Diabetes clinical studies are an important part of the research process. New drugs, treatment methods, and biological processes are often tested in lab animals in order for researchers to investigate and modify their hypotheses and methods. Often research moves into clinical trials on humans, an essential step for new drugs. Participants are voluntary and are selected through distinct parameters determined by the researchers, in order to provide a view of a select portion of the population. Trials are often “randomized”, “blind”, or “masked”. Blind or masked trials are comparisons of one or more treatments sometimes involving a placebo. Participants are not told to which group they are assigned making the study randomized in order to eliminate bias. Participants are always told when there is a placebo involved. To learn more about national and state level trials, research budgets, statistics and historically ground-breaking diabetes trials, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) website has a wealth of information on diabetes in the U.S..
Diabetes Clinical Studies – New Research
The latest results of clinical trials that have finished can be found online. Some sources, particularly professional journals, have select access and are only available to subscribers or for medical or educational purposes while others can be accessed by the public. The website Medical News Today (MNT) writes synthesized articles on medical research. All citations and references are listed, providing links to original source material when available. MNT has an RSS feed for diabetes research that you can subscribe to as well. ScienceDaily provides detailed technical research information on a variety of subjects. Discovery Medicine, affiliated with the John Hopkins School of Medicine, has information on the latest medical research including diabetes with archived issues available.
Diabetes Clinical Studies – Participating in a Trial
Before you can participate in a diabetes clinical study you will have to provide Informed Consent. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) provides information for individuals who are interested in participating in a clinical trial. There is in-depth information on the process for signing up, research methods, how to communicate with your doctor, frequently asked questions, and safety issues (http://www.diabetes.org/news-research/research/clinical-trials).
If you have weighed the pros and cons of participating in a clinical trial, you can use Clinical Connection (http://www.clinicalconnection.com/clinical_trials/condition/diabetes.aspx), the National Institutes of Health (http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/?ui=D003920&recruiting=true), or National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (http://www.t1diabetes.nih.gov/t1d_ctcr/allstudies.asp; http://www2.niddk.nih.gov/Research/Resources/DiabetesResources.htm#2) to learn about clinical trials that are accepting participants or about previous trials. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) also has an email list that you can sign-up for to enter your information and receive information about clinical trails being conducted in the U.S.. Additionally, JDRF provides links to other research institutes conducting clinical trials.
