Diabetes

WASHINGTON — Rite Aid, UnitedHealth Group and the YMCA are partnering to offer community-based programs to combat Type 2 diabetes in the Washington, D.C., area through the Diabetes Prevention and Control Alliance, the three companies said.

SAN DIEGO — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new insulin-delivery system for Type 1 diabetes made by Tandem Diabetes Care, the company said Wednesday.

Tandem announced the approval of the T:slim, a pump that the company said is the first to have a color touch screen and is the smallest insulin pump system available, in addition to being one of the first to be approved under the FDA's new Infusion Pump Improvement initiative.

NEW YORK — In support of National Diabetes Month, Colgate Total is donating $100,000 to help support Stop Diabetes, a movement launched by the American Diabetes Association to help educate and increase awareness of the link between oral health and diabetes.

BRUSSELS — In line with World Diabetes Day, which was held Nov. 14, the International Diabetes Foundation projected that the number of people in the world living with diabetes is expected to rise from 366 million in 2011 to 552 million by 2030.

IDF said the statistic equates to approximately three new cases every 10 seconds, or almost 10 million per year. The organization also estimated that as many as 183 million people are unaware that they have diabetes.

The figures were released in the fifth edition of IDF's Diabetes Atlas.

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NEW YORK — A new app for the iPhone allows users to keep track of their blood-sugar levels on a daily basis, according to published reports.

Glooko has launched the logbook app and MeterSync cable, which allow patients to automatically download data from their blood-glucose meters to their iPhones, add notes and send results to their healthcare providers.

The cable costs $40 and works with popular glucose meters made by Bayer, FreeStyle and OneTouch.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — A drug commonly prescribed to Type 2 diabetics to improve blood-sugar control also may have a rapid anti-inflammatory effect, according to results from a small study conducted by researchers at the University of Buffalo.

WASHINGTON — Scientists are reporting development and successful laboratory testing of an electrochemical sensor device that has the potential to measure blood-sugar levels from tears instead of blood — an advance that could save diabetes patients the discomfort of pricking their fingers for droplets of blood used in traditional blood-sugar tests.