New book delves into
diabetes controversies
August 5, 2008
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Aaron I. Vinik, M.D., Ph.D. |
NORFOLK, VA — With the growing amount of attention given to the prevention and
treatment of diabetes, two leading experts on the topic teamed up to
assemble a compilation of scholarly opinions on some of the unsettled
questions that clinicians and researchers encounter when treating the
condition.
Aaron I. Vinik, M.D., Ph.D., EVMS professor of medicine and director of
the Strelitz Diabetes Research Center and Neuroendocrine Unit, and Derek LeRoith, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine and chief of the Division of
Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Disease at Mount Sinai School of
Medicine, co-edited the recently published “Controversies in Treating
Diabetes: Clinical and Research Aspects.”
Both widely recognized for their work on diabetes, Vinik said he and
LeRoith highlighted issues that, despite generating discussion, have not
been interpreted in a way that helps set a course of action. Vinik said
one question at the heart of the book is: “What can you translate from
and how you interpret what was done in animal studies so that this
becomes applicable to man and now can be sure you’re doing the right
thing?”
Vinik said that the pair tried to present a deeper perspective than the
“bread and butter” basics that is sometimes the only information on
hand, and they put particular emphasis on translational research — the
type of research that is designed to apply directly to patient-care
settings.
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“LeRoith and Vinik have assembled a cast of
excellent clinicians and investigators to share background information, data, experience
and opinions around a virtual roundtable.”
Kristina I. Rother, M.D.
National Institutes of Health |
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“I hope what it does for people is highlights for them that all that
glitters is not gold,” said Vinik. “There are a lot of misperceptions in
terms of the way things are reported and the way things are interpreted.
We have taken on the task to help [clinicians and researchers] out there
realize that not everything is straightforward and to help them get a
depth of insight into oversimplified statistical interpretations and
counter viewpoints that they might not have otherwise considered.”
The book received a warm review in the July 17 edition of
The New England Journal of Medicine.
“LeRoith and Vinik have assembled a cast of excellent clinicians and
investigators to share background information, data, experience and
opinions around a virtual roundtable,” wrote reviewer Kristina I. Rother,
M.D., of the National Institutes of Health.
Vinik, with Roger Perry, M.D., and Eric Feliberti, M.D., of the
Department of Surgery at EVMS, also recently published an e-book on
another topic on which he is a noted authority, neuroendocrine tumors.
The 13-chapter book is available at www.endotext.org, a peer-edited Web
site endorsed by the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists.
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