LAR also reduces fasting blood glucose – the dawn phenomenon -- much more than Byetta does, according to the best presentation I saw at the convention. Dr. Michael Nauck from Bad Lauterberg, Germany, like about half of the people at the convention, came from another country. His presentation was so up-to-date that he synthesized his PowerPoint slides on the airplane coming to Washington. Unfortunately, neither Dr. Nauck nor the ADA has yet published his great presentation.

Because LAR works so well, it results in unheard of reductions in blood glucose, according to the most impressive poster I ever saw, 487-P. It reported on a 15-week study showing an average reduction in A1C of about 2 percent among those taking the higher of two trial doses compared with those taking a placebo. That means, for example, that someone who had an unsatisfactory A1C of 9.0 at the beginning of the study would have a good A1C of about 7.0 after less than four months.

People in the LAR study also lost even more weight than in the original Byetta studies. They averaged a weight loss of 8.4 pounds after 15 weeks and seemed not to be plateauing. They also had much less nausea than people on Byetta often experience. No one dropped out of the study because of side effects. The poster presenting this wonderful news is 487-P.

The news about Byetta’s cousin, LAR, was stunning. Of the 63 symposia, 49 oral sessions, and 1,600 posters in the five days of the ADA convention, this got me most excited.

But two other GLP-1 analogs also grabbed the attention of the thousands of people who went to the ADA convention. Within the next week I’ll write here about these more distant cousins.

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