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Announcements
Many widely marketed dietary supplement products claim to provide
health benefits for people with diabetes. Researchers have studied
several dietary supplements to see if they can help people manage type 2
diabetes or lower their risk of developing the disease, but currently
there is not enough evidence to suggest that any dietary supplement can
help prevent or manage type 2 diabetes. Some supplements may interact
with diabetes treatments or increase the risk of kidney disease.
This issue of the digest addresses some of the many supplements studied for diabetes—such as alpha-lipoic acid, chromium, magnesium, and omega-3s—with a focus on those that have undergone clinical trials.
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Lanay Mudd, Ph.D.
July 13, 2017
We all know that a college education plus postgraduate education is
expensive. The average education debt for biomedical research graduates
was recently estimated at $175,000. Needless to say, high educational
debt levels are an issue for early-stage investigators; in fact,
significant student loan debt is the barrier to beginning and sustaining
a biomedical research career that’s most often reported by new
investigators. NIH is working to make this transition easier! In
exchange for a commitment to conduct biomedical or behavioral research,
NIH will repay up to $70,000 of student loan debt per 2-year contract
through the NIH Loan Repayment Programs.
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Recent research in mice suggests that ingesting even a low dose of
caffeine may interfere with the analgesic effects of acupuncture in
acute and chronic pain models.
Previous animal research showed that the analgesic effect of
acupuncture is mediated by a steep increase in extracellular adenosine
levels at the acupuncture point and subsequent local activation of the
adenosine A1 receptor. Furthermore, adenosine receptor activation during
acupuncture is potentially impacted by caffeine, which is a potent
adenosine receptor antagonist. Since a detectable amount of caffeine
stays in the body for more than 12 hours after drinking one cup of
coffee, a residual amount of caffeine could be present at the time of
acupuncture treatment in people who ingest caffeine daily.
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Data from the Creatine Safety, Tolerability & Efficacy in
Huntington’s Disease (CREST-E) trial show that the dietary supplement
creatine, in doses up to 40 mg daily for as long as 4 years, does not
slow progression of the disease in people with early symptoms. This
trial, supported by the National Center for Complementary and
Integrative Health, with additional funding from the National
Institutes of Health’s Office of Dietary Supplements, was recently
published in the journal Neurology.
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Resources for Researchers
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