreas that the researchers took were the islets that contained beta cells. Is that right?

Dr. John Buse

59:48-59:50

Right. Right.

Terry

59:49-59:55

And so they put them through the wash, as it were, so they didn’t have immune markers on the surface.

Dr. John Buse

59:55-01:00:02

No, no. They used CRISPR-Cas9, a gene-modifying technique…

Terry

01:00:02-01:00:03

Okay.

Dr. John Buse

01:00:03-01:00:07

…to change a couple of genes within these cells.

Joe

01:00:07-01:00:08

And the result was?

Dr. John Buse

01:00:10-01:00:14

So this wasn’t a clinical stage. But the cells lived.

Joe

01:00:15-01:00:20

So it’s entirely possible that we could have a cure for type 1 diabetes in the future.

Dr. John Buse

01:00:21-01:00:43

Well, what I would say is I almost didn’t go back to medical school in 1984 when I was finishing my PhD because I was so sure we were going to cure diabetes then.

So we have been at the cusp of a cure for a long time. We keep coming up with these great ideas and Mother Nature is really hard to fool.

Terry

01:00:44-01:00:49

Dr. John Buse, thank you so much for talking with us on The People’s Pharmacy today.

Dr. John Buse

01:00:50-01:00:52

It’s always a pleasure visiting with you guys.

Joe

01:00:53-01:01:03

You’ve been listening to Dr. John Buse, the Verne S. Caviness Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

Terry

01:01:04-01:01:13

Lyn Siegel produced today’s show. Al Wodarski engineered. Dave Graedon edits our interviews. B.J. Leiderman composed our theme music.

Joe

01:01:14-01:01:20

This show is a co-production of North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC, with the People’s Pharmacy.

Terry

01:01:20-01:01:38

Today’s show is number 1,453. You can find it online at peoplespharmacy.com. That’s where you can share your comments about this episode. You can also reach us through email, radio at peoplespharmacy.com.

Joe

01:01:38-01:02:01

Our interviews are available through your favorite podcast provider. You’ll find the podcast on our website on Monday morning.

The podcast this week has some extra information about people experimenting with micro dosing of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic or Mounjaro to prevent diabetes. Does this make sense? Also, what’s the story on coffee and diabetes?

Terry

01:02:02-01:02:21

Well, epidemiological evidence over the past few decades has suggested that coffee drinkers have a lower risk of developing diabetes compared to non-coffee drinkers. A lot of people with AFib have been told coffee’s off-limits, but new research shows coffee drinkers have a lower likelihood of AFib recurrence.

Joe

01:02:22-01:02:44

At peoplespharmacy.com, you could sign up for our free online newsletter to get the latest news about important health stories. When you subscribe, you also have regular access to our weekly podcast.

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In Durham, North Carolina, I’m Joe Graedon.

Terry

01:02:44-01:03:20

And I’m Terry Graedon. Thank you for listening. Please join us again next week. Thank you for listening to the People’s Pharmacy Podcast.

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Joe

01:03:20-01:03:30

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Terry

01:03:30-01:03:35

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Joe

01:03:35-01:03:48

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