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Subject: Diabetes drug url is http://www.foxnewsinternet.com/health/121196/diabetes.sml FDA Panel Approves Diabetes Drug That Could Cut Shots for Many December 11, 1996 5.40 p.m. EST (2240 GMT) BETHESDA, Md. (AP) -- Holding out the possibility that many thousands of diabetics could reduce or even stop their insulin shots, the government's scientific advisers recommended approval Wednesday of the first drug to attack the underlying cause of diabetes' most common form. Parke Davis' Rezulin "is a truly novel approach," said the Food and Drug Administration's Dr. Solomon Sobel before a panel of FDA advisers voted unanimously to support the drug. It puts doctors "in the realm of treating Type II diabetes in a more fundamental way," he said. Rezulin, known chemically as troglitazone, somehow resensitizes the body to insulin, a hormone that converts blood sugar into energy. ----------------------------------- Scientists Scour Oceans for New Medicines December 11, 1996 5.30 p.m. EST (2230 GMT) http://www.foxnewsinternet.com/health/121196/newmeds.sml UNDERSEA NEAR CHUB CAY, Bahamas -- Nearly a thousand feet below the surface of the blue-green Bahamian waters, a research submarine plumbs the murky deep for sea plants that might hold a cure for allergies, Alzheimer's, arthritis, cancer or AIDS. Its powerful searchlight focused on a barren wall powdered with snowy sediment, the high-tech submersible inches upward as researchers strain for a glimpse of a brightly colored sponge, a waving sea fan or a minute, dark-green doughnut of algae. At 470 feet, the sub hovers as its robot arm reaches out. A powerful suction tube slurps up the target, a small whitish sponge with tubes like chimneys. Pieces zip through the plastic tube into a bucket on the front of the sub. "This could be it. Could be the cure," said Dr. Amy Wright, a marine chemist with the Harbour Branch Oceanographic Institution, a leading U.S. ocean research group. -------------------- _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ Central Supply & Services _/ _/ (Internet Training and Research) _/ _/ PO Box 57247, Jackson Stn., _/ _/ Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, L8P 4X1 _/ _/ John S. Walker _/ _/ Email [log in to unmask] _/ _/ _/ _/ "To Teach is to touch a life forever" _/ _/ On the Web one touch can reach so far! _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/