SurModics Inc (SRDX)

[shears]

I agree this is mostly for Type I's, at least at first. However it is my understanding that there are many insulin dependent Type II's who have essentially 'burned out' their islet cells and can't get by without insulin. I'm not sure what percentage of Type II's this represents. It seems to me that if they were normal body weight, insulin dependent and with low intrinsic insulin levels they should benefit from islet transplants. They are stuck doing all the injections and monitoring. If their insurance required them to get to a reasonable body weight before approving the transplants we might see more weight loss in the chubby ones. I also understand that preventing CV events in diabetics requires reasonable glucose control with aggressive lipid and BP management, but that's just my belief - I've seen it go both ways in my family. I know the ADA basically says to normalize all the lipid parameters (including raising HDL, if necessary) and Lowering LDL to aggressive targets and even placing diabetics with 'normal' LDL levels to begin with on statins to drop LDL's by 30+%. Judging from the diabetics I know, many of them are not very compliant or their physician is lackadaisical. Prevention doesn't get the attention it deserves, IMO. Also, I think that advanced lipid testing with particle counts and particle size distribution should be done on a lot of these pre-diabetics as well as diabetics. Normalizing LDL particle numbers rather than LDL content should be the goal. The Acute coronary event may be the first inkling of trouble, years before they cross the arbitrary line that defines diabetes. Its a bad 'disease' and a lot of people have it and I even hear that fat, lazy kids are now being diagnosed with 'adult onset' diabetes. This is an epidemic and its effects will be devastating to the costs of healthcare, IMO.